By Mdadisi Mmoja
It is difficult to overstate the sense of betrayal many Kenyans, particularly women, felt this week when the National Assembly approved Hannah Wendot Cheptumo’s nomination as Cabinet Secretary for Gender, Culture, the Arts, and Heritage. Despite public outrage, her jaw-droppingly insensitive statements, and a chorus of civil society voices urging President Ruto to reconsider, Cheptumo has been handed the docket meant to protect women from dangers she downplayed.
Let’s be blunt: Hannah Cheptumo’s remarks during her vetting were not merely “ill-advised” or “unfortunate”; they were dangerous. She described victims of femicide as largely “uneducated” or as “educated women looking for money,” implying that women’s ambition or poverty somehow invites their brutal murders. One wonders what is more offensive: the casual misogyny of the statement or the smugness with which it was delivered.
This is not just a poor choice for a Cabinet role. This is a deliberate insult to every woman who has faced violence and every family that has buried a daughter, sister, or mother because of this country’s shameful epidemic of gender-based violence.
It’s hard to know what’s more outrageous: that Cheptumo was nominated at all, or that her nomination sailed through Parliament with the backing of both Majority and Minority leadership. Speaker Moses Wetangula and Suna East MP Junet Mohamed appeared more interested in political theatre than in fulfilling their constitutional duty of vetting candidates for integrity, competence, and compassion.
Even after civil society groups representing over a dozen respected organizations sounded the alarm, calling Cheptumo unfit and her comments “grossly offensive,” parliamentary leaders responded with a collective shrug. The appointment proceeded with the kind of grim inevitability we’ve come to expect in a country where appointments are more about loyalty than leadership.
Let’s not forget: this happened in a year where 725 women have already been killed, most by men they knew. In a country where femicide lacks legal definition, survivors struggle for justice, and support services remain underfunded, it is grotesque to appoint someone who dismisses the perpetrators’ responsibility.
Cheptumo had the opportunity, under the full glare of public scrutiny, to rise to the occasion, to demonstrate empathy, to outline a plan. Instead, she blamed women, rambled about “girls having many needs,” and offered little more than vague promises about barazas and curriculum tweaks.
But let us not pretend that this is only about Cheptumo. The blame lies squarely with President William Ruto, who treats Cabinet appointments as political favours rather than opportunities to protect and serve the public. It lies with Parliament, which seems increasingly indifferent to the cries of Kenyans. And it lies with every lawmaker who voted in favour of this disgrace, despite knowing the pain it would cause.
In handing Cheptumo the gender docket, the state has not only abdicated its responsibility; it has told women, in no uncertain terms, that their lives and deaths are not a priority.
