Millie Odhiambo's pain of hair loss

‘‘No one ever tells you the part of the costs you have to count when you join politics. 

When I hit the campaign trail for the late Otieno Kajwang as his manager, the going was tough since he had lost a lot of ground in the constituency. He had been invisible for the most part and the opponent had permeated most of the constituency. 

This meant we had to sit with folks from certain parts of the constituency and persuade them for long hours. It involved a process where the MP was ‘put on the carpet’ and people took time to read him the riot act. This went on for hours on end. 

Many times, on the road, I fell asleep and my neck slumped. Our campaigns were often on rough terrain and seemed to have affected me. On the last stretch, before the party primaries, I developed a severe and consistent tension headache that appeared not to respond to any medication. 

By morning, the entire left side of my body was affected and was almost non-functional. I was rushed to Homa Bay District Hospital, where I was admitted with a case of suspected mild stroke. The hospital did not respond fast and my sister forcefully discharged me to enable me to get treatment elsewhere. 

They rushed me to Kisumu to enable me to catch a flight to Nairobi. I remember my brother had to “bribe” ODM supporters, who were rioting due to perceived poor primaries, to let us drive through several areas, starting with Homa Bay town. 

I was eventually flown to Nairobi, where I was picked from the airport by an AAR ambulance. Fortunately, the doctors diagnosed that I didn’t have a stroke but had strained nerves as a consequence of rigorous campaigns. 

Party primaries

I was forced to rest for two weeks, but I only did a few days then left to campaign under the Western Kenya Presidential outfit, following post-party primaries fallouts. The situation later worsened and I was told (to use a layman’s term) that a bone had gone off joint and sat on my nerves due to activities related to campaigns. 

Today, this is a condition I live with and which keeps recurring depending on a trigger action. It forces me, at times, to be in a neck brace and to undergo physiotherapy a number of times especially, during rigorous campaigns. I also wear the brace when travelling long distances on the road to avoid a trigger. 

But surprise, I discovered I was not an isolated case. It is a common disease with most politicians. Our job is a high-pressure one due to demands on our time and resources, and the intrigues in national and local politics. Many times, we don’t realise just how much pressure we come under. 

During the Constitution-making process, for some time, the country was hanging on tenterhooks. Everybody at one point thought the future of the country was in the hands of 27 MPs who sat in the Parliamentary Select Committee. This was after the post-election violence. 

Provide solutions

We knew that forging political concurrence on some issues was impossible, yet people expected us to come up with miracles and provide solutions.

At some point, we were more or less sequestered in Naivasha for weeks as we searched for solutions. Even the media was not welcome in our sessions. I shared the same room with Sophia Abdi Noor and at some point, Sally Kosgei. We fasted and prayed fervently for the country.  There was too much pressure on us.

I had a little wound on my head, courtesy of a bad chemical used on it a while earlier at a salon in Rwanda. Because of the pressure, the wound spread and my head started producing puss. 

I wore a wig and could not excuse myself because of the importance of the work and given that every single vote counted.

In Naivasha during the negotiations, there were times you could not even use the toilet as you might go and find a critical decision was made in your absence. I was hence forced to stay in Naivasha despite the fact that I needed urgent medical attention. 

The wig and the heat of Naivasha made it worse and I lost all my hair after Naivasha. I was admitted to hospital a day after we concluded committee negotiations in Naivasha. I was not getting better and decided to travel to the US for better or more specialised treatment.

Upon arrival in the US, and without medical intervention at all, I got well. The doctor told me what was likely to have enhanced the problem was the stress. 

Since the stress had substantially reduced when I went to the US, I healed quickly. I am informed stress suppresses the immune system. I still have a bald on my head, which I call the constitutional scar, but I am out of the woods.

James Orengo and  Musalia Mudavadi and some other members were also admitted to hospital just before the end of the Naivasha negotiations. 

Indeed, Orengo was airlifted from the venue on the day before we completed deliberations. I remember this very well as he was critical to our team on legal and historical matters and we went into a panic when he had to leave. 

Another occupation hazard for us is depression. After the post- election violence (PEV) period, I was asked by the party to document cases of human rights abuses against our supporters for the party’s human rights and humanitarian committee. 

As part of this process, I saw gory photos of young men, women and children killed by police in Western Kenya. I went into some form of depression after PEV. By the time I was called to join Parliament, I was not interested as I was still going through depression. It took me nearly a year to get back to near normal. 

Over time, I had to nurture resilience, bravery and develop fire under my belly to deal with those icy situations. I have since faced a myriad of challenging situations that I may not have dealt with if I had not developed this fire. 

Working relationships

The confirmation hearings for the Chief Justice, Director of Public Prosecutions and Attorney General in the Tenth Parliament, were examples of such situations. 

They created acrimonious working relations among the members of the committee on Justice and Legal Affairs, of which I was a member and for which I had served as a vice chairperson. Due to the clamour for reforms, and need for credible institutions in the run up to the 2013 elections, the stakes on the appointment of these offices were high. It divided the coalition government right down the middle. 

Under the Coalition Agreement, the Principals were meant to consult each other on any appointment. However, in this instance, the President made unilateral appointments. My side of the coalition was not happy with the list of appointees.

Even though we had since become a minority in the committee due to political realignments, the Chairman of the Committee, Ababu Namwamba, was on my side of the coalition. 

Minority report

This created a stalemate that ran into days and which eventually resulted in the committee being hung for the rest of the parliamentary term.

Three of us in the committee came out strongly against the appointments, while the majority, who were seven, supported those very appointments. We drafted a strong minority report and the others tried by all means to ensure it didn’t make part of the main report. 

At one point while we were still considering the report, I got a call from one of the members warning me to go into hiding as there was, allegedly, a hit man tasked to eliminate the three opposing members of the committee: Ababu Namwamba, Olago Aluoch and myself. The Speaker and the Prime Minister, Raila Odinga, were also allegedly targeted for being a hindrance to the passing of the proposed names. 

I reported the matter at Mbita Police Station since I was in the area to give mentorship talks in schools. I was accompanied by the then vice chairperson of the National Cohesion and Integration Commission, the late Commissioner Mary Onyango and Brian Weke, then programme director for The CRADLE. 

Police accorded us full security for the whole day, headed by none other than the officer commanding division. We had dinner with her and she departed at 11 pm, when we also decided to retire to our hotel. For some reason, the hotel took uncharacteristically long to open the gate and I dozed off as we waited. I was suddenly woken up by screams from Commissioner Mary. 

She was kneeling outside the car surrounded by five to six men armed with guns. They took time in roughing us up and stealing from us, right in the middle of the Mbita Sindo Road. 

I remember Commissioner Mary going on her knees as she pleaded with the attackers, in tears, telling them it would be unfortunate for her to die an unnecessary death in their hands when she had defied death for more than seven years while struggling with breast cancer.

We reported the matter to the police the same night, but the Commissioner of Police had a different view of what happened to us. He said the attack never occurred and we were merely playing cheap politics. 

Before I had even declared my interest in Mbita parliamentary seat, my opponents had tried to malign my name through a blistering propaganda campaign. I do not have a biological child. This is culturally stigmatized and frowned upon, pretty much like the lepers in Biblical times. There is even a special name, “lur” for a woman without a child and which they used liberally against me. 

My sister

Even though I could handle the attacks on me, they were having an emotional toll on my mother. It affected her so much that she called my sister, in panic, on August 10, 2011, as she thought the opponents might harm me. It wasn’t lost on her that my dad had died in an accident several years earlier while vying for the same seat. I think she had a panic attack or a feeling of de javu of sorts that made her panic. 

My sister called me and asked me to consider not vying since the race was stressing Mama and she was worried it might compromise her health. We agreed, as a family, that Mama would go to the US and stay with family during the period of campaigns to shield her from the attacks on me. 

Mama collapsed and passed away on the August, 12 2011. I collapsed from shock and was hospitalised for the day. My grandmother also collapsed from shock, but did not recover and passed away the day after we laid Mama to rest. 

These incidents did not deter some opponents from using my mum’s death and funeral as a basis for further covert and overt attacks on me. The Prime Minister was expected to come for the funeral, but was not able to attend. The opponents used this to tell the public that I had lost favour with the party. 

I had to learn to freeze my grief, suspend the mourning, campaign and get over betrayals all at once. I learnt a phrase from my constituents that sums it up: Kaka saa dhi meaning, learn to move by the ticking of the clock or cruise at the pace of a clock.

There was only room for forward movement if I wanted to win. Once I won, I would have time to pause and mourn. My mother’s demise was a very dark moment for me. It affected me so much that I resolved not to vie after her death but then I was subsequently persuaded otherwise by those close to me. 

Just before we went to the party primaries, I received information of intentions to rig the polls by my opponents. I called for a security meeting with the key government security agents of the constituency and shared my concerns. This was on or about the January, 14, 2013. 

On that very day, as if in defiance and with utter impunity, one of my key opponents invaded my rally with goons and started abusing us, drowning our rally with loud music and taunting us to a fight. The goons barricaded our exit and started shouting derogatorily thus: We are going to teach this woman (dhakoni) a lesson today. 

Of course, the rally could not go on. One of us called for help and when our opponents heard that the police were on their way, they took off. I was given two additional police security thereafter — but only for a few days! 

On February 17, was the day set aside for our party’s primaries. We went to the party offices with absolutely no information on what was to take place.

We took a whole day trying to figure out what to do. 

We agreed to vote on the morning of February 17 and despite my initial opposition and reluctance my opponents prevailed upon me to move the ballot papers from the party offices, right in the middle of town, to Mbita High School, which is slightly out of town, for security reasons. It later emerged that this was a ploy by my opponents to take off with the ballot papers. 

As we were moving to the high school in a convoy, with hundreds of members of the public in tow, I watched, dumbfounded, as three police officers, almost in pantomime, walked right in front of my vehicle and started shooting without any provocation. 

Determined team

As soon as the shooting began, the truck started speeding off towards Suba South constituency. My determined team gave chase and we caught up with the truck and forced it off the road into a ditch. I had to physically secure the ballot papers by jumping onto the truck and lying on top of them. 

Due to the fact that we believed the police had been compromised, we refused to go to the high school and instead moved to the open field of Mbita Primary School from where we decided to get the papers ready for the morning. And even then, we still discovered anomalies. 

Earlier in the day, an agent of one of the candidates had also been found with ballot papers and had been arrested, so the integrity of the papers could no longer be vouched.

We stayed up until about 1.30 am, when we agreed to abandon the ballot papers in the field and ask the party secretariat to avail new ones the next day. 

I eventually retired to my room and was about to go to bed at 2.30 am, when I received a call informing me that there was sinister activity going on at the party office. I had dismissed my security at this point. I quickly figured that mobilising them might alert the people at the office. 

I hurriedly mobilised a five-member crisis response/ commando team that at that point was only female and we quickly moved in to intervene. We found some of my opponents arranging and apparently marking the ballot papers we had agreed to discard, right in the presence of the Returning Officer.  

In about ten minutes, torn ballot papers were strewn outside the office.

By 5 am the news had reached the public about a nightly scuffle and many members of the public had milled around the office discussing it excitedly. When my opponents told them I had torn the papers, the public response was “mama ni ema oyiecho kalatese gi? Kara ma ema wayiero. Ma e wich ma idwaro Mbita ka!” This is loosely translated to mean “If indeed it is this woman who has torn these papers, then she is the one who deserves to be elected. We need a brave leader who can take things head on!” 

The party was later informed that I was very violent, tore all the papers and urinated on them, in hindsight, I wish I had.

The Returning Officer resigned and a new one was appointed the same day.

By the time the new Returning Officer got things in place the next day, it was too late to conduct elections. The new ballot papers were kept in the police station. 

We proceeded to vote the next day and I won with more than 12,000 votes while the next contender had just over 4,000 votes. By this time, I had not slept for four days.

I left for Nairobi early in the morning, when I sensed I had an unassailable lead. I arrived around 2.30 pm tired, broke and hungry. I was informed, upon arrival, that even though I had won, the party certificate had been given to my opponent as there were people within the party that had sworn I would not be elected. 

Despite the fact that I had not slept for four days and had just come back from an eight-hour trip, we immediately left for Machakos some 45 minutes away where the Prime Minister and party leader had a public rally. 

I was informed by the party leader that he had been told I had lost in the primaries, that I had been violent and even urinated on the ballot papers.

Fortunately, I had a rare (new), Returning Officer a man of integrity, the late Naphtali Mata. He travelled to Nairobi and met the Prime Minister and presented the official results. The party leader ordered that I be issued the certificate.

Despite that timely intervention by the PM and three other MPs, I went through a cat and mouse chase for three to four days with the party secretariat officials. We were moved from place to place in search of the certificate.