Why I walked out on Moi, declined Kibaki's appointment as shadow minister

Martha Karua on the day of the launch her book “Against the Tide.” [Courtesy]

By the time Martha Karua sat for her O-Levels, she had switched schools severally. In all instances, she’d stood up for her rights as a student, and questioned unjust conventions and unfair norms condoned by students.

At Kiburia Girls she had been asked to uproot a stump as a punishment for “making noise” and she declined. In another school she was ordered to bend over so she could be caned, and she said nyet! and took off for the school gate.

In her final year in Karoti Girls, she took on the headmistress for humiliating her and denounced her as her teacher. For this, she had to contend with studying from home for five months, and preparing for the final exams on her own, and commuting 25 kilometers daily, to sit her exams.