Chelagat Mutai
Philomena Chelagat Mutai (January 29, 1949 – July 6, 2013) was a prominent female Kenyan politician and human rights defender known for her bold utterances in and outside the Parliament of Kenya.
Popularly known as 'Chelagat Mutai', she started out as a vocal student activist and journalist, later joining elective politics early in her life and becoming a fierce critic of the Kenya government.
She was eventually exiled from Kenya joining a cast of foreign-based Kenyan dissidents fleeing the repressive regimes of Mzee Jomo Kenyatta and Daniel Moi.
In October 1974, at the age of 25, she became the youngest person elected to the Kenyan Parliament, defeating a cast of 11 male contestants in a tight race for the Eldoret North seat.
Her uncle Michael Kibet Rongoei had served in the Rift Valley Regional Assembly and also at the Sirikwa County Council as a councillor.
Her maternal uncle William Morogo Saina would later become the Eldoret North member of Parliament and whom she would succeed when she joined politics.
Her older brother Eng Jan Mutai (1945–2020) was a prominent public servant who was at one time the Managing Director of the giant Kenya Posts & Telecommunications Corporation (KPTC).
The following year 1963, she proceeded to St. Joseph’s Girls Secondary School Chepterit also ran by the Mill Hill missionaries in Nandi.
She took advantage of her background in Journalism to write articles critical of the university administration and the decisions affecting student welfare.
With no prospects for employment in Nairobi, she returned to her native Terige in Nandi County and began teaching at the local secondary school.
[7] Recognizing her enormous potential, one of the American expatriate lecturers with whom she had become acquainted, organized for a full scholarship to Harvard University.
The Kenya Immigration Department was under the Home Affairs ministry, headed by then Vice President Daniel Arap Moi.
Not one to give up so easily, she organized for a relative of hers named Stanley Some who personally knew Vice President Moi to plead her case before him.
[9] Chelagat’s political tribulations with the Kenyatta regime begun way back when she was a student at Highlands Girls High School.
It was during her time at the University of Nairobi that she became acquainted with firebrand Tinderet MP Jean-Marie Seroney, who was giving the Kenyatta administration sleepless nights.
During that time, her uncle the Eldoret North MP William Morogo Saina who was also a great friend of Seroney, was jailed on charges of theft of spare parts for farming machinery.
[10] Chelagat Mutai, barely out of University, Seroney asked her to ran for the Eldoret North seat in the upcoming general elections.
Being the only female candidate, she traversed the constituency making impassioned speeches and began to turn heads against more seasoned politicians.
When Seroney was detained on October 15, 1975, Chelagat Mutai was by his side and had earlier in the day notified the House of the presence of ‘strangers’ in Parliamentary precincts.
A few days later on January 25, 1976, she was arrested and charged with incitement when squatters in her constituency invaded a sisal farm that the owner had actually sold to them.
After receiving the money, the owner apparently developed cold feet and failed to transfer the land to the rightful purchasers leading to the impatient squatters to invade.
Apparently, Chelagat’s family and some MPs had numerously been denied the chance to see her but Anyona pushed the State hard getting limited access to her.
[22] On June 25, 1977, Eldoret farmer Nicanor Kimurgor araap Sirma won the by-election by polling 2,339 votes in an election marked by extremely low voter turn-out.
In the by-election to replace her, her uncle William Morogo Saina was barred by the ruling party Kanu from contesting and this gave a chance to the eventual winner Nicanor Kimurgor Sirma.
[30] Brigaider General Kimario, who was a hero of the just-concluded Tanzania-Uganda War that saw the ouster of Uganda's Idi Amin, declined to extradite Chelagat.
Together with Seroney, Anyona made a telephone call to her appealing to her to return to Kenya and take up a part in the proposed opposition party but she politely declined.
[31] The bid to launch that Party – known as the Kenya African Socialist Alliance (KASA), landed George Anyona in jail and Oginga Odinga in house arrest.
She stood for social justice and was a powerful defender of democracy and women’s rights and paid for it with her term in jail and exile.
[32] These were Beatrice Kones, Prof.Hellen Sambili, Joyce Laboso, Linah Jebii Kilimo, Prof. Margaret Kamar, Peris Simam, and Dr. Sally Kosgey.
The death of Chelagat Mutai was epochal, as it marked the fall of one of the ‘Seven Bearded Sisters’, a moniker attributed to former Attorney-General Charles Njonjo describing dissident members of the Kenyan parliament.
