Charity Kaluki Ngilu

1952–

Politician

One of a group of reformist-minded young women who have been shaking up the political environment in several African countries, Kenya's Charity Ngilu has proved to be an effective thorn in the side of that country's overwhelmingly male political elite. During her unsuccessful run for the country's presidency in 1997, and especially after her appointment as Kenya's health minister as part of an opposition coalition that toppled the country's ruling party, Ngilu has been a voice for Kenya's poor, especially in the area of health care. The new party was called the National Rainbow Coalition (or NARC), and Kenyans dubbed Ngilu "Mama Rainbow." Steering a careful path between the country's traditional ways and its need for reform, she emerged as an effective administrator. "What the rich world should be talking about," wrote Helene Cooper in the New York Times of the complex discussions that often precede the granting of aid from industrialized countries to the developing ones, "is how to give money to Charity Kaluki Ngilu."

Born Charity Kaluki in 1952, Ngilu was the ninth of 13 children. She was raised in rural Mbooni, Kenya. Her family was part of the minority Kamba ethnic group, which later provided her with a political base of support. As a child she would help her mother haul water for the household the traditional way, in buckets carried on their backs. From her father, a traveling Christian gospel preacher, Ngilu inherited strong oratorical skills. She attended a local high school and then a government secretarial college. She worked as a secretary for Kenya's central bank and then as an administrative manager for an office of the Chase Manhattan bank in Kenya's capital of Nairobi.

She married engineer Michael Mwendwa Ngilu in the early 1980s. The couple raised three children; one of their daughters went to London, England, to study electrical engineering. On the occasion of her husband's death in 2006, Ngilu told the East African Standard of Nairobi (as quoted on the AllAfrica website) that he was "a pillar of my life, a caring and loving man." He supported her during what would turn out to be tumultuous political campaigns.

Ngilu's independence first showed itself as an entrepreneurial streak. She started a small bakery and restaurant. Then she opened Ani-Plastics Ltd., manufacturing plastic pipes, electrical sheathing, and similar plumbing-supply items from a factory near Embakasi, Kenya. Ngilu became interested in politics after organizing women's health groups and seeing the problems faced by ordinary Kenyan women. In 1992, President Daniel arap Moi allowed free parliamentary elections under pressure from Western governments. Ngilu ran for and won a seat from the Kitui Central district, unseating a former cabinet minister and becoming one of only five women in Kenya's legislature.

Moi and his KANU party had been in power for 19 years, and he came under attack from the reform-oriented Ngilu. "You cannot touch or take anybody to court over corruption when you yourself are corrupt," she told a group of reporters (as quoted on the Worldpress.org Web site). In 1997 Ngilu garnered considerable publicity when she launched a challenge to Moi for the Kenyan presidency. She was the first female candidate in Kenyan history to contend for the top job.

Ngilu, whose Kamba ethnic group was just a small piece of Kenya's ethnic patchwork, was given little chance against Moi. She did not win, but the campaign raised her national profile considerably as she faced down intimidation from the Moi regime. In July of 1997 she was attacked by a machete-wielding mob thought by some to be loyal to KANU, acquiring two scars on her arm, and she was later tear-gassed by Kenyan police at a tumultuous rally. But Ngilu held her own in the rough-and-tumble world of Kenyan politics. She confronted a KANU official who was trying to disqualify voters in her home region of Kitui Central, grabbing him by the lapels of his suit. "Ngilu Beats Up Official" was the next day's newspaper headline.

The result of Ngilu's run was that she became a strong national political force. After Moi obeyed a term-limits law and stepped down in 2002, Ngilu became part of the Rainbow Coalition headed by President-elect Mwai Kibaki, who had also run in the 1997 election and divided the anti-Moi vote. Kibaki appointed Ngilu to be his health minister. Not everyone in Kenya's political establishment was comfortable with Ngilu's new level of influence, but her new post provided her with a bully pulpit.

Ngilu called for liberalization of Kenya's abortion laws, a position that met with sharp criticism in the heavily Catholic and evangelical Protestant country. She led a walkout of female members of Parliament after a male legislator ridiculed an anti-rape measure by saying that when most Kenyan women said no to sexual intercourse, they actually meant yes. Her most celebrated initiative was a promise to inaugurate a national health insurance program. Ngilu decided to make the announcement after a harrowing two-day trip in which she saw a nine-year-old boy nearly die in a rural hospital because his family had no money to pay for his care; he survived only because Ngilu ordered her driver to take him to a regional government hospital. When her plane was then caught in severe turbulence on her return trip to Nairobi, Ngilu told Helene Cooper, she realized that "I would want to die knowing that I changed something. That while I was health minister, I actually changed things."

Kibaki eventually managed to stall Ngilu's plan in Parliament, arguing that it was a budget-buster. But Ngilu kept up the pressure, giving speeches to villagers in which she urged them to demand care for their children at local hospitals. There was no love lost between Ngilu and Kibaki. "My own government went wrong a long time ago," she told Cooper. "Every time I see my colleagues I get angry. There is a total disconnect between policy and people." With Kenya facing a multitude of health threats, from childhood diseases to AIDS to avian influenza, Ngilu seemed certain to remain at the center of the national debate. African newspapers followed her political career closely, and none of them were ruling out a second run for the presidency by an idealistic and popular leader with a rising international reputation for energy and getting results.

At a Glance …

Born Charity Kaluki in 1952 in Mbooni, Kenya; father an evangelical minister; ninth of 13 children; married Michael Mwendwa Ngilu early 1980s (died 2006); children: three. Education: Attended a Kenyan government secretarial college.

Career: Kenya's central bank, secretary; Chase Manhattan, Nairobi, administrative manager; restaurant and bakery owner and operator; Ani-Plastics Ltd., a plumbing-plastics manufacturer, founder and owner; Kenyan parliament, Kitui Central district, elected representative, 1992; Kenyan presidential candidate, 1997; Cabinet of President Mwai Kibaki, Kenyan Health Minister, 2002.

Addresses: Office—Government of Kenya, Ministry of Health, Afya House, Cathedral Road, P.O. Box 30016, Nairobi, Kenya.