Wambui Otieno

Virginia Wambui Otieno was a woman who rose to prominence due to her controversial legal fight between her and her husbands (SM Otieno) clan over the right to bury her husband 1987. The case was an unprecedented balance between customary laws; inter tribal marriage and modern-day (civil) marriage. Hers was the most protracted legal case in Kenya's history that saw the court lean towards culture than modern-day marriage, when the burial rights were awarded to the husband’s clan. The ruling gaped a big whole over the women rights in the country.^[1]

Wambui Otieno is sister to Kenya's former foreign Minister, Dr Munyua Waiyaki. Wambui Otieno died on August 30, 2011.

Mau Mau freedom fighter

She published an autobiography titled "Mau Mau Daughter: A Life History".

She had had 3 children while working as a Mau Mau freedom fighter. She was arrested for her involvement in mobilizing in the women's wing of the Mau Mau's riots. Towards the end of the State of Emergency, the British colonial state arrested her and sent her to a detention camp on the coast.^[2]

In the years following Mau Mau, Wambui met and married S.M. Otieno, a prominent Luo lawyer. Together they produced one of the most successful law firms in post-colonial Kenya. Her daughter is Gladwell Otieno, former director of TI Kenya (Transparency International) and director of "AFRICOG" African Center of open Governance.

Wambui Otieno was one of the first women to run for elected office.

Political life

At the 1997 elections she unsuccessfully vied for the Kamukunji Constituency parliamentary seat on NDP ticket.^[3] In 2007, she founded a new political party, Kenya People's Convention Party.^[4] At the 2007 elections, she ran for the Kajiado North Constituency parliamentary seat, but received only a minor share of votes.^[5]

Personal life

Her 2003 marriage to Peter Mbugua was subject of a national controversy. Many of their relatives condemned the marriage. There have been allegations that the death of Mbugua's mother's, which happened only days after the marriage, was caused by a shock she got upon learning of the marriage.^[6]

As of 2008, they were living together with her stonemason husband in Karen, Nairobi.^[6] In February 2011 they held a second wedding ceremony, now at St Andrew’s Church in Nairobi, while the first wedding had been a civil ceremony.^[7]

Wambui had suffered heart failure previously and was relying on a pacemaker, an electronic gadget implanted to function as the heart does Wambui Otieno died on August 30, 2011 in a Nairobi Hospital.^[8]

References