By Prudence Minayo
Ababu Namwamba is a Kenyan politician and lawyer who has the proverbial nine lives of a cat. He was conferred the Order of the Elder of the Golden Heart (EGH) in 2012, the highest civilian national honor of Kenya by former president Mwai Kibaki. He went on to serve in former President Uhuru Kenyatta regime and he is a cabinet secretary in the current administration of William Ruto.
Here is his story as told by WoK.
Age
Ababu was born on 23rd December 1975 in Jinja, Uganda but his family relocated to Kenya due to Idi Amin’s reign of terror.
Education
He attended Milimani Nursery, Eldoret, Port Victoria Primary School, Western and Kolanya Boys High School, Teso North.
Upon completing his Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE), he joined the University of Nairobi where he studied law from 1993 to 1997. Later, he joined the Kenya School of Law then did his Master of Laws Degree (LLM) in international law at Washington College of Law, USA and graduated in 2004.
Family
He is the last born in a family of eight children, six boys and 2 girls.
Mama Agatha Maina Namwamba is the name of his mother and his father is the late Peter Namwamba Lwecheche.
Career
While still at the university, he was elected student leader in 1996. During this time, he chaired the Kenya Law Students society and got a chance to meet great people, such as former United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan. This opened up his mind and he knew he wanted to work in the diplomacy field.
He joined Public Law institute (PLI), Kenya’s first ever civil society organization for public interest where he worked until 2002.
After leaving PLI, he founded the chambers of justice, a public interest trust that he ran as chief counsel until 2007. The lawyer also formed his own law firm called Ababu Namwamba Attorneys-at-law.
In 2003, he founded a charity called Ababu Namwamba foundation. The private charity supports the education of young Kenyans across the country from primary level to university. The same year he secured a ruling in a constitution case that affirmed the rights of children living with HIV/AIDS.
This case was filed after two schools in Ngong and Karen barred children with HIV/AIDS from Nyumbani Children’s Home. The case got him international acclimation, thus, making him win the 2004 Global Justice Award in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
In 2004, he won a landmark legal battle which was a one of a kind in the country. A Kenyan born in Pakistan was wrongfully accused of terrorism.
Politics
In 2006, he joined the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) and vied and won the Budalangi constituency parliamentary seat under the party ticket. He was also the party’s parliamentary secretary from 2008 to 2013 and Minister for Sports and Youth Affairs from 2012 to 2013.
In 2016, he quit ODM and joined the Labor Party of Kenya where he has been the leader to date. In 2017, the party announced its support for President Uhuru Kenyatta and Ababu lost his Budalangi seat the same year.
From 2018 till now, he has been serving as the Chief Administrative Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
He serves as the Sports CS in President William Ruto regime.
Marriage
In a past interview with the Standard Media, Ababu said his wife Prisca Mwaro is loving, loyal and understanding. He further added that she is the mother to his four children, Nkosi, Lulu, Tanya-Helena and Ababu Junior.
A while ago though, several online articles published that the two had separated due to infidelity. The publications suggested he was living with two beauties, Luciana Mimo and a miss tourism Busia winner Paula Anne Machio and that he introduced the latter as his best wife.
