Former Eldoret North MP Philomena Chelagat Mutai who died in 2013 ( Photo Courtesy)
The late Chelagat Mutai was a student at UoN in 1972. Even though she was only 23, she was already a thorn in the flesh of Kenyatta's government, making fiery speeches during student Kamkunjis and publishing stinging articles in the student magazine.
While in third year , she was expelled from the institution after she published an article which the government claimed incited students to riot. She retreated to her village in Nandi County where she began working as an untrained teacher.
A well-wisher she had interacted with at UoN would later get her a scholarship to study at Harvard, but her efforts to acquire a passport were frustrated by the government. The then vice president and minister for Home Affairs Daniel Arap Moi, personally took every step to ensure Jelagat's application didn't go through because of her radical stand when she was a student at UoN.
She would later return to complete her studies at UoN after the minister for education Dr Taita Towett intervened.
Fresh from university, Jelagat vied for the Eldoret North parliamentary seat and emerged victorious after defeating eleven male candidates. In parliament she became a political firebrand criticising unjust policies and agitating for the downtrodden.
In 1976 she led her constituents to invade a sisal farm after the squatters who had bought the farm through a cooperative were evicted by the Asian owner who had changed his mind. This gave the government a good excuse to send her to jail on trumped up charges. This resulted in her losing her political seat.
Fortunately Kenyatta died just before she finished her jail term, and was among political prisoners released by the new president Daniel Arap Moi as a sign of good will. "Prison has taught me to play the politics of consensus and compromise," she said after being released. She came out well in time to vie in the general election in which she reclaimed her parliamentary seat.
Soon she went back to her old tendencies: outspokenness on issues affecting mwananchi and criticism of the government's poor policies. As a result she became a target in a crackdown led by Njonjo against government critics. Alongside other dissidents, she was charged with making false mileage claims.
Although Jelagat believed in her innocence, she was well aware that the government's aim was to send her to jail. She had already suffered in prison and was not ready to go back there. So she fled and sought political asylum in Tanzania in 1981. The Guardian described it as "Kenya's first political exile."
She returned to Kenya in 1984, rejoined KANU but shunned politics. She was appointed to a Human rights Committee but was fired in 1999. She later retreated to her father's farm where she led a quiet life. In 2006 she was involved in a road accident that left her with multiple fractures. Courtesy of Raila Odinga, she was admitted Spinal Injury Hospital.
Chelagat Mutai sadly passed on in 2013 after years in destitution and solitude.