She is a survivor of cultural fire. Peris Pesi Tobiko would have
been married off before sitting her Standard Seven examinations.
Her
teacher had convinced her father, Mzee Tobiko ole Paloshe of Mashuru
village, Kajiado East, that serving him as wife was a better deal than
sitting her examinations.
She stayed put. In Form
Three, Mzee Tobiko, fearing he would succumb to an illness, still wanted
her married. She refused to budge and stayed on at Moi Isinya Girls in
Kajiado.
When she was in Form Five, the teacher, whose
first wife was barren, gave up but only after being given Pesi’s step
sister as a replacement. Today, they are still a couple.
Mzee
Tobiko was not through. When she finished her A-levels, another old man
came calling, this time, more than thirty years older than her.
She
rebuffed the attempts — and with support of her brother Keriako, now
Director of Public Prosecutions, mzee yielded to pressure to allow her
to proceed to university in 1988.
Fast forward — 2013.
Peris is vying as an MP for newly created Kajiado East Constituency. She
beats five men to clinch the coveted TNA ticket.
Just
as she is preparing to roll out a campaign against ODM’s Kakuta Maimai,
clan elders drop the bombshell — they can never support a woman for a
political seat.
The elders, backed by all the five TNA
losers, gang up and hold a cursing ceremony at Sultan Hamud. They warn
her of dire consequences for rejecting their request to step down.
The matter is made worse by the fact that she is married in Narok.
The ground is shifting fast, and Peris is worried.
The ground is shifting fast, and Peris is worried.
“It
was the biggest setback that can befall a campaign. Our people have
seen elders’ words come to pass. So no one was taking chances. A chunk
of my supporters left me high and dry,” she says.
A
strong Christian, Peris resolves to fight on. News of the curse spread
like bushfire in Kajiado and beyond, and many expected “anything to
happen to her anytime.”
A fortnight later, Peris
rallies her loyal supporters and pastors for a prayer session at the
same venue. “To put out fire, you light another one. I would not
relent,” she says.
March 4, 2013. Tobiko 23,381 and
Maimai. That is how Maasai’s first elected woman MP was made. “It was
the biggest moment in my life,” she says.
In an
interview with Saturday Nation, Tobiko’s win, which was contested in
court and an appeal is yet to be settled, became an exposition of
culture versus modernity with a tinge of Christianity coming face to
face with tradition.
The curse, Tobiko believes, was a
blessing in disguise. “It gave me some sympathy vote,” she confesses in
our late evening interview.
“Some people were following
my campaign to see when and where the gods of the elders and my
opponents would strike me. When they did not by March 4, they jumped
into my bandwagon and voted for me,” she says reflectively.
Mother of four
A keen listener, the mother of four who is married to a banker she met at University, Tobiko is happy about her humble background and a sound education that ended at the University of Nairobi’s political science class.
A keen listener, the mother of four who is married to a banker she met at University, Tobiko is happy about her humble background and a sound education that ended at the University of Nairobi’s political science class.
After university in 1994, she was employed as a
District Officer in Embu, an experience that hardened her resolve to
change her society bit by bit.
“If you do the right thing, it will outlive traditionalism,” she explains
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