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The Monday debate on the sharing of revenue among the county governments exposed the myriad challenges nominated senators experience as they discharge their legislative duties.

The nominated senators, in their various contributions, highlighted what they termed as blatant intimidation targeted at them either from the executive or their respective parties to influence their positions on various matters.

Nominated senators Naomi Waqo and Imana Falhada Dekow, who are both from the Jubilee Party lamented how they had been subjected to threats and intimidation from various quarters, but vowed not to relent.

Senate today

“It is sad that the Senate today is going through this. The world and the nation is watching us.

We are unable to make decisions because of all the interference around us,” Waqo said, as she narrated her ordeal in the hands of some political brokers.

 She said they spend sleepless nights agonising over their fate and sometimes they are forced to switch off their phones because of what she described as ‘many things that keep on emerging”.

“Even if I’m a nominated Senator, it doesn’t mean that I’ve come to the Senate to be intimidated.

I’m a mother and a grandmother and a canon of the church and I cannot allow somebody to keep on reminding me that I am a nominated Senator,” she added.

The senator disclosed that any time she says anything that is perceived to upset the ‘powers that  be’ you are told to remember you are a nominated senator.

“I have been in politics and Senate for three years now and my future is in God’s hands,” the Senator held.

On her part, Falhada, while quoting OG Mandino, an American author stated: “I am not a sheep waiting to be prodded by my shepherd. 

“I am a lion and I refuse to talk, to walk, to sleep with the sheep. The slaughterhouse of failure is not my destiny.”

“I will not allow the intimidation that Nominated Senators have been facing. I have been receiving calls to be told that I should not be seen in the corridors of the Senate. It is so unfortunate,” she added.

Waqo and Falhada are among the Jubilee nominated senators who are facing the party’s disciplinary committee for skipping a Jubilee coalition Parliamentary Group (PG) meeting convened by President Uhuru Kenyatta at State House, Nairobi in May this year.

Disciplinary committee 

Others are senators Millicent Omanga, Victor Prengei and Mary Seneta Yiane. They are awaiting a verdict of the party disciplinary committee.

In a previous interview with People Daily, Malindi MP Aisha Jumwa, called for the protection of women politicians while urging them to stand firm and resist intimidation and discrimination because of their gender.

 “Women have fought hard for gender equality in political leadership. It is sad that their efforts are being watered down.

The rights of women should be protected,” said Jumwa who has also courted trouble from her party, ODM.

Nominated Senator Abshiro Halakhe (Kanu) also waded into the debate, saying it was unfair for political parties to accuse his nominated colleagues of being disloyal or disobedient.

“That is furthest from the truth. The kind of obedience and loyalty that is borne of fear and self-preservation is no loyalty at all and I don’t subscribe to that kind of loyalty,” Halakhe told the House on Monday.

 She added: “I stand here, very loyal to the government and my party leader Senator Gideon Moi, loyal more than anybody else, and my track record shows it.”

According to Halakhe, great leaders do not coerce or intimidate, it is only bad leaders who focus on such character.

“Good leaders inspire principled behaviour in their people,” she said.

Nominated Senator Isaac Mwaura also called on his colleagues to conduct themselves in a dignified manner.

“Let me just put it on record that this House is the one actually on trial, because if we allow extra-senatorial moves to predetermine how this House conducts itself I think we are going on a very slippery road to nowhere,” Mwaura said.