One of the most fitting tributes to Mama Lucy Kibaki I have heard has come from Prof. Milliam Were, former chair of the National Aids Control Council (NACC) with whom I personally worked closely.
As Prof. Were’s name attests, she does not come from anywhere near Mt Kenya.
But as anyone who has talked to the good professor can attest, WERE IT NOT FOR MAMA LUCY, MANY, MANY THOUSANDS OF KENYANS - SOME OF WHOM ARE INSULTING HER IN DEATH - WOULD NOT BE ALIVE TODAY.
Many forget that in 2002, when Mama Lucy first entered State House, HIV/Aids was the greatest source of stigma and discrimination that Kenya had ever witnessed. Those who died were still being buried in nylon sheets in their coffins! Only about 30,000 Kenyans of the estimated 1.8 million people then infected with HIV had access to ARVs.
As Prof. Were attests, Mama Lucy was among the first high profile people in Kenya to actively fight HIV stigma and discrimination. In public, she hugged kids and women with Aids, even one time when her bodyguards tried to prevent her. In private, she worked tirelessly with Prof. Were to set up national, provincial and district awareness committees that within years helped dispel stigma and discrimination.
Mama Lucy intervened many times to overule Ministry of Health mandarins who tried to block Prof. Were, salivating at her billion-dollar donor-supported Aids budget. Several times, Mama called the professor to State House and arranged for her to see the president to override these hyenas.
As a result of the work the NACC and Mama Lucy did, more Kenyans became aware of their status, and when President George Bush scaled up aid for the provision of ARVs through Pepfar, those who had taken the bold step of knowing their status were quickly put on the life-saving drugs.
From just 30,000 in 2002, Kenyans on ARVs jumped to about 750,000 by 2013, when Mama Lucy left State House.
Prof. Were is the first to admit that the progress that Kenya has made against Aids is not all to Mama Lucy’s doing. Kenya could not have afforded the treatment drugs without Pepfar, for example.
But as far as awareness and the strengthening of NACC goes, Prof Were says that NOBODY has done more than the late First Lady. She even helped pioneer a First lady’s organisation on HIV/Aids!!
It is a sad irony of life that many of those deriding and insulting her now come from regions nearly-destroyed by HIV, with current adult prevalences of OVER 27%!!!
It is also possible that many of those calling Mama a witch and madwoman are today alive because she worked so hard, as a mother, to raise HIV awareness, and to fight S&D.
Be that as it may. Wahenga walisema tenda wema, nenda zako.
Mama Lucy was not perfect, but she was a giant in this nation of little, silly people.
RIP Mama. Sleep well in soft soils where it forever rains. We will meet again at the fireside of our people.
Thaaaaaaaaaaaai!