Forget about it being a man’s world and forget about the past woes of Kenyan women. After the chaotic 2007 general elections and the consequent Armageddon, the talk of the town here in Nairobi these days is the presidential elections in 2012 and the new breed of women coming out to throw their fancy hats into the ring — with maxiÂmum fanfare.
All Nairobi knows the breed as Mama Moneybags. She’s 56 and stands at five-foot-six in her exotic silken stockings. Add three inches to her height when she dons her purple patent leather stilettos, and another couple of inches courtesy of the flamboyant headgear she sports during public appearances, and you have a modern-day Queen of Sheba in the making.
Formerly prominent among motley matrons known as Money Market Mamas, blossoming financial fortunes have seen her christened Mama Moneybags, a tag she seems to relish. She’s not known for any measure of modesty and the jury’s still out on whether her well-publicised exploits make her famous, notorious or simply eccentric.
But one thing’s for sure: Mama Moneybags is the reigning darling of the media, her demeanour and pronouncements always guaranteeing great copy. Her most recent press conference is still the talk of the town.
Seated on a podium in a five-star hotel, she’s exquisite in a glittering turquoise ankle-length skirt, generously split on both sides to display what society writers agree is the most classic pair of legs this side of Naomi Campbell. The satin-smooth skin of her face and hands glows in the camera lights and all are awed as tapering fingers swish and unswish an elegant silver satin shawl around a prominent neck.
Mama Moneybags takes her time, letting the camera flashes bounce off the pearls around her long neck as she shows off manicured nails with star motifs stuck on them and scarlet Elizabeth Arden nail vanish that perfectly matches her stilettos and mascara.
Then the lady drops a bomb: she’ll soon walk down the aisle with a dude she refers to as her Adonis. Fabled as a spinster well past her prime, the proud bride-to-be beams, letting the news sink in.
‘He’s a dandy,†she tells the gathering, and beckons somebody at the back to step forward. The assembled scribes furtively peep behind their shoulders as a tall, handsome and sturdy young man saunters towards the podium.
He’s firmly fondled by Mama Moneybags, who stands up and flings out her arms to receive him. Bedecked with jewellery that glitters from his wrists and neck, the seemly stud’s face lights up as his matronly Âbetter-half-to-be plants a lingering and noisy kiss on his full pouting lips.
‘So how do you like it now, ladies and gentlemen?†Mama Moneybags cheekily teases the awed audience when she’s through with the kiss.
Finally ready to field questions from the Fourth Estate, and certainly revelling in the camera lights, she announces that the elegant grey suit, silk shirt and matching tie her beau’s wearing are part of a package bought during one of their frequent shopping forays to Saville Row. Adding that her fiancé’s accessories are exclusively Cartier, she proudly proclaims: ‘For my Adonis, Cartier’s an absolute must!â€
There follows an elaborate discourse on what can be expected during the all-stops-pulled Âinvitation-only society wedding and how the lovebirds will spend their honeymoon sipping champagne and sharing jacuzzis and Turkish baths at her leafy 30-acre private retreat in exclusive suburbia.
‘Everybody loves bubbly, jacuzzis and Turkish baths, and I haven’t heard it said that they have those in that other heaven somewhere beyond the blue, or do they?†she teases. Pausing for effect, she says: ‘For my beau and me life’s not a rehearsal, nor are luxuries things to be pushed to the back burner or enjoyed only in the hereafter —â€
Future plans? ‘Come 2012, I’ll be gunning for State House —â€
So who said the place of women is in the kitchen? Now the new feminine corporate/political class in Nairobi is certainly telling them where to go and the new girls on the block are fighting bare-knuckled in their quest to prove their economic and political mettle. The very sight of their stretched-limo motorcades as they take Nairobi by storm is certainly enough proof that male-dominated public life will be under serious threat come 2012.
Watching Mama Moneybags beaming with confidence as she hangs on the arm of her perfectly sculpted new beau during the press conference, and later killing the motley photographers with the broadest smile this side of Nick Carter as the duo sinks into the pure leather back seat of her chauffer-driven limo, we really have little option but to drink to that —
Ciugu Mwagiru is a freelance writer and translator in Nairobi, Kenya
