When Taita Taveta MP Naomi Shaban entered elective politics in 2001, she only attracted a brief mention in a local daily that read: “A woman is among five people eying the Taveta parliamentary seat on a Kanu ticket.”

It went on to report that “Dr Naomi Namsi Shaban would face George Mangi Mwalaghe, Stephen Kubo Mwazige, Raymond Ndaretoi Mnene and Amos Mutuku Mutungi after the seat fell vacant following an unprecedented move by Mr Basil Criticos who resigned to settle in the US.”

Five months later, the media were falling over themselves to report how she had swept into Parliament like a colossus, garnering 58 per cent of the total valid votes cast.

But after 14 uninterrupted years running the show in Taita Taveta, Dr Shaban is finally calling it a day.

“For eradication of doubt, I am not interested in running for any position in Taita Taveta County in 2017…not any position, but I will be campaigning for Jubilee’s bid for a second term,” she says.

“There are many options open to me. Remember I’ am still a dentist....I also have not severed my relations with the political class....”

Her maiden entry into Parliament was the start of a journey to a successful political career that Nyeri Women’s representative Priscillah Nyokabi sums thus: “Dr Shaban succeeded to become a power maker and a critical pillar of Mwai Kibaki and Uhuru Kenyatta’s governments in the coastal region.”

Shaban’s only regret since the political bug bit her is that in the early days of the gruelling campaigns dominated by men, “some political hooligans from my competitor’s camp tried to throw my little boy into a pit latrine.”

Born Naomi Namsi Shaban on September 9, 1963 as the second born in a family of five, she was to serve in former President Mwai Kibaki’s administration as the minister for Special Programmes in 2008 until 2010 when she was transferred to the Ministry of Gender and Children’s Affairs until 2013.

Known for her trademark deep intellectual gaze above her spectacle lenses, love for weaves and free- flowing African dresses, Dr Shaban asserts that she entered politics “with the resolute purpose of freeing her Taveta community from marginalisation.”

She says the Taita and Taveta communities though living in the same administrative areas are two distinct communities separated by the Tsavo National Park.

She says the Taveta are more at home interacting with the Maasai community in Kajiado since the boundary between them is only a step to and from either side.

“I was deeply perturbed by the fact that Tavetas were not even considered separately for recruitment to the disciplined forces or even for entry into higher education institutions since they had been eclipsed by the Taitas. I had to do something by making my way into policy formulation vaults,” she says.

Dr Shaban told Business Daily she put her dentistry career on hold to save the community from “imminent extinction” following what she termed policy neglect and ignorance of their history.

She had only intended to serve for two terms but the bug had bitten her deeper than she thought.

“I made a promise to my people—my mum and children included—that after the two terms, I would retire from politics having achieved my express purpose of putting Tavetas on to the national map,” she says.

The community, she adds, had suffered years of economic and social exclusion “to a point where they did not care any more.”

“They thought development projects were only meant for major communities and that their only hope was to grow their population.”

Dr Shaban says she set about dismantling the siege mentality and specifically cites her success in “liberating” the Parres sub- tribe from discrimination in the issuance of identity cards.

They initially had to produce the birth certificates of their ancestors to prove their citizenship.

“Today, we do not talk about 42 Kenyan tribes, we are 43, thanks to my push for the recognition of the Parres in my own constituency who were perceived to be Tanzanians.”

She says she was to retire from active electoral politics in 2007 but pressure from the people and national political power matrix prevailed upon her to extend her stay in politics.

“In 2010, I was the minister for gender where I was crusading for affirmative action by encouraging women to take a shot at governance positions.”

“It did not make sense that as one leading the charge, I would fail to lead by example. I had no choice but contest the seat again,” she says.

Her political path was not without drama, for in 2009 she appeared in a Mombasa court as a defence witness for her uncle Daniel Mnene who was among seven people accused of murdering a Scottish geologist, Campbell Bridges.

She also denied using her State office to influence the police to release the suspect, only asserting that she indeed had tried to get then Environment minister John Michuki to intervene in a mining dispute pitting the deceased and his workers.

She corroborated her uncle’s alibi that he was not at the murder scene in Mwatate and that he was at her Ministry of Special Programmes office in Nairobi at the time of Mr Bridges murder.

Dr Shaban was to also fend off corruption charges in 2010.

She was implicated in a major maize scandal where an audit report cited “over-sale” of Strategic Grain Reserve in excess of 277, 000 bags and the allocation of subsidised maize to well-connected brokers who sold their bulk to millers at exorbitant profits.

Dr Shaban was alleged to have been part of a scheme to cause prices of maize flour to shoot up beyond the reach of the poor. She terms those integrity cases “as eerie hoots from her political detractors” and cites as vindication her recapturing of her parliamentary seat in 2013 and the fact that she was never prosecuted.

From 1988 to 1989, Dr Shaban who says she was brought up in an ordinary home by her single mother, having lost her father at a tender age, served as an intern in the Dental Office II at Kenyatta National Hospital.

Dr Shaban attended Mahoo Primary School between 1969 and 1975 before proceeding to Bura Girls High School from 1976 to 1979 for her O-level education.

She went on to Butere Girls High School in 1980 for her A-levels from where joined the University of Nairobi Dental School three years later. She graduated as a dentist in 1988.

In 1989 to 1990 she became a full Dental Officer I at Kenyatta National Hospital before rapidly rising again in late 1990 to 1995 when she was promoted to Dental Officer I at the same hospital.

Her rapid career rise continued and in late 1995 she became a senior Dental Officer in the same hospital but immediately shipped out to venture into private practice in Kitengela until 2001 when she ventured into politics.

A mother of two adult girls and a teen aged between 29 and 18, the staunch Muslim faithful says: “I have achieved my political goals for my people and it is time to take a breather.”

- Business Daily