In Agikuyu dialect, Wangari female name mean ‘of leopard’. When I prod further, I got three answers; One, a lady who used to have a penchant of floral garments resembling leopard skin, and second one, a lady who dreaded to fetch firewood in forest leopard infested with leopards. And third one, a lady who could mingle with men named Ngari [Leopard]- who preyed like leopard yet she could came out unscathed.
Interestingly, Azimio running mate Martha Wangari Karua seems to poses all the three answers attributed to her middle name, Wangari. For her fashion statement are mostly flora, not to mention her Narc Party symbol is one of flower. As budding young lawyer, she joined male lawyers to defend now her principal Raila Odinga during the dreaded Kanu regime even walking out on late Moi himself and came out unscathed.
I refer her as a ‘prodigal daughter’ because. Just two months prior to Monday, May 16, 2022, the date she was named Azimio running mate. Ms Karua was nowhere near President Kenyatta’s succession matrix. For she had abandoned her Kikuyu nation by being fiercest critics of the Building Bridges Initiative [BBI] constitutional amendment proposal sponsored by President Kenyatta and Odinga, a project that could have benefited her backyard through one-vote-one-shilling clause. That, perhaps, explain why her emergence into Azimio at Serena Hotel on the evening of March 23 was disadvantageous to young Agikuyu young daughter Sabina Wanjiru Chege who was at vantage position to break glass ceiling. Whoever, that water under the bridge and she embraced it and earnestly supporting her elder sister.