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{
    "id": 816423,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/816423/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 368,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Suba North, ODM",
    "speaker_title": "Hon. (Ms.) Odhiambo-Mabona",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 376,
        "legal_name": "Millie Grace Akoth Odhiambo Mabona",
        "slug": "millie-odhiambo-mabona"
    },
    "content": "Leader of the Majority for other reasons. I do not want to over exalt her virtues. She is an excellent lawyer. She is a very strong woman. She fought on the issue of miraa . I know the woman who has taken over from her. I have met her and we have served with her in the Parliamentarians for Global Action. She is an equally good woman. She will do a good work. Hon. Temporary Deputy Speaker, I know Hon. Lucy. I served with her when I was a State Counsel at the State Law Office. She is a very humble woman. She was given a very difficult job at the Political Parties Office. I am sure every person was very aggrieved with her. I know many of us were. It is usually very easy to criticise. I know that because I am very good at doing it, but sometimes we forget that it is very difficult for people who sit in those offices to balance difficult political interests. I can say that because of the handshake. There are things we cannot say when we do not have the handshake. But I can say it is very difficult. I want to tell her ‘well done’ in managing a very difficult political situation where we needed her to balance both interests and effect the word ‘deemed’ yet there are people who had been elected by others. I know she could have done better, but she did fairly well within the circumstances. Because of that, I support. I also want to say it is a good that a person with disability has also been nominated. I do not know him in person. In an ethnicised society like this, I am sure many people would be thinking that I should be knowing him because of his last name. Unfortunately, I know the other two who happen to be a Meru and a Kikuyu - how beautiful it would be in a country where we know people because of their capabilities and much less because of their ethnicity. But I am very happy we have a person with disability. I encourage our Speaker that in the same way we are moving towards a digitised Parliament, because we are taking cue with globalisation, we should keep up with the world. Everybody in the public was so annoyed with us because of the way we become digitised and people ask whether this is a priority in the country. If there is something the Speaker can do which is a priority in this country, is to sponsor a programme for every Member to learn sign language. That would be a very noble venture. I was a victim when I was in the civil society. I used to talk and teach a lot. I am a teacher in my other life; not formal teaching, but I teach a lot of different things. I was one time called to speak to persons with disabilities. When I went, I learnt that those of us who are what I would call ‘able’ never think about these people. When I went in, they did not have anything. Everything was in braille. Suddenly, I was the one who was ‘disabled’ because I could not follow what they were doing with braille. It is important we consider people with disabilities. There is a young lady I grew up with called Grace. I did not see her for almost 30 years and I met her on the streets of Nairobi one time. When I met her with her husband, she was so excited. She was deaf. She wanted to introduce my sister and I to her husband. She was so excited. She hugged us after so many years. Then, because we could not communicate, we got into a restaurant and she started writing. She said ‘I am sorry I do not know your name’. I grew up with her, played with her and I knew her as Grace, but none of us bothered to know that she never knew our names. She cannot hear. We all presumed she knew us. She knew our faces, but she never knew our names. I encourage our Speaker of the National Assembly that it would be the noblest of things if you forced Members to learn sign language. I support."
}