Panic and joy has gripped the Gem Constituency as the woman who was the first African personal secretary to the Director General of the famous East African Railways Cooperation (EARC) Eng. Gakuo, voiced her bid to vie for the parliamentary seat in the forth coming General elections, to be held later this year. A position that she Africanized from Mrs. Du Plessis,the white.

Pragmatic Mrs. Nelly Ngesa Okwiri who served in the public service in various capacities for decades, before retiring 9 years ago to join active politics has quietly done a lot in terms of developments in Gem, without publicity. She is going to vie for the seat in ODM ticket.

In an exclusive interview, Mrs. Okwiri divulged her wide range track record of developments that has largely made the constituents to compel her to go full throttle for the seat to serve them better.

Some of the Okwiri’s string of sparkling development projects that has since then reportedly made her opponents and the incumbent MP burning the midnight oil to undo is the immense contribution towards building of several Churches and schools assisting women groups, widows, youth and orphans among others.

Notably, Mrs. Okwiri was the founder of Nyangalu secondary school in Ramula and also a board member of several schools.

Rera Chief camp, which has been perennially ignored, was built to the tune of 300,000 shillings courtesy of her. Additionally, she has financially helped the women groups’ kitties for development projects.

A visit to the constituency revealed that Charismatic Okwiri who hails from south Gem and is ever glued in the constituency, is currently busy reviving a series of cattle dips such as Aluor, Nyawara, Kudho and also working on others.

As the vice chairperson Maendeleo ya wanawake nyanza province, the soft spoken Okwiri said she has embarked on organizing fundraising for the all women groups in Siaya district, being programmed in Maendeleo ya wanawake office: " This is purposely to create awareness to the women groups over what they should do with their groups and what groups can do to them" focused Okwiri.

The harambees is to be done at a divisional level in the entire Siaya district commencing on 30th April, stretching to the end of September. And subsequently, respective bank accounts to be opened for them.

To non starters Mrs. Okwiri is professionally a multi skilled woman: she was trained in Nursing and in Bilingual secretary, a holder of a Higher National Diploma (HND) on Human Resources Management among others chain of managerial courses that he attended which saw her landing many lucrative positions in the government.

Okwiri who also worked has the secretary in the office of the president and also on Kenya police as a typist noted with concern that public leadership needs someone with long-term experience in public service, and therefore she fits the bill.

After late Gakuo’s retirement she worked under the likes of the late Mwangola Waruio George, the late Kandie who was first chief personnel under E.A.R.C., the then director general DK Ngini and the late Eng. Munamo.

Later, she was re-designated to training section, as officer in charge and consequently awarded scholarship to Britain after winning O.D.A. courses under patronage of British council.

On return she headed training desk, organizing training for very many professionals.

Engineers, Doctors, Marketers, purchasers and Accountants from Universities and technical institutions both abroad and locally benefited a great deal form her training prowess.

She was instrumental in training many people in EARC.

Okwiri uncovered that she chose to retire early with a mission and vision of imparting the knowledge that she gained in the public service to the people of Gem.

She praised the former MPs Grace Ogot (Gem) her mentor, Phoebe Asiyo (karachuonyo) and the Nobel laureate, prof Wangari Maathai as sources of her inspiration, saying that when elected she will steer Gem to greater heights of development.

And further push for the bill in the parliament to carter for the interests of the aged and widows, since it has emerged that they are the ones being left behind with the task of upbringing the children orphaned by HIV/Aids scourge.

Exuding confidence that she will bag the seat, Okwiri, unlike other aspirants, is currently based at home doing large scale farming with the disadvantaged lot in the constituency being the chief beneficiaries of the farm’s proceeds.

She will battle it out with a Kisumu based lawyer Kopot, Prof. Ndiege, former area MP Joe Donde, Advocate Rachier, to unseat the incumbent besieged MP who is being bedeviled with alleged misuse of CDF funds.

According to political pundits, it will be uphill task to floor Okwiri given that majority of the registered voters are women who have vowed to elect her as the area legislator.

Meanwhile Alouis Nicho Ogola announcement to vie for Wagai South civic ward is causing ripples, giving the opponents sleepless nights.

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