On Friday, March 27, the Office of the Prime Cabinet Secretary and Cabinet Secretary Ministry of Foreign and Diaspora Affairs hosted a reception in honour of Amb (Dr) Monica Kathina Juma, Kenya’s outgoing national security adviser.
Juma is leaving the country for Vienna, Austria, to take over the twin roles of Executive Director, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, and Director General of the United Nations Office at Vienna.
Her appointment by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres early last month to head one of the three UN offices outside the New York headquarters was a vote of confidence in the quality of her leadership.
The Vienna Office focuses on crime prevention, drug control, outer space affairs and atomic energy. The other offices are located in Nairobi and Geneva, focusing on environment and human rights, respectively.
And while other Kenyans have held top UN positions before, none have headed any of the four offices until Juma. Mukhisa Kituyi served as the Secretary General of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), domiciled within the Geneva Office.
Until last year, my former teacher, mentor and friend Alice Nderitu was the Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide at the Under-Secretary General level. Juma’s appointment is thus also a milestone for the country.
She has come a long way. I first met her sometime in 2010 or 2011 while she served as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Kenya to Ethiopia and Djibouti and Permanent Representative of Kenya to the African Union, the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and the UN Commission for Africa.
At the time, Kenya was in the eye of a storm following the indictment of her foremost political leaders at the International Criminal Court. Juma offered the most articulate, reasonable argument devoid of political brouhaha in defence of the Kenyan state.
In 2013, she was appointed the Principal Secretary in charge of the Defence docket in President Uhuru Kenyatta’s government. A year later, she was moved to the more influential Interior and Coordination of National Government portfolio.
Her promotion to the constitutional Office of Secretary to the Cabinet in 2015 ran into headwinds. MPs refused to approve her appointment in protest over alleged high-handedness.
However, it was an open secret at the time, and even now, that the office of Interior PS is the most abused, misused and misunderstood in the country. Historically, politicians relied on the strategic positioning of this office to retain power, advance narrow interests and make money.
Juma was having none of it, and she paid the ultimate price. Luckily for her, President Kenyatta did not succumb to the blackmail. He retained her in the same Interior docket, only transferring her to foreign affairs much later.
When the political weather permitted it in 2018, Juma was nominated and appointed Cabinet Secretary for Foreign Affairs. She later moved to Defence, and again to Energy in the same capacity.
When her fellow CSs were caught up in the razzmatazz of succession politics, Juma stuck to the straight and the narrow of public service. Upon being sworn in as Kenya’s fifth President, William Ruto dumped all of them but retained Juma as his national security adviser.
Despite serving in all sensitive and often abused dockets, Juma has never attracted a whiff of scandal, probe or calumny. She was not the one to cavort with tribal groupings nor take solace in regional alliances.
Very few people know that she was born in Nuu ward of Mwingi Central, one of the most forlorn areas of Ukambani, and accorded a forsaken name—Kathina. She toiled her way to the top.
In 2020 when she should have been gallivanting around Kitui, positioning herself for county political office, she set up a national initiative, the Athena Mentorship Programme.
For the last five years, she has mentored thousands of women in technology, governance, finance, mining, energy, diplomacy and innovation. At her prodding, they have embraced value and honour, believed in themselves, dropped mediocrity and focused on what is essential for their success.
Amb Dr Monica Kathina Juma is taking honour with her to Vienna.
Musau, an Advocate of the High Court, is a Senior Project Manager with the Friedrich Naumann Foundation. The views expressed here are his own
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