Ms Nereah Oketch: The ‘First Female President of Kenya’

Ms Nereah Amondi Oketch is the first ‘female President’ in Kenya after winning the ‘Ms President’ reality show that aired on KTN TV.

The Member of County Assembly (MCA) from Homa Bay County defeated four other finalists Anne Waruguru Kiai, Betty Adera, Irene Mayaka and Umulkheir Mohammed who were battling for the title of Kenya’s first female president.

“We all have a journey and we are all winners,” said Ms Oketch before being declared the winner of the show.

The first runners up of the competition was Ms Umulkheir Mohammed who hails from Garissa County.

The grand finale episode of the show that went down at Catholic University of East Africa on Wednesday night was graced by European Commission team, Members of Parliament among other invited guests.

The winner emerged after a massive voting campaign where viewers were asked to elect their preferred candidate through free SMS code.

{ Read: Ms President finalists share stage with Uhuru during launch of Bidco Industrial Park }

The reality show, first of its kind in the country, ran for six months attracting over 1000 contestants. However, the elimination process reduced the participants number to 71 who were taken to the academy then later reduced to 40 and finally down to five finalists.

The contestants were subjected to group assignments and later individual presentations on issues beyond politics.

The key issues debated on were leadership, cultural diversity, involvement of women in violent extremism, labour rights, food security, technology and health.

The finalist were further given a rare opportunity to interview President Uhuru Kenya on ‘being the president’ and even accompanied him to his duty to ‘experience what the president does’ during the launch of Modern Bidco Industrial Park.

The show, hopes to empower Kenyan women to build sustainable capacity for effective leadership especially in the areas of conflict management, peace building and crisis preparedness. 

The inspiration of the show which is produced by Media Focus on Africa (MFA)originated from Palestinian Ma’aan Television Network’s highly popular program “The President”, which involved choosing a young Palestinian to be the next Palestinian President.

{ See Also: Why the president needs a HR adviser }