Chelagat Mutai

In 2006, Chelagat Mutai was involved in a road accident that left her using a wheelchair. She spent the next years of her life in near destitution, at one point living in a friend's one-room house in a Nairobi estate. Her plight was highlighted by a 2011 visit by then Prime Minister Raila Odinga.

After her return to Kenya in 1984, Chelagat Mutai reconciled somewhat with the KANU government. She was appointed to a senior position at Kenya Commercial Bank. She worked within KANU headquarters, and for the Standing Committee on Human Rights. She was fired from the human rights body through a radio bulletin in June 1999, and withdrew to her father's farm in Terige.

Chelagat fled from Kenya to Tanzania in 1981 after learning of a plot to detain her again, this time over alleged false mileage claims. She returned three years later to check on her ailing mother, but kept away from politics.

She was released from prison in September 1978. In the next election in 1979, she ousted Sirma. In her second term, she was vocal about the government's inadequate response during the 1980 famine.

In 1976 she was prosecuted for inciting squatters to invade a sisal farm in Ziwa. She served two and a half years in prison, losing her parliamentary seat in the same way as her predecessor.

Philomena Chelagat Mutai (1949-2013) was a Kenyan activist and politician, known for her stands on political assassinations, land grabs and corruption. She championed the inclusion of women in Kenyan politics and society, and as a lifelong activist for better governance.

Mutai was born in 1949 in Terige, Lessos, in Nandi.