Meet Freda Shibonje: The nurse who Helped Deliver President Kenyatta

A Woman who helped Mama Ngina Kenyatta safely give birth to President Uhuru and opened up on the happenings of that great day

Ms Shibonje, who had joined the Agha Khan hospital as a nurse in December 1960, was going about her duties at the maternity wing when a VIP patient arrived. She recognised the patient as Mama Ngina Kenyatta, the wife of Mzee Kenyatta.

“I was happy for the mother since we had come a long away from the time we started attending to her while expecting the baby and when the moment came for her to deliver, I couldn’t wait to welcome her baby,” Ms Shibonje told a local daily at her home in Ikonyero village, Kakamega County.

She rushed to the lift at the corridor next to the delivery room and met Mama Ngina who was heading to the ward.

“I greeted her and given her condition, I went ahead to arrange for her to take some rest on the bed since she looked tired,” Ms Shibonje said, adding that she then proceeded to make preparations for the patient to be attended to during delivery.

But outside the ward something else was happening. Mzee Kenyatta and his fellow independence hero Jaramogi Oginga Odinga had accompanied Mama Ngina to the hospital and only stayed briefly.

“I saw them in an animated discussion at the far end of the corridor next to the maternity wing and did not appear to be keen to enter the ward,” she said.

Just as they had come, Mzee Kenyatta and Mr Odinga left unnoticed shortly after Mama Ngina had been admitted.

That day, Ms Shibonje was among the medical staff in the room when Baby Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta was born, she recalled. Almost 57 years later, it is a moment that the mother of six who has retired to a quiet life in the village still cherishes.

President Uhuru Kenyatta finally got to meet the lady who helped his mother give birth to him.

The two met yesterday at the Kakamega State Lodge after the 2018 Mashujaa Celebrations.

 

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