Kenyans on social media welcomed with honour reports that one Purity Wangui Ngirici, was set to give a lecture on Women empowerment alongside Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey.
The reports indicated that Ngirici, the Kirinyaga County Women Representative, would speak alongside the powerful women leaders at the Oxford and Cambridge University this year, December 9 and 10 respectively.
Kenyans.co.ke followed up with the legislator seeking to find details of how she intends to represent not just Kirinyaga, but Kenyan women empowerment concerns during the alleged public lectures.
The Kirinyaga MP confirmed having received the invitation early in November but will not travel abroad to be part of the two key events.
"I received the invitation but I cancelled the plans to attend the lecture early this month. This is a decision I made because of unavoidable circumstances that relate to family. I don't even know how such information found its way to the public," Ngirici told Kenyans.co.ke on phone.
The websites of the two universities have talks slated for December 9 and 10 but we could not immediately establish details of the nature of the events. The platforms have no particulars of who the invited guests are.
The Oxford University events portal had no event pertaining to leadership listed on December 9, 2018.
"I do not know how this information reached social media. It is only on my email; this is unless someone accessed and read my emails," remarked Ngirici.
In July this year, Kirinyaga Governor Anne Waiguru was invited to give an address on Kenyan devolution governance journey at Chatham House in London.
Waiguru attended the event, addressing corruption as the greatest challenge facing the management of Kenya's devolved units.
Waiguru cited pressure from relatives as the reason driving politicians into the runaway corruption frenzy witnessed in the country.
According to the Kirinyaga County boss, "a huge problem in Kenyan politics is the pressure from families that want to benefit from their relative’s time in office," which drive the leaders into corruption to meet their relatives' expectations.
