Kenyan IFAD candidate no stranger to controversy
Insider reporters
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27 May 2022
Then Kenyan Defence Cabinet Secretary Raychelle Omamo dances with students of Moi Forces Academy in Nakuru during the school's closing day ceremony. PHOTO | PETER MBURU
NAIROBI -- IFAD presidential candidate Raychelle Omamo, the Kenyan foreign minister, frequently has hit headlines in the Kenyan capital Nairobi in the past for her outspoken views, including throwing her weight behind the "big is beautiful movement," saying plumpness should not trouble anyone.
The Nairobi News quoted her urging girl students of Moi Forces Academy in Nakur to stop the fallacy of attempting to fake their looks to appear like others and instead remain natural. She was quoted as saying that many women have been obsessed with slimming their bodies and lightening their skins.
“You want be like Beyonce, you want to lose weight to be thin, you want to be light skin, you want all these things but you know the Lord does not make mistakes and you are good enough,” Ms Omamo said.
The then Kenyan defence minister was quoted as saying that people should use only healthy and hygienic weight management methods such as taking lemons instead of the over-the-counter drugs.
To Ms Omamo, the lemons represented a natural way through which women can maintain a healthy and hygienic society, instead of struggling with the popularized ways, Nairobi News said.
Last year as Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary Ms Omamo made headlines when she hit out at donors for splashing money on the refugee crisis in the world and not providing lasting solutions. Ms Omamo said funding all kinds of humanitarian campaigns is not enough in solving the refugee crisis.
Ms Omamo called upon donor countries to take in refugees and help end the suffering of millions of people who do not have a place to call home. “Solidarity means that people share burdens and sharing burdens doesn’t mean just throwing money at them. It means actually taking refugees in,” she was quoted saying.
“There should be no refugees in the world. There are too many peaceful countries in our world,” Omamo said. She said that Kenya will continue to temporarily host refugees and provide emergency care for those who arrive from troubled regions.
However she added that keeping refugees for eternity only humiliates them and a permanent solution was needed.
Kenya has been trying to close refugees camps and have asylum seekers resettled in other countries but all has been in vain.
The Kenyan government in March 2021 gave the UNHCR a 14-day ultimatum to come up with a road map on the definite closure of Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps.
Kenya noted with concern the rising terror threats planned from Dadaab and Kakuma refugees camps, which were due to be closed by June 2022 under an accord reached with the UNHCR.
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