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ICT Minister nominee, Margaret Ndung’u, has opened up about the series of events that preceded her appointment as Minister.
In an interview posted online, the third of six children in a family of retired teachers said she was working from home when she received a call from a councillor asking her to send an updated resume for consideration for a position.
“So I gave her a quick update and sent it to her and then I forgot about it. Then she called me again and told me the governor was going to call me. I think that’s when I called my mom and told her what was going on,” she said.
Ndugu is among the second batch of 10 CS nominees announced by President William Ruto on Wednesday, July 24, and she has been nominated as Minister of Information, Communications and Digital Innovation.
Her mother, Rosemary Wambui, said she was shocked to learn of her daughter’s impending nomination but still wished her the best.
“After shaking her hand, I told her, if someone offers you a job, do it, I know you can do it.”
Ndung’u said that for some reason she was unable to contact her father, Peter Ndung’u, on her mobile phone to tell her the good news, but on her mother’s advice she called the local pastor.
“He said it’s OK, it’s good to serve your country, just take it.” Shortly after, she said, the governor called to tell her the president wanted to talk to her.
“You see, all this time you think it’s a big joke, but now when you see it you think ‘Oh my god, this is really happening’ and everyone is calling to congratulate me and asking ‘Are you that guy?'”
Ndung’u, who graduated from Moi University with a degree in Information Science, attended a local primary school in her hometown of Molo before attending Olenguruone Secondary School.
Since both her parents were teachers, she initially wanted to be a teacher, but later due to the poor medical conditions in the village, she wanted to be a doctor.
“In the countryside you go to the doctor every day and there are always queues at the pharmacy, but that quickly faded away as it was so rare and I was mainly focused on being a teacher.”
Ndongu said the rush to school was memorable, especially when it rained because it meant transport was completely halted.
“There was no public transport so we used to use tractors and I remember we would all gather in Molo town and then there would be a tractor that would take us to school. The tractor would reach somewhere but it could not reach the school,” she narrated.
She said the school principal would then pick up students from the drop-off point in his small Suzuki car.
Ndugu said her parents faced difficulties in paying school fees for six children, which forced her to study hard to change the situation at home.
“I did really well and was the best student of my year, and I went on to study information science at Moi University.”
Ndongwu said that throughout her career, she has been actively involved in capacity building for youth in ICT.
“I have been working in ICT and development for the past 20 years, particularly in the health sector,” she said.
Ndung’u revealed that she had worked with Amref to help establish the first telemedicine project; had been responsible for Internet governance capacity building in all 55 member states at the African Union; and was also responsible for training young people during the 2022 Global Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Ethiopia.
She is also part of the organizing team for the 2023 IGF in Japan.
“So, I think they saw in my resume that I did capacity building. They also saw my passion for ICT and that I supported the development of our ICT strategy. I served as secretary of the task force from 2014 to 2018,” she said.
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