‘Good girls don't get the corner office!’ MP Millie Odhiambo on leadership, youth, and the way forward

Known for her fiery speeches and bold opinions, Suba North Member of Parliament Millie Odhiambo has established herself as one of Kenya’s most outspoken and effective politicians.

Since 2007, MP Odhiambo’s path to prominence in Kenya’s Parliament has been anything but conventional.

Her approach to leadership, marked by a boldness that often ruffles feathers, has earned her the moniker of ‘bad girl’ - a label she embraces as a testament to her tenacity and willingness to challenge the status quo.

Popularly known as ‘Amillo Gesa Gesa,’ which loosely translates to ‘the best of the best,’ the outspoken lawmaker does not shy away from controversy, the latest being her now viral remarks in Parliament – “Be a bad girl like Millie, good girls do not get the corner office.”

“Recently in Parliament I was told that as the mother of the house, I need to be a good example to young female leaders because they need to emulate me. Which translates to I have to sit at the corner and  raise my voice a little bit and hope that I'm heard,” she told Citizen Digital during an exclusive interview.

MP Odhiambo recently took over as the National Assembly’s Minority Whip, succeeding his Suna East counterpart Junet Mohamed who was elevated to the Minority Leader position. This came after she unsuccessfully tried to clinch the position many times before.

According to her, there is an interesting shift in leadership happening, with women now taking up more powerful spaces, a development she terms as both exciting and tragic due to the relatively slow progress.

“The Chief Justice is a woman and so is the deputy. The Attorney General of Kenya is a woman, and the President of the Law Society of Kenya is a woman too. This is historic and although I am happy with the progress we have made, in 2024 we should not be talking about the first women,” she noted.

The legislator went ahead to posit that the biggest challenge women face is discrimination because of gender.

“We need very intensive civic education with the society, because we are socialized to accept discrimination against women even when you notice it. We have a good legislative framework for women, when I first got into Parliament, we were about 16 women in Parliament…now we are over 100,” she said.

MP Odhiambo’s appeal to the Gen Z is unmistakable, even as she admits that the biggest problem the youth of today are facing is lack of opportunities.

“Just this week my nephew told me his former classmate took his own life because he had not managed to secure employment for three years. We have a lot of our people who have gone into crime, addiction and depression and that why the government must put its act together and find a way,” she said.

“I am proud of our youth, for the first time I thought of retiring because I have seen many Millie Odhiambos in the Gen Z, and that made me happy. I want to encourage them to learn to merge idealism and reality and they should not give up.”