On 20 November 2018, a Facebook post by Standard Newspaper writer Ted Malanda circulated widely on Tuesday morning and, according to sources close to Gatundu, drew a strong reaction from the President after he read it.
The post, shared via Facebook, was framed as a blunt argument for a wider conversation on abortion and reproductive health. In it, Malanda referred to a teenager arrested for drowning her three-day-old baby and to children who, he said, were arrested by police while going to get a jab to prevent their “tu eggs” from exploding.
He used the post to criticize what he described as mixed messaging around sex, contraception and abortion. The writer argued that adults do not want young people to have sex before marriage, do not want them taught about sex, and do not want them to use contraceptives, while also opposing abortion without addressing who would raise the children.
Malanda also pushed back on the idea that parents should be blamed for every case of teenage pregnancy. He wrote that pregnancy can happen quickly and said even the children of “pastors, headmasters, magistrates, police, prison warders and mafiosi” can become pregnant. He added that parents do not “allow” children to sneak out at night; the children, he said, sneak out.
He then cited a column in Today’s Standard by Julie Masiga, saying she argued that the decision to abort or not should rest with women because they are the ones left “holding the baby when the dung hits the fun.” Malanda followed that by saying that if a person does not have “a vagina, Fallopian tubes, a womb and other related baby making apparatus,” they should “shut up.”
The post ended with a call for a conversation on abortion led by women and moderated by reproductive health experts. He said “Waheshimiwa should shurrup,” added that church leaders should preach and let people decide whether they want to go to heaven, and concluded that men should “lie low like envelopes” because, in his view, they are the reason the discussion is needed.
The remarks, which were presented as Malanda’s own Facebook post, were the focus of the online reaction and the reported irritation from the President’s side. The source did not provide a formal response from Uhuru Kenyatta or Standard Newspaper beyond the circulation of the post and the reported reaction.
