CNN award winner, media guru praises JB

A CNN Award winning Kenyan media guru Wanja Njuguna currently teaching at Polytechnic of Namibia has hailed President Joyce Banda for ensuring that rural communities are given the chance to inform her of their daily challenges.

According to Njuguna, developmental visits to rural setups by the President are expected to boost chances of reclaiming the position in 2014 polls.

Njuguna, who admitted is observing Banda to the extent that she follows the President’s Facebook page, said this in an interview at Polytechnic Hotel School in Namibia’s capital, Windhoek on Wednesday.

“As the first female President in Sadc, she has done very well, she looks very positive, I see her going into rural areas and sitting down with women and talking things that are very relevant to them; I think that is very important,” said Njuguna.

She, however, cautioned Banda to address other challenges so as to strike the balance by dealing with critical issues if Malawi is to go back to what it used to be.

Added Njuguna: “She needs to find ways of empowering even a small person in the villages and form partnerships to make the country better.”

She further said: “I am happy for Malawi and we saw that it was first for Malawi and the Sadc to have a female President and I would like to see that happening in many Sadc countries.”

Njuguna warned against women degrading each other and also men undermining the power of women as the mentality retards efforts already registered in women empowerment lobby.

“I don’t think women are always pulling each other down, men also pull each other down but as women, I think it’s very important that we know that we are a force to reckon with right from being able to manage our homes with so many children,” she said

Banda, who assumed power upon the death of former president the late Bingu wa Mutharika, is Africa’s second female president after Liberia’s Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.