Kenya’s President William Ruto has appointed Major-General Fatuma Gaiti Ahmed as the Commander of the Air Force, becoming the first female in that position.
The appointment on Thursday became the second most significant made by the Kenyan leader after Charles Muriu Kahariri was decorated as the Defence Chief.
Earlier, Vanguard reported that Ruto promoted Kahariri as the East Africa country’s defence chief following the death of his predecessor Francis Omondi Ogolla in a helicopter crash.
Ogolla who was among 10 military officers killed when their chopper went down in a remote area of northwestern Kenya on April 18.
Meanwhile, Fatuma Ahmed has emerged as the first woman in Kenya’s history to head one of the military services.
Maj Gen Ahmed has previously held other firsts in the military leadership dominated by men but rose to be the first woman to rise to the rank of brigadier and major general.
According to BBC, Ahmed joined the military in 1983, serving under the Women Service Corps, a woman-only outfit that operated as a separate entity from the other arms of the defence forces.
They were an auxiliary service offering support duties such as administrative work, logistics, medical and communication.
The unit was disbanded in 1999 and it was only then that its members were allowed to join the main military services – the navy, air force and army.
The co-option of the unit provided more opportunities for women to participate in military duties and also allowed women like Maj Gen Ahmed to rise through the ranks.
Her rise has been seen as an achievement in promoting gender equality in the armed forces.
In 2018, as she was being promoted to major general, then President Uhuru Kenyatta said he was counting on her “to be a positive role model to women in this country”.
“Prove to them that there are no limits for women,” the president said.
Maj Gen Ahmed has previously said she was inspired to join the military by an uncle who was in the military, admiring his discipline and hard work that “shaped my life from a very early stage”.
She said some of her family members discouraged her from joining the forces – “they said ‘that’s not a profession for women'”, she told Citizen TV in 2018.
“But I was determined to make a difference in my life,” she said.
