Bury it once and for all.

This blogger would ordinarily not admit this, but without the contribution of interlocutors such as the Presidency's Senior Director of Messaging, this blog would be deprived of maddening material to respond to. That being so, Eric Ng'eno's most recent diatribe against a former bearded sister of the Seven Bearded Sisters fame, an also-ran in the Presidential horse-race in 2002, a former Minister for Lands, and a luminary of the CORD constellation, is notable not because of the brickbats hurled at the indefatigable James Agreey Bruno Orengo but for the backhanded compliments given to Charity Ngilu, the Cabinet Secretary for Lands, Housing and Urban Development.

If Mr Orengo has anything to say in respond to Mr Ng'eno's astonishing attack, he is welcome to the Right of Reply column this blogger is sure that the Daily Nation will provide. However, he must be exposed for the intellectual pickpocket that he is. While appearing to celebrate Mrs Ngilu's spinal fortitude when she "stared down the syndicate" that had run riot at Ardhi House, exposing slightly over a million-and-a-quarter files that "had gone missing", he casually mentions that Mrs Ngilu had "limited patience with ideology" and "a comparatively modest education" without demonstrating why these are germane in the context of her apparently stellar performance at the Ministry of Lands.

This blogger has alluded to the misogyny that pervades the public service. Even with the rise of Mrs Ngilu in the company of Martha Karua, Betty Tett, Esther Koimett, Prof Margaret Kobia, it is still evident that even the Digital Generation of public officers are loath to admit that in the administration of public affairs, men and women are equal: equal in their venality and avarice on the one hand, and equal in their capability and dedication to duty on the other.

Whether one is ideologically minded or not, and whether one is educated to the highest level possible or not, there is a feeling abroad in the public service that women just don't have the stones to do the work. It is why their ambitions are seen as a fad, a passing cloud. Just like the Kiambu Mafia's passing cloud, this is a cloud that has simply refused to pass for twenty years. It is time that Mr Ng'eno and his fellow travellers accepted and moved on, to use one of UhuRuto's favourite slogans. These, of course, include Mithika Linturi who's petition to dismiss the devolution and Planning Cabinet Secretary was not defeated on merit, but on a technicality; Mr Linturi did not admit to have been motivated by misogynistic animus, but chose to stay away from the debate on his motion and thereby guaranteed its failure. In the expansive arena that is the Government of Kenya, it is time that we admitted to ourselves that men and women are equals.