Very little was known about Ronnie Osumba, until he chose to be Peter Kenneth’s running mate in the March 2013 Presidential elections.
It also jolted his marriage to his wife Vera, which he say they are still working on and trying to salvage.
Osumba, a father of two, made these revelations when he spoke at a recent event.
Osumba, who served as chairman of the Youth Enterprise Development Fund, narrated how life changed after he got that important call that ushered him into politics.
He says when he began his stint in politics, he left a comfortable job at Safaricom.
He remembers his wife telling him that their lives should not change. But their lives did change in the course of time.
“We lost. I had gotten involved in politics and we had failed. My prospects were also not great,” he narrated.
He says that after conceding defeat, his life as he knew it ended.
“It was another spectacular failure and I was crushed.”
And it got worse. He was now out of a job and desperate.
“For one month I was in limbo. I didn’t know what to do.”
While licking his wounds, he decided to tweet out a word “Onwards” as a note of encouragement to himself.
That tweet turned into a lifeline for him.
He got hundreds of encouragement from Kenyans, who he describes as fundamentally good people.
But the one reply that carried the day was from the late Bob Collymore who was then the CEO of Safaricom.
“You do know you have your return ticket,” Collymore offered.
Two weeks later he was back at his desk.
After his brief stint in politics and period in Safaricom, he set up an organisation called Onwards Kenya. He was later offered a position as Head of Public Sector at Oracle Corporation and accepted.
President Uhuru Kenyatta then appointed him as the chairman of the Youth Advisory Board, a position he says he did not apply for.
Months later, the President appointed him to chair the Youth Enterprise Development Fund. And so he resigned from Oracle and took up the new position.
“I have learned a lot through my journey, that life is not a stage, life is a war made up of many battles; you win some, you lose some,” he says.
He however admits that he is still battling my wars in his life.
“I’m fighting my own battles, my marriage, my finances, my health, my career, but I have come to love my battle scars, because they are my budge of honour.”
Osumba has had moments of resounding success, but also suffered epic fails. When all is said and done, he asserts that he has learnt and that he will keep fighting.
“Because some of my battles and struggles have been public, people think that I conquer easily and I get up and we move on. The truth is, I don’t, I go broke, I disappoint the people I love, I fall sick, I lose. But because of the people around me, because of them I will keep fighting my battle and I can guarantee you I will win the war,” he says.
