The thin line between eccentricity and insanity is riddled with money, and power, and political office, all of which Kenyan politicians have. In fact, if you the common Wanjiku were to try some of the eccentricities here, there would be a ‘Get Wanjiku to Mathari Hospital Campaign.’

#7 Kamwithi Munyi

In an age that was characterized by sychophancy and national asskissing to win favor with the big man it is hard for anyone to stand out, but this man did. Everyone was ‘toeing the line’ which is just euphemism for kissing the man who lived in the house on the hill’s ass.?Kamwithi Munyi would wear “… two wristwatches lest he missed a presidential function, nodded at every word the president uttered as he judiciously took notes

Kamwithi, seen here after reincarnation…

Thats it, Munyi wore two watches because he didn’t trust either to be correct. He believed in The Synergy of Many Watches and the ancient art of asskissing [citation needed] Or perhaps no one told him about Segals Law “A man with a watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure.”

People wear two watches for different reasons, the more apparent of which is stupidity.

#6 Dixon Kihika Kimani

Where Peter Oloo Aringo was the court poet, Dixon Kihika Kimani was the court jester and he owned that with unmatched awesomeness.

Kihika Kimani Live? Anyone? NTV?

Most of his quips were in vernacular but the meaning cannot be lost to anyone.
He holds the record for being the only man to ever represent three different constituencies. You would think disappointing three different electorates would qualify one for the list but this man did more, or rather sad more.

When a Nakuru trader, Mbugua, expressed interest in a car he was selling, he laughed off the whole idea and told him in Kikuyu: “Ukwenda gakari gaka nduire thuragiria? (You want this car, in which I have been farting?)” Well, that is not exactly a sales pitch, sir.
Interviewer (when he saw the 70-year old Kihika with a 6-month old boy): “Ona gaka no gaku mutongoria? (You have fathered this one, too, mheshimiwa?)

…and he might have succeded, meet his gorgeous daughter, now the Nakuru County Assembly Speaker…your argument is invalid.

Kihika: “Tondu niwe undeithitie gugaciara?” (Have I asked forhelp from you on that matter?).
“Hata sasa nikitaka naweza kuchukua wanawake tatu, nne, niende nao kwangu kwa sababu nina mali (Even now, I can take away three or four womenand marry them off because I have wealth),” he would say.

He was elected in three different constituencies, a fete no one has achieved before or after him. He is also famous for having his six wives run in different constituencies, giving new meaning to the art of spreading your luck.

# 5 C M Njonjo and his pinstripe

Meet Sir Charles M. Njonjo, the Duke of Kabeteshire. Njonjo is almost always seen Clad in his trademark three-piece custom-made pinstripe (with his initials “CN”) suits with a watch on a golden chain dangling down his neck.He is a man who is known for his British mannerisms, although we cannot confirm whether this is as cool as having a British accent (which has been scientifically proven to increase ones chances of getting laid exponentially). Njonjo is credited with giving us Kenya’s Machiavellian prince, also known as the giraffe of Kenyan politics, and hence triggering events whose effects we are still seeing now. If kids do not get their free laptops.in the next six months, you know who to blame now.
Everyone knew Sir Charles was stylish and more obsessed over his pinstripes than the government he was supposed to be advising on legal matters. The truth about the pinstripes, was captured in the Miller Inquiry when so many snitching on the man that it held the record until Michael Vick was tried for holding dog fights [citation needed].
The Miller Inquiry ended up being more about the mans vanity and narcissism than the accusation of treason. THis was the same man who had accused people of ‘imagining the death of the president’ so…karma.

The age before zoom?

“In January 1981 he (senior superintendent of police Essau Kihumba Kioni) discussed with a Mr Todd, an accountant in the revenue section, the issue of excess baggage weighing 270kg that had been flown in by Njonjo from London. When it was confirmed with the London authorities that Njonjo had not paid for the excess baggage, the chief accountant discussed the matter with the airlines Managing Director, Lord Cole and Njonjo was invoiced Sh36,272.50 on January 21, 1981. On January 29 the same year Kioni was summoned to Njonjos office, where in front of Lord Cole and Simon Mbugua the then permanent secretary in the Ministry of Transport, the former AG expressed his disgust at the police officer.”

270kg of what most certainly were a bunch of suits and for which a lowly officer got to see the AG’s office.

You raise us tyranny and a suit, Hosni? We raise you consistency!

Now, even common folk like you and I get clothes that are tailored somewhere-the difference is whether they are tailored in a sweatshop in China where one of the company policy rules is to not get frustrated and jump out of the window, or in London where the cost of thread can feed a family for a few weeks.

Njonjo wins this for consistency, having worn the suits for almost as long as he has been posing for photos.

#4 Martin Shikuku and the early grave

In an age where sycophancy was the norm, there were those few blessed with tonnes of bollocks the size of Saturn complete with rings of badassery and nongiveanyfuckatall-erely (citation needed). One of those few was Martin Shikuku.

KANU might be dead, Shikuku, but it had already sired enough….

Shikuku dug his own grave actually he had two of them dug and labeled clearly so no one would bury him in his wifes grave. Then he bought them coffins and placed them in the house. You can relax now, married guy, suddenly your oily spanner on the kitchen table sounds like childs play. If she ever brings up that or the dirty socks on the coffee table, point her to what Shikukus wife had to go through with two coffins in the house, maybe even using them as a book case.
Shikuku made his funeral arrangements in 2004 (Including no religious rites and political speeches), which is pretty weird because his chances of being assassinated had gone down exponentially with the fall of the official KANU in 2002. He is most famous for saying that KANU, the mother and father of the republic, the cockerel of the land was dead.

“Yes, I need two levels in the grave too, in case I decide to resurrect”

Everyone knew it, but you couldnt just tell the king he was naked. Simply calling the cock (ignore, for the next few minutes, that the last two syllables of his surname alluded to poultry) dead does not count as a qualification to be on this list-there are enough men having to tell their girlfriends that everyday-but the cock in question here was the only cock in the whole nation (I don’t know why you are thinking of the cock that is not the cockerel that is only male poultry. You might need therapy), But my guess is that there are two places you couldn’t say ‘the cock is dead’ and expect to be treated the same way after between 1965 and 1991 and that’s Kenya and the Playboy mansions.

For eight years he walked past his own grave most likely even jumped in a few times to get a feel of his body’s eternal home. You figure he most likely covered it or something, more to prevent the occassional four-legged domesticated animal from falling in and forcing everyone to throw ropes at an ass.

#3 Mutula Kilonzo, the Lion herder

So you own a pet, or pets,yes? You do, of course you do, you are most likely reading this with your feline lord straddled across your lap, and you are stroking her with one hand as you scroll down with the other…any lubricant and I would ask you to first finish off the creepy business before reading on! Or you own lolCats, the internet equivalent of these living deities. Still, you own a pet, even if its just the cockroaches now walking across your carpet simply because someone whose pants you are trying to decode is seated across….whichever the case, your relevant lane on the road of pet-keeping is a damp weather road with potholes compared to this man’s.

No, not this one of his hobbies…

Meet the other Mutula who lives in his Sh2 million cage called The Hague. The other Mutula is not a learned friend, he is a friend with a mane, a lion (Dear dyslexic, we all have loins, if we had wanted a list about loins we would have written one. So, lions it is, unless your lions are roaring in which case, stop reading this and go get checked by someone, preferably a witchdoctor with proven experience and no front teeth….trust me, you do not want to know why). 2 million bob, you that read right (but you that read wrong, this too…again, twice, too easy?).

That’s the price of a decent family home in most parts of KE, or a campaign if you want to win a parliamentary seat in Meru.

The politician is rearing three lions and has named the dominant one after himself (ofcourse). The lions and the cheetahs (one named Mutula and the other Ocampo because …well,because subliminal) are fed on beef and goat meat from his livestock, but only five days in a week so they don’t become obese-no one wants momo-lions.

Two Mutulas, one owned by KWS, the other by KRA.

One lionness is named Sis and the other, Nduku, after his wife. Now, given that this are the only three lions on the ranch, and that they most likely mate (although they are orphans), this could actually be a representation of a man’s threesome fantasy cum incest cum adultery with le sister and le wife cum everyone at once. [citation needed]
Now you have to clarify which Mutula you are talking about, is it Mutula the Simba, Mutula the Wild Pig, Mutula the Cheetah or Mutula the former Mbooni MP (you would think representing a constituency with such a name would be enough).

Naming a wild pig after yourself is not exactly subtle is it sir?

#2 D. T Arap Moi and his baton
Its the way he shamelessly fondles it in public (for over three decades, the horror!) that should tell you who we are as a country. We are queer, we like to watch…

See how he holds it?

It looks somewhat like a dildo, something you would see in a grotesque porn movie with a lass on heels on one end and a jerk on the other. In this scenario, only the lass is missing.No one knows whether he sleeps with it.
Moi is an obsessive man, as this profile on his sense style suggests . He is well-dressed for a man his age, and looks quite healthy but it is impossible to find a profile of the man that does not mention the “elegant gold- or silver-tipped ivory rungu.”

He referred to it as his fimbo ya nyayo- making you dear male reader, not the first one to name something you own and fondle fimbo, in fact, take a number, this one might have copyright issues.

We know he used it whenever he was angry; sometimes shattering it in which case another rhino or elephant would have to die for a replacement baton- unless all the rungus were made when the first one was killed, poachers, are two tusks enough forsay, 30 presidential phallic symbols? This is a safe environment, you can answer at the comment section(the worst that can happen is a 30k fine if they catch you).

Is it just me or is the head on this one bigger?

During a visit to Australia in 1981, Moi accidentally dropped and broke it.?? He was so distressed that aides had to arrange for a replacement to Down Under (See what I did there?)

Eddie Murphy once described Moi as a bone carrying head of state . If Eddie Murphy had been Kenyan, Eddie Murphy would have had Eddie Murphy’s balls between a pair of rusty pliers in the basement of Nyayo House for sedition and making fun of the father of the nation. The man was Machiavellian to the core, a giraffe and a tyrant now celebrated for being old and clairvoyant.

Seen here definitely not describing the size of the real one

Should it worry you when everyone talks about the pointy thing you carry around everywhere? Especially if you don’t work in the porn industry?

Yes, the taxpayer paid for an eccentricity because you don’t want your president to be distressed that the thing he holds on to is now broken. Because we never heard it after, in the next 20 odd years of leadership, we can assume he improved his grip, learnt how to….hold it better with dropping it…if you catch my drift.
It seems to escape our national conscience that we have phallic symbols in the capital city and a major town and we are not worried about its impact on morals (come on clergy, when do you start hating on this one too?).

Your Excellency, if you would please toss your rungu in there too, and maybe stand closer to the fire?

The irony did not seem to dawn on anyone that the guy burning 60 tonnes of ivory? to discourage poaching was holding a baton was made of ivory.

Closer…

I dare you to start hitting on women in the club while holding a baton suggestively. Well, Moi can get away with that but you my friend can’t… This can only work if you own stuff and you make shit happen. Some life advice? Whatever your eccentricity is, don’t carry a baton unless you are high in the police hierachy, unless it can get you laid then always carry a baton, in fact, carry a pair of balls too!

When you are president you can even immortalize the phallic symbol, and add a mountain just for kicks…

#1 Dr. Taita Towett and a host of eccentricities
Any list here at Too Late for Worms that Dr. Towett appears in is bound to have him as the most of anything… because? was weird and he owned it….like a bawse, before it was even cool to be short and not give the tiniest of F-words for what anyone else thought. Taita Towett is here because if he wasn’t rich or powerful, he would have simply been a madman.

So you think you are awesome? Tell me more…(see the specs?)

Now, one understands why a man with 26 children, five marriages and two divorces would make everyone keep time. You dont want a whole polling station yelling give us money, give us money at the same time. As a Kenyan politician, Towett knew the ancient art of keeping your constituents waiting, ensuring you could break their will one by one.
When everyone was clamoring for multipartyism from 1988? Towettwas advocating for a party-less state-which would have saved us from our legendary political prostitution. We also know that he was a linguist, and a tribalist, by todays standards for having not pretended he wanted other tribes in the Rift Valley in the 1960.

Research Endeavors
Long before Robinson Githae told us we were dying of hunger because we are stupid (not exactly in thos words), Towett had already tried to figure out how eating moles (which he paid catchers KShs. 15 for) affects the eaters sleeping habits.His hypothesis? That rodents have heavy sleeping habits and most likely affect how the eater sleep? This would have been important research and might have, to some extent,, provided Githae with the scientific evidence he needed to validate telling such a proud goat-and-donkey eating nation to eat rats.

Plus there would have been a clash of egos, cats do whatever they want too…Feline Towetts

He had first wanted to use cats for the study but abandoned the feline animals because he discovered their ineptness. The cats were naturally heavy sleepers and he settled on the moles.

That’s right, this guy stayed up watching rodents sleep. Which makes sense, to some level, because you want to wake your cat up when the mice are asleep, or to take shifts waiting outside the mice-condo in your wall (we have watched too much Tom and Jerry, clearly).
Why we dont have the journal article? Well, hes research couldn’t really have passed the scientific tests of validity because of several reasons. One, he was his own sample population, okay, he and the moles he caught and booked one of his wives to cook for him were the sample population. Being the guinea pig is not exactly sharp is it?

(Singing) SOMEBADY SAAAAAAAAAAVVEEEE ME!

Two, even if we were to accept his self-experiement, there is also the other matter of his WhiteCap. Anyone who knows Queens OClock knows that it is the ancient cure for insomnia and is so effective that it most likely made the moles look bad.
Another one of his many research endeavors was the effect of alcohol on sexual performance in men. It just sounds like a ruse to get an orgy from your five wives doesnt it? You would think owning a harem would increase your chances of getting laid

Mashimoni
It is said that his Ngata house farm was invisible until one got really close to it, and no, I am not making phallic allusions as I was doing in one of the previous entries. The house, known as Mashimoni, first made it to the national news plate when the Standard carried an article in 1987 of how weird Towett was.
When the journalist asked him why he dug out so much soil and built a bunker excuse for a house, his response was:

There is no such thing in the world as below ground because even if you dig a hundred kilometres into the ground, you will still be stepping on ground. I have built my house below grass. You will appreciate that grass only grows at the surface of the earth. My house is, therefore, below grass residence.“

Plus below grass sounds like euphemism for being baked.
If you think you are eccentric, dig a house below ground level and call it Mashimoni (the name is so graphic, but I figure he had a crisis because he wanted to call it Shimoni but couldn’t because it would have alluded to something completely different) and spend a few months watching moles sleep, or socialites, whichever tickles you.
The Passenger Seat
Towetts greatest eccentricity was not even watching moles knock it off or even making barbeque sticks out of their tiny internal organs. His greatest eccentricity was that he thought the inner design of the car was stupid, and he set out to offset the imbalance. How? First, he took out all the back seats and placed a bag of sand in the back (Of all his cars). Then he removed the passenger seat and reversed it to face the back so the passenger could face the driver in transit.

His justification for removing the back seats? “I am not running a taxi service. One seat is enough for me“
For turning the passenger seat? “I like to see who I am talking to, as we travel… most people are so linear in their thinking you waste time looking at them directly in the eye“

Dramatization

But sir, you had a family of 26 children, what you needed was as many seats as those in a Nyayo bus, not less. The rationale here was probably not putting all your eggs in one basket.
Coould it have all been a ruse to get head-it must be easier? Or to be straddled when driving without the whole, shift-gears-first-so-I-can-move-thing. It makes sense, especially in a car-chase, plus also gives new meaning to head on collision.

Which means that at some point in NRB’s notorius jam, a bored driver would look at the next car and see a man seated on the passenger seat, facing behind, not giving a fuck about anything, and just being awesome and weird. That man, giving a whole new definition to riding shotgun, and perching his spectacles on his head because why not? It also means that guy who drives a pimped out Vitz with Christmas lights on the outside and a spade on the excuse of a boot suddenly looks sane.

Owaahh, 2013.

Kenya Martin Shikuku Moi Taita Towett

Last modified: February 3, 2020