A story is told of Kariuki Chotara, one of the biggest figures in the Kenyan political arena in the 1980s.
His is a story of a man whose resilience and cunning ways elevated him from the wheat fields of Naivasha to the president's dining table.
However, despite all the fame, popularity and money that comes with all that, the uneducated Kariuki remained largely ideologically blunt and at times did very weird and sorry things.
Some of these antics were done before the then President Daniel Moi who was also his close buddy and political master.
At one point in the 1980s, the former jailbird who joined President Jomo Kenyatta at the Lokitaung prison in Lodwar in 1954, dropped his gun in public.
On this day, he was addressing a gathering before dropping the microphone, and then his pistol and several bullets followed to the ground as he bent to pick the microphone, but how he excused himself remains a historical remark.
"Munanjua mimi ni chap chuta na hata DO natoka Ebakathi hawethi gushooti kama mimi! (I am a sharpshooter and even a DO straight from training in Embakasi cannot outdo me)," he was quoted by a Standard publication dated May 30, 2010.
The most popular was when he directed that University of Nairobi students be given dosages of 'dialogue' when he learned they were agitating for it.
"Kama ni hiyo dialogue wanataka, si wapewe tu, kwani wananyimwa kwa nini? (If they want dialogue, let them have it. Why are they being denied?)," he is quoted as having said.
When he was told that they were being misled and influenced by one Karl Max, he proposed that the Karl Max man be arrested and detained to prevent him from misleading the young people
"Sasa huyo Karo Maxi kama ni yeye anasubua watoto na kufudicha hawa mabo baya, si achikwe na kufugiwa dani? (If Karl Marx is the one teaching the students bad things, why shouldn’t he be arrested and locked up?)," he wondered.
Chotara who had joined the Kenya African National Union (KANU) in 1975 began as the KANU leader for Naivasha division, before taking over the entire Nakuru seat after Kihika Kimani left for Tanzania.
He predicted his death at the Afraha Stadium in August 1987, and thanked his supporters, noting that death was mandatory.
On the morning of Saturday, January 9, 1988, he made his final bow.
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