High poverty levels in the Ukambani region once made young Ezekiel Mutua aspire to marry a girl from the Kikuyu community.
This was due to the fact that there were adequate rains in Central Kenya unlike in Ukambani where drought and famine was the order of the day.
Mutua, the current Chief Executive Officer of Kenya Film Classification Board(KFCB), believed marrying a girl from his community would make him remain in poverty all his life.
"I told my mum I was going to look for a Kikuyu girl because their place rained so much and did not have famine issues like we used to do…I used to believe that marrying a Kamba girl would condemn me to poverty forever," he said during an interview with Citizen TV, Friday night.
But as fate would have it, the no-nonsense CEO ended up marrying a Kamba girl he met while studying at Kenyatta University.
"We used to meet at the Christian Union (CU) meetings where she was the head of Bible study and I was the head of missions. She was the most beautiful and brilliant," he spoke highly of his wife, Jane Mbagi Mutua.
Jane is the current director, programme development and quality at Save the Children, an international non-governmental organization.
The couple has been blessed with two children, one in college and the last born sitting for her Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) this year at the Riara Group of Schools.
Mutua, who Kenyans have branded the 'moral police', says it's through hard work and discipline he has amassed success in life.
"I saw the challenges of growing up in a poor family…my father used to brew the traditional brew (karubu) but he used to do it so well that it attracted clients from far and wide," he said disclosing he was introduced to school by a teacher who had come to take 'karubu' at his father's homestead.