Former popular politician and strong Kenya African National Union (KANU) was a man loved by few and hated by most, especially after he took over as the Party’s Chairman for Naivasha Division in 1975.
He would later rise to one of the strongest men in the nation after aligning himself with President Daniel Moi at a time when most of his fellow prominent Kikuyu leaders were working around the clock to block Moi’s presidency several years to Jomo Kenyatta’s death.
To others, he was a hero who used his fortune to feed the poor, house the homeless and aid the unfortunate but was a villain to some, especially business-people and youth back in Naivasha.
Before his growth to the position of KANU kingpin in the entire Nakuru region, when the former holder of the seat Kihika Kimani fled to Tanzania in 1979, Chotara formed the most dreaded wing of the KANU youth which was blamed for mistreating and harassing people.
It is said so merciless was his group that people who were implicated in crime, according to the group, preferred delivering themselves to the police rather than land in the hands of Chotara’s crew.
Chotara, a wheat farmer and former jailbird who shared the Lokitaung’ Prison in Lodwar with founding father Jomo Kenyatta in 1954, also became a horrifying figure to fellow leaders, including Ng’ang’a Kihonge whom he was never in agreement with.
Kihonge was then the Nakuru County Chairman and the two always locked horns, at one point personally driving to the Nakuru State House to meet Moi, in a bid to scuttle Kihonge’s forthcoming meeting with the President.
And when he died on January 9, 1988, so happy were the people who disliked him that it is said beer flowed freely in the streets of Naivasha as they jumped into celebrations.
This and more on Chotara's political escapades can be found here
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