Many know his as the professor with an array of degrees under his belt and as the governor of the county of Kisumu.
What many do not know about this scholar per excellence is that he back in the 90s survived an attempt on his life while in the process of looking for the body of his brother.
Back then, he was a politically conscious professor teaching at the University of Nairobi and feeding his students with Marxist literature that got the Moi regime concerned.
Thanks to his involvement in protests staged by students, he was arrested a couple of times and thrown behind bars in a bid to kill his resolve.
One day as he was coming from one of his classes, he was met by his sister Susan who told him that his brother Charles had allegedly committed suicide by throwing himself off a ferry in Mombasa.
"She told me my brother Charles who looked exactly like me, 10 years younger than me had been killed in Mombasa. We say how? It is said that he was in a ferry and he just jumped off the ferry which was not true, " the Kisumu governor told an Engage audience in 2018. (18:32-18:50)
Prof Anyang' Nyong'o was forced to travel to the coast in abid to find out to himself what had happened to his brother.
He spent three weeks in that effort even enlisting the services of the British Marine Corps but nothing came of that effort.
It while sitting at a bar nursing a bottle of beer that an attempt to assassinate him was made.
He went to the loos to answer a call of nature and that is when his drink was spiked with poison.
When he took a swig of the beer, he started feeling dizzy after some time and was quickly attended to.
"The mistake I made is that I left my mug of beer on the counter so when I came back sipped it one or two times, I started vomiting, " the governor said. (19:55-20:05)
Luckily, he was quickly attended to and he survived that assassination attempt.