Meet little-known MCA who floored Deputy Speaker Moses Cheboi
Alfred Mutai speaking to the Nation in Nakuru City. He won the just concluded UDA nominations to vie for Kuresoi North Member of Parliament.
When you meet for the first time the self-effacing Alfred Mutai, 35, in the streets of Nakuru, his gracious and humble demeanour strikes you.
Mr Mutai is an affable man, speaks with humility and freely mixes and interacts with ordinary wananchi with ease.
This is the man who surprised many last week after he trounced National Assembly Deputy Speaker and Kuresoi North MP Moses Cheboi in the United Democratic Alliance party primaries.
Popularly known as Warthog, the ward representative for Sirikwa in Nakuru County, garnered 17,180 votes against Mr Cheboi’s 12,454 in the hotly contested primaries. Leonard Borr, another contestant, received 2,284 votes.
Mr Mutai, MCA since 2017, joined the parliamentary race and battled four other aspirants including Mr Cheboi.
When the Nation caught up with him at a hotel in Nakuru, where he was meeting a group of Kuresoi North constituents, he was still savouring his victory.
“I thank the people of Kuresoi North for bestowing on me the honour of flying the UDA flag in the August 9 polls. I am confident that I will win and represent them in Parliament,” Mr Mutai said.
Alfred Mutai. He joined the Kuresoi North parliamentary race and battled four other aspirants including Deputy Speaker Moses Cheboi.
Growing up an orphan, Mr Mutai witnessed firsthand how poverty devastates families.
The former charcoal maker was born in Kaplong, Bomet County, before his parents moved to Kuresoi constituency in 1996.
He grew up in Kuresoi before the constituency was split into Kuresoi North and Kuresoi South.
After primary school, Mr Mutai joined Kaplong Boys High School, but he lost his parents in 2001 while in Form One, prompting his relatives to transfer him to a cheaper, local day school.
This, Mr Mutai said, forced him to work during school holidays in eateries as a waiter and sometimes in forests as an illegal charcoal maker to raise money for school fees and basic needs for his siblings.
The fourth-born in a family of nine siblings completed secondary school, attaining a mean grade of 64 points, missing two points to qualify for university.
“Losing a parent at a young age was not easy. It forced me to work at a tender age to join hands with my elder siblings to support the others and also so that I (could earn) money for my school fees, but luckily I completed my studies after hustling all through,” he said.
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In 2014, he joined the Nakuru campus of Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (Jkuat) to study information technology under the so-called parallel programme. His studies, which were supposed to take two and half years, ended up taking four years due to lack of school fees.
Mr Mutai would study on weekdays and travel to his Kuresoi home on weekends to make charcoal in the Kuresoi forest for sale.
He said he attempted farming with Sh23,000 he had earned as an enumerator in the 2009 census but drought killed his crops. He went back to charcoal making.
He recalled an incident in 2012 when forest rangers raided his home after receiving a tip that he had harvested 1,700 logs that were supposed to be transported to Kisumu.
Mr Mutai was arrested and charged in a Molo court.
He denied the charges and was remanded at the Nakuru GK prison after failing to raise bond.
He later pleaded guilty and was released after two weeks in custody to serve a six-month probation sentence.
“I knew the business was illegal but I had no alternative. I needed to go to school myself and my siblings were also studying, but I thank the magistrate for hearing me out during mitigation before sentencing. I opened up on what I was going through and luckily he was touched by my story and gave me the probation sentence,” he recalled.
“I used to get good money. I can't complain, my college fee was Sh64,000 per semester. I used to survive with bursaries and Helb loans and the rest I could pay with the money I got from selling charcoal.”
He was arrested again when he was found preparing to make charcoal. This time around, he was fined heavily but his extended family came through for him.
In 2017, while still a student, he vied for the Sirikwa ward seat and won on a Jubilee ticket. He said his friend helped him with the registration fee.
The father of three attributed his recent win to his manifesto and development projects he had implemented in his ward.
He noted that among his priorities is uplifting education standards in Kuresoi North.
Also on his agenda are tackling youth unemployment, empowering women and upgrading infrastructure. He said he would work with the devolved unit to ensure existing facilities are improved.
