Otonglo time proper as ‘Uhuru’s son’ Daniel Owira comes of age

The trust has been paying all his fees at Multimedia University (MMU) for the past four years and giving him a monthly stipend for accommodation, food and other expenses. It also supported his mother’s business.

Owira is, however, no longer getting money from the Kenyatta trust.

After graduating on December 18, 2020, the 27-year-old has to use the knowledge he had gained, coupled with his talents, to make his own otonglo.

It is now “otonglo time” proper for the man who comes from a polygamous family of 11 children.

Does it scare him that, having been taken from the slums to a life of plenty, thanks to the President’s assistance, he is now supposed to fend for himself? He laughs when Lifestyle asks that question.

“Let me say that the immediate reaction is being scared. Let’s just be honest with each other, my brother: The world is not fair. It does not smile at you every day. So, you have to be scared,” he responds.

Challenges

“Also, at the end of the day, we need a bit of fear in us because that is what triggers adrenaline that tells you to get up and face your challenges. So, to be honest, I can say I am scared. But that fear put some sort of adrenaline in me that gave me the opportunity to know that things will be all right,” he adds, noting that the Kenyatta Trust is still open to supporting him.

In December, he completed his internship with Oakwood Brand Consulting in Nairobi (and he strongly refutes information in a widely shared post that he has landed another internship with CNN). We ask if he plans to start his own company or to work somewhere.

“I am still a work in progress,” says Owira. “There is a lot I need to learn; I am still new to the world. They say the best way to learn how to walk and even to start walking fast and running is by learning from other people.”

He goes on: “At the moment, I am looking forward to at least learn under someone; so that when I feel that I truly have strong wings to fly, then why not? I’ll fly like everybody else.”

The last time he was interviewed by the Nation, Owira had just scored a C+ in the 2015 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education examination. That was two years after he had left his audience in stitches in Mombasa as he told the Otonglo Time narrative with so much composure and with punch lines delivered so masterfully that President Kenyatta, just months in office, could not help laughing.

The President later scheduled a meeting with Owira, then a Form Two student at Highway Secondary School. Owira told The Nairobian in 2017 that Mr Kenyatta asked him how he could help.

“I was torn between money and a piece of land. After a serious thought, l picked education,” he said.

With that choice, Mr Kenyatta later posted: “I have today offered a full education sponsorship up to the university level to Daniel Owira when he visited me at State House.”

That earned Owira the rare “President’s son” title, though he told NTV late last year that he did not have access to State House as some people might have believed.

“If I was in a position to get my father’s (Uhuru Kenyatta’s) audience almost every day, I think I could have been overwhelming him with a lot of things that Kenyans sit me down and tell me,” he told comedian Dr King’ori.

He added that after the President handed him over to the Kenyatta Trust, which says on its website that it has supported more than 3,000 Kenyans, his celebrity status was defused.

The initial sessions, he said, imparted to him the message: “Apply brakes, start walking. Keep calm; you’re not a celebrity here. Here we want to develop you.”

Star-struck

During Owira’s early days in university, lecturers and students would be star-struck around him, as Duncan Ondieki, a university classmate and roommate of Owira’s, told Lifestyle.

“Once we were in class for the first time, lecturers were treating him as a celeb, but he was in no mood for that. So, he lowered himself to a level where they saw this guy was normal. He never wanted that celebrity attention. He just wanted to be humble like a normal person. He could avoid privileges,” Ondieki said.

Four years ago, Ondieki co-rented a house in Rongai with Owira, from where they would attend their classes and conduct studies. They have been staying there to date as they figure out their post-university life.

“We’ve lived together for four years. I can say our relationship is more of a brotherhood: Whatever I do, I must include him and whatever he does, he has to consult me,” Ondieki said.

Ondieki has had a chance to observe the “President’s Son” closer than most people. So, how is he on a personal level?

“He’s a guy who speaks his mind. He won’t soothe your ego to fit the moment. He expresses himself plainly. You might be mad at him for a few days, but at the end of the day it’s the truth. That’s what I’ve come to learn. As much as he might be insensitive to your insecurities or whatever, as long as it’s wrong he’ll just tell you,” said Ondieki.

He also notes that from the third year in university, Owira took keen interest in studies and decided to go slow on taking part in performances.

“He focused on studies and said the stage could wait. But he is now back,” Ondieki says.

Owira says it was all in a bid to give his best in academics.

“There is a saying that you cannot serve two masters at a go,” he says. “I was working hard with studies and in that process, there are projects I could take up once in a while; like Inspekta Mwala calling me to be a guest actor.”

Now that he has a degree in hand, he says, he is ready to “catch up” with his fellow artistes. He is the only one among his 10 siblings who holds a university degree and he reckons that is no mean feat.

“Everything now makes sense,” he says as he reflects on that special achievement among his siblings. “God has brought me this far and I have to be grateful and to remain humble.”

Going by his performance, which tickled the President’s funny bone, Owira has the potential to make it in stand-up comedy and on stage in general. He told KTN in 2018 that the poverty he grew up in had forced him to embrace the arts and sports as he sought a passport out of the squalour at the Mukuru kwa Njenga slums.

He also has the option of pursuing the advertising campaign route, as he once did with the “Kaduda Kaselfie” phone, a sales promotion blitz organised by Telkom Kenya.

In the Kaduda adverts, he deployed his well-practised signature Luo accent to comically describe the features of the phone, which left viewers smiling.

Asked whether he would like to venture into comedy-infused advertising like Eric Omondi, Njugush and Flaqo, Owira said it is a possibility.

“We respect them (comedians) because they tapped the opportunity. They found a niche and they decided to utilise it,” says Owira.

“I believe there are still lots of opportunities. If I sit down and start drawing on the board to see where this trend is going, I can equally come up with worthy content that I am sure Kenyans would love to watch,” he adds.

The “President’s Son” tag might probably work to his advantage in any field he ventures into, and he knows as much.

Electric performance

“If we narrow it to that perspective, then my title in one way or another will always uplift me in certain situations or give me an added advantage over someone who does not have a title,” offers Owira. “I believe the title that the Lord gave me ‘The President’s Son’ can be an added advantage in certain situations or circumstances.”

Major changes

A lot has changed in Owira’s life since that electric performance before the President at the Kenya Schools, Colleges and Universities Drama Festivals winners’ concert at State House, Mombasa.

His mother, Rose Owiyo, for instance, moved from Mukuru slums to the middle-class Tassia Estate. She has since relocated to Kisumu.

“She stayed in Tassia for a couple of years until she called us as a family and said she felt she was getting old. She said it would be good if she went close to home (in Siaya County). So, we organised and took her to Kisumu,” Owira recounts.

“She is doing business in Kisumu. She sells fish and other types of food here and there,” he adds. “She’s a strong woman who tries to the best of her ability. She has helped in raising the entire family and the grandchildren. I won’t say she is totally fine, but she has to struggle like other women because the support (from the President) was for her business, and you know it is upon us to continue the business that was boosted.”

Some of the changes have been disadvantageous, however.

He has lost count of the number of times people posted exaggerated or untrue stories about him on social media. For instance, there is a time he went to buy githeri to sate his craving for it.

Someone, however, thought it was a desperate moment for the “President’s Son” and probably a sign that Mr Kenyatta was no longer supporting him.

Expecting favour

“Now, he decided to take all that to social media … and it trended for almost one week,” Owira told Dr King’ori.

Ondieki, Owira’s long-time roommate, also noted that some people sometimes act nice towards the actor in the hope that sometime later, they can ask to be connected to the President.

“You know how someone treats you well expecting a favour; then at the end of the week or month, calls you and says ‘There is this project I have, I wanted to meet the President. How can we do it? I know you have contacts.’ He used to avoid such, because they ended up frustrating people for no reason,” Ondieki told Lifestyle.

From our conversation with Owira, it appeared that the events of the past seven years have increased his faith in God. Though not a staunch churchgoer, Owira says he reads the Bible quite often.

“I do read the Bible because I believe it’s good. It has knowledge, it has understanding, and it is so powerful in a way that it gives you direction,” he says. “I read the Word a lot.”

He says he now approaches the world like a chick hatching from its egg. He is armed with an education he probably could not have acquired, a talent that can pull masses, an accent that can nail most jokes, a belief in God and a friend in his roommate-cum-classmate among others. So, where will his otonglo come from?

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