At 87, George Gregory Wilson Nthenge stands straight as a ramrod and is easily picked in the thin crowd of his agemates.
The MP who was among Forum for the Restoration of Democracy (FORD) founders revealed in an interview that he was a year ahead of former President Mwai Kibaki at Mang'u High School.
He narrated how the head of state was among a group of form one students whom he saved from bullies back in 1948.
The new students mostly had to undergo physical beating at the time as their senior bullied them.
“I wonder if Kibaki still remembers that,” he says with a laugh that exposes a toothless gum.
He noted that he stood against his form two and asked his classmates what they stood to gain apart from adolescent fun.
The MP also narrated how he lost his wife, Emelda Damaris Mukui, and eight of his children in an accident after his vehicle collided head-on with a lorry carrying limestone.
“Apart from my nine children, my niece was also in the vehicle, a Peugeot 504 Station Wagon KRV 724. I was at the wheel. All was well until we reached the Small World Country Club on Mombasa Road. It was slightly foggy.”
“A lorry driving in front gave me the green light to overtake just as another lorry ferrying limestone to Athi River’s Blue Triangle Cement factory appeared out of the blues. The resultant collision was huge. I was rushed to Kenyatta National Hospital unconscious with three broken ribs. Only my son, Tony Mathembe, then in Form Four at Parklands Secondary school in Nairobi escaped with a broken hand,” Nthege narrated.
That accident that happened on November 9, 1978, remains to this day, Kenya’s worst single-family accident.
