Member of Parliament (MP) Westlands constituency in Nairobi county, Tim Wanyonyi, recently opened up about the tragic incident that redefined his entire life.
It happened one Monday evening when Tim – only two years after graduating from the Kenya School of Law and then working in the law firm of Wetang’ula and Company Advocates, a firm in which his elder brother, currently the Senator for Bungoma County, Moses Wetangula, was a senior partner.
Tim had left the office at 7:15 pm and headed to Ngara, where he had offered to drop off his cousin and good friend, Bramuel Simiyu.
After Simiyu had alighted from the car and safely walked past the gate to his residential building, Tim reversed the car and noticed a young man on the driver’s right-hand side asking him to lower the window.
The MP fully complied with the robber's instructions, not knowing that the thug would eventually shoot him in the back, leaving the young father permanently disabled.
“I felt nothing at that moment,” Tim conveyed. “It did not sound painful at the time. What I realised was that I was not able to rise up. In fact, people were passing around and asking what I was doing there until one good Samaritan turned up and took me to the Aga Khan hospital,” he disclosed.
Speaking on KTN News, the legislator confessed to having battled with serious depression following the incident which eventually left him devoid of functioning legs.
However, Wanyonyi used the tragic incident as an inspiration for his life-long push to aid individuals suffering from spinal cord issues.
He founded the Kenya Paraplegic Organisation in 2004, an organisation that helps such individuals, going on to set up a 150-bed spinal cord rehabilitation centre in Kiserian.
