How fate conspired to dim 2001 KCPE star

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By Wambui Ndung’u

Wednesday Standard Eight candidates who sat their KCPE exams this year will get to know how they performed.

As expected, every candidate wishes to feature in leading positions — either top ten or hundred in the nation or the province, but, obviously, only a few will enter coveted lists. Making it to the list of the best ten is not a mean achievement.

Besides aspiring to feature in the top lists, candidates do dream of joining this or that school and further move on to pursue careers of choice.

Every end of December, we have such achievers who dream to be leading doctors, architects, pilots, engineers and other top professionals in future, but how many of them ever realise the dreams?

Unfortunately, many of the dreams die shortly after.

A decade ago, Central Province’s second best candidate Allan Wambugu Ngunjiri was such joy to Muthinga village.

His academic stardom turned the spotlight to the least known village in Tetu, Nyeri County. He was an enviable hero all over.

However, sadly, Allan can hardly be distinguished from the rest of Muthinga residents, today. Ten years down the line, the boy who dreamed of being a flying doctor is a casual labourer in the village. His star seems to be dimming to total darkness.

Specialised counselling

However, his uncle and guardian, Mr Ngunjiri, says he won’t give up until the pride-turned-shame is totally irredeemable. He believes the best of Allan’s dreams can one day come true if "necessary help" is accorded to him.

He believes Allan just needs specialised counselling and guidance.

"He is a loner and refuses to talk about his plans," Mr Ngunjiri told Education.

It takes several hours and many phone calls to reach Allan. He does not have a phone.

In our effort to get his side of the story to this development, we find him in a butchery at Gichira, a town centre in Tetu.

He is dressed in a blue t-shirt and beige jeans. He wears unkempt hair and is just finishing some meat.

From the conversation, you can definitely tell you are talking to a very brilliant mind. His choice of words and mastery of English is not what you would get from many villagers.

Allan, however, refuses to talk about his academic life and all efforts to convince him to do so fail. Finally, he casually leaves our company, pays his bill and disappears behind the shops.

A seemingly bitter uncle says he can’t understand the circumstances that led to flopping and the subsequent dimming of the once luminous academic star, who now depends on casual labour to earn a living.

Allan’s story is tragic. Perhaps, one of the possible explanations to his disturbed life could be the story about his mother.

She was mentally unstable when Allan made history in the village and later met her death through a road accident, in the same mental condition. She was killed by a hit-and-run motorist. Then, Allan was in high school.

Many can’t believe this was the same Allan, who, against all odds, emerged the second best candidate in Central and fifth best countrywide to catch the attention of all and sundry, making newspaper headlines.

His uncle says the once top candidate changed overnight and efforts to take him through counselling sessions have yielded no fruit.

He is, however, grateful that lately his nephew is not engaging in excessive alcohol consumption as he did before.

Mr Ngunjiri says be began noticing change in his nephew’s life when he "failed" in KCSE after scoring a mean grade of B- (minus). He schooled and sat his exams at Starehe Boys’ Centre and School.

"I was disappointed with his performance. Since then, his life has taken a downward turn," says the uncle, adding that, "Immediately after high school we took him to a college in Nyeri where he took a course in computer packages."

Tetu MP FT Nyammo sponsored Allan’s post-secondary education at Inoreero University to study Business (Marketing option) but he dropped out at second year and retreated to the village.

A pastor in the area, Mr Gerald Wachira, who has been talking to him, says the last time they talked, Allan seemed "aware he was not living his best" and agreed to reform.

A parent’s pain

Ngunjiri remains optimistic his nephew will continue with his education some day and pursue his dream career, adding, "It’s simply painful to see such a bright mind go to waste in the village."

As his guardian, Mr Ngunjiri says he will not give up on his nephew, whom, he believes, with the "right guidance", can come back on track.

Most of the students who finished primary that year and qualified for Government-sponsored entry to the university, for four-year courses, have graduated this year.

Meanwhile, a Mr Mirichu Wagitu, the director of school where Allan sat his KCPE exams, links the young man’s turn of fortunes to the realisation of his poor background and the tragedy of losing his only parent at a tender age.

He says Allan joined high school at a considerably mature age compared to others and could have started questioning his poor background.

"It happens that when a mature student from a poor background joins high school, they become aware of themselves and start questioning their backgrounds and this affects their studies. For the younger ones, by the time they start questioning, they are almost done with school so their performance is not affected," said Wagitu.

Wagitu says such students often pity themselves therefore losing concentration and will often perform worse in the fourth year than when they joined school. He, however, says this depends on the character of a person.