By Harold Ayodo
His three wives stand at attention around him as he eats lunch on a Friday at the rural home he has named ‘State House’ in Suba District.
Morris Odunga Kasuku’s fingers explore a bowl of chicken soup as Helen, his youngest wife, replenishes his plate with chunks of chicken. Two other wives urge him on.
Deborah, his second wife, goes for a warm jug of water and a small basin to clean his hands as Maria, the senior wife, pours him drinking water into a glass.
The co-wives praise him in turn as he savours the ugali and chicken which, they agree in chorus, is delicious.
Kasuku married his three wives with a purpose and assigned them their various roles.
For instance, Helen, the youngest, can read and write in English and is therefore his personal assistant. She reads and translates his mail into Dholuo for him.
Deborah, who is good at management, is in charge of his over 100 acres of land while Maria, the senior wife, enjoys her role as the First Lady.
Government contracts
"Maria oversees the other two and differing with her is an offence equivalent to treason," Kasuku states.
He often sits with his three wives under one of the many shady trees planted by VIPs in his compound in his heyday.
The trio is so fond of him that they fuss around him whenever he sits at a rusty sewing machine to demonstrate how he stitched clothes for VIPs.
Kasuku is a Standard Three dropout who used a talent in tailoring and the gift of the gab to rise to fame and fortune. In his day, he clinched many Government contracts.
He rubbed shoulders with the high and mighty, especially at State functions where VIPs loved his jokes and contracted him to make their suits.
He erected a billboard at the entrance to his rural home, adjacent to Ruma National Park, after then President Daniel arap Moi awarded him a Head of State Commendation (Civilian Division) on June 1, 1984.
The medium sized light blue billboard is now a tourist attraction.
Moi sent then Nyanza Provincial Commissioner Francis Cherogony with the national award to his compound at Olando village in Gwasi location.
"The PC personally placed a budge on my shirt pocket before he planted a tree in my compound. Today it is fully grown," Kasuku recalls
He rose to fame when he quietened demands by the local community for the partition of the land that Ruma National Park stands on.
Kasuku took 12 councillors from his area to Kisumu and made them Kaunda suits to convince them to support the conservation of the area as a national park.
Honorary warden
In recognition of his efforts, the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) appointed him an honorary warden.
"I meet KWS director Julius Kipng’etich whenever I go to Nairobi…I share with him concerns on wildlife," Kasuku says.
His appointment as an honorary warden is among the achievements his wives always praise him for.
Like sentries, Kasuku’s wives stood by his side as we had lunch in his expansive sitting room recently.
Inside the house a tailoring millionaire built. Photos: Harold Ayodo |
"Ensure the plates of my visitors are replenished along with mine," he tells his wives.
"These journalists control public opinion."
He later took us around the home he constructed in the 1970s, which he hopes to lease to an investor as a guest house for visitors to Ruma National Park.
Kasuku keeps a visitor’s book at his home where many Cabinet ministers, including Kenneth Matiba, have slept.
Such was his regard for Matiba that no one has slept on the bed since he spent the night in his house as Transport minister in the 1980s.
A number of other bigwigs in Kanu spent time at Kasuku’s house partly due to his political clout and partly to enjoy the many funny stories the man could tell.
"I keep a visitors’ book to maintain a record…I have had it from the early 1970s and it contains the contacts of all my VIP guests," Kasuku says.
A perusal of the old visitors’ book reveals names of powerful Cabinet ministers and MPs from the Kanu era when Kasuku was a big shot.
First millions
Kasuku, who rose from a peasant tailor in Migori town to become the millionaire proprietor of a firm – Kasuku Garments – in Kisumu, lives life to the fullest.
Having dropped out of school in Standard Three, he made his first millions in the early 1980s from a tailoring contract with the Government.
"The Government awarded me a Sh3 million contract to make uniforms for the provincial administration in 1978, which I delivered," Kasuku recalls.
Similar contracts flowed in after he became a regular contributor to harambees presided over by President Moi.
"Moi is a good man who always welcomed me to State House in Nakuru," he recalls with nostalgia.
"He loved jokes and I could make him laugh."
At one time, Kasuku shocked Moi with a gift that the President least expected – four pairs of Kaunda suits.
Lowest of villagers
"I had never seen Moi in a Kaunda suit and I wanted to give him a present no one else could think of," Kasuku says.
He says Moi laughed and appreciated the gift before they chatted away at State House, Nakuru on a Saturday afternoon.
The ‘presidential suite’ where Kenneth Matiba spent a night |
"Moi was a man who valued friendships and could visit even the lowest of villagers unannounced when he was President," Kasuku says.
Flashback to our entry into his compound. Kasuku does not accept interviews from any journalists.
You must be from a credible media house and Helen must recognise your byline.
His tailoring empire started crumbling slightly over a decade ago as rivals elbowed him away from Moi.
It started with a bank moving to his Kasuku Garments firm in Kisumu and confiscating his 140 sewing machines over a debt.
"I tried to explain that I would settle the debt and even tried to reach Moi for assistance but I was blocked," Kasuku says.
At his height he could call upon powerful people for assistance. A former classmate of the once powerful Cabinet minister Simeon Nyachae at Nyabururu Primary School, he says the senior politician once helped him.
"Nyachae helped me settle a debt by lending me Sh6 million in cash in 1990, which I repaid. He is a gentleman," he says.
Many spouses
Kasuku, who is still keen to meet Moi, spends his days with his three wives or addressing barazas on conservation of Ruma National Park.
The park is the last refuge for the roan antelopes, which the local community once poached in droves for game meat.
Kasuku is a son to the late South Kavirondo Senior Chief Matunga Kasuku, who ruled from 1903 to 1948 and died on December 27, 1952.
Awards from the State are not new to his family as the colonial Government also awarded his father in 1936 for loyalty his to King George the Fifth.
His experience and success as a polygamist has turned him into a hero and many men seek his advice, especially polygamists.
We signed his visitor’s book before leaving when he insisted that VIPs like us must leave our contacts and proof that we were there.
