‘Mulmulwas’ professor who will tell you off in his own twisted words

No soul under the sun can duplicate -- with precision of intonation, diction, passion and form -- West Pokot Governor Prof John Lonyangapuo’s now famous “mulmulwas” moment.

When he speaks, the professor of Applied Mathematics invariably twitches, wags, smiles, contorts and threatens. He stretches his choice words, and shortens others, sways his shoulders thither and hither, emphasising a point.

“Kijana fupi amenona round, huwezi jua tumbo ni wapi mgongo ni wapi, mulmulwas!”

The clip went viral, attracting the attention of everyone, including the Commander-in-Chief himself, President Uhuru Kenyatta.

When the President attempted to mimic the professor at the Kabarak residence of former President Daniel Moi last week, he ended up almost choking on his own words, and terribly missing the mark.

Refused to fade away

“Mtoto round...,” he had barely started when his entourage, including Lonyangapuo, burst out in fits of laughter.

A month on after mulmulwas unveiling, the catchphrase won’t fade away. But it was the attitude of the victim of Lonyangapuo’s body-shaming, Dennis Ruto, that has won it.

From the first day he surfaced for a TV interview, Ruto turned out as amusing as his attacker. Giggly and full of life, he pulled down his blazer, and in a body hugging polo shirt, cat-walked for the camera in an attempt to show he was not round, a mulmulwas.

“At first I almost felt bad because actually that is body-shaming. It’s not right. That is criminal. But anyway, at the end of the day I laughed it off,” he told an NTV journalist.

But it was his depiction of the situation that unfolded at his home on the day the video slithered its way to his children that was quite amusing.

“I found my little boy and girl telling me baba umeskia kijana fupi round amenona… but they didn’t know who is who,” he said while laughing deliriously. The genesis of all this stretches back to May 22, 2017 in the run-up to the General Election when Lonyangapuo scored another first for the country. He turned up at Kabichbich in a multicoloured hat to “launch” an absent running mate, neurosurgeon Nicholas Atundonyang, who was tucked thousands of miles away in the US.

“Tumekuja kuzindua, leo, kirasmi the running mate,” Lonyangapuo announced.

Fast forward to after the election and the deputy governor vanished again. Speculations abound as to his whereabouts. When the noise peaked this year, Lonyangapuo flipped.

In a long-winded explanation full of humour, he painted a fairy-tale situation of an overworking deputy crisscrossing the various US states at his own expense, scouting for goodies for the impoverished people of West Pokot.

“He asked for two months, but when he was about to come, he told me he had assembled one full container but had been invited into another state for another set of donation. Imejaa vitu sasa, amejaza ya kutosha, ile 40 feet container mreeeefu!”

In his magnanimity, the governor gave him more time: “Wacha azunguke…mwezi wa sita wooorrr, mwezi wa saba akajaza container ngapi? Tatu, strong! imejaa kujaa…. Sasa imejaa kila kitu...”

A Pokot, Lonyangapuo never shies away from controversy. At the height Interior CS Fred Matiang’i’s display of power, the governor dared sweep off a police road block while telling the AP officers manning it that Kenya was not Somalia.

As the intimidated officers retreated and released a Pokot boy they had handcuffed onto his motorbike, Lonyangapuo looked on gleefully, his arms akimbo. He proceeded to issue a warning to the two powerful men in the security arrangement of the country.

“(Joseph) Boinnet (Former Inspector General of Police) and Matiang’i, the two of you, if you are listening to me (wagging two fingers), come and train your people again how to work for the people of Kenya,” he said to wild applause.

Wanted man

The following day, he was a wanted man. His security was withdrawn. He ducked for a while but emerged after securing a restraint order against his arrest through lawyer Peter Wanyama. The matter ebbed away. Those who know him say he has penchant for speaking his mind, sometimes not so judiciously. When Turkana leaders were demanding a proper demarcation of the border between them and the Pokots, Lonyangapuo turned out quite dismissive, asking “so what?”

“Tuweke wall ya Berlin? I am very keen to know what after, mtafanya nini? Kwanza kwenu ni dry ya ajabu. Na mtapita wapi mkienda Kenya?”

An overzealous defender of his people, he swears by his own academic papers that he has never seen a Pokot wielding an illegal gun. He has in the past claimed that Pokots are very slow to retaliate but their neighbours are cry babies who wail at the theft of a single goat.