Little is known about the early childhood of Sirisia MP John Koyi Waluke, who is in the thick of a Sh297 million maize fraud case. Today, he has lost appeal in the National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) fraud case after High Court Judge Esther Maina ordered him to pay Sh1 billion fine or serve 57 years in jail.

However, there is a consensus among those who saw the MP grow up in a sleepy village called Yabeko in rural Bungoma County, that his life took an upward trajectory when he crossed paths with the family of the late Mathew Sarapayi Wakhungu. This is after Wakhungu, whose home in Butonge village is a ridge away from the village where Waluke was born and bred, decided to offer the then lanky and unassuming young man a job as a family driver.

Being a busy man, Wakhungu, a medic and a father of five, tasked his trusted kinsman to be chauffeuring his wife, Grace Awori, then general manager at Kenya Reinsurance, and later Consolidated Bank, and other members of his family.