William Chepkut, the immediate former Ainabkoi MP who died on Saturday, October 8 in Nairobi, left this world with the same mystery that defined his life.

Chepkut's early life was spent in the shadows as PA (personal assistant) to the equally shadowy Kanu era powerful cabinet minister, Nicholas Biwott; the man Kenyans nicknamed Total Man, and his Kalenjin people, kirgit - steel.

His journey from penury to the corridors of power began in 1991 when he smashed a TV screen at the Kenya Polytechnic (now Technical University of Kenya), upset that Biwott, a politician he idolised, had been arrested in connection with the murder of Foreign Affairs minister, Robert Ouko. For that act, he was arrested and flung behind bars for destruction of property, only to be released following intervention by Biwott. And so their unlikely journey began - the powerful minister paying his college fees, getting him a scholarship for university education overseas, a job in the civil service as a district officer and later appointing him his PA, for life.