Mutahi Ngunyi is one of the most sought after political analysts in the country. Popular for developing the “Tyranny of numbers” hypothesis (which he crafted to refer to Jubilee administration numerical strength in parliament), Ngunyi’s main competent areas are strategic reviews, policies research, evaluations and short term studies.
In 2013, he came up with a hypothesis that indicated how the Jubilee party will win the general elections and true to his analysis the ruling party indeed won the elections.
Here is his story as told by WoK.
Background and Education
The analyst grew up in Eastlands area, Nairobi where he also attended primary and secondary school. However, Ngunyi had previously stated that he was not such a great student and would often score poor results.
He shared this on twitter in a bid to encourage students who perform dismally school. He repeated severally and after struggling through primary school, he registered for form four as a private candidate and managed to score a Division 2, which is equivalent to a B- in the 8-4-4 system.
Family
Mutahi is half Luo and half Kikuyu. He learnt about his Luo origins a number of years ago. A herbalist in Siaya county named Zakayo Odongo said his father Zephaniah Odwido was from Siaya county and was a rich famous man in the village.
His status made him a worthy catch among many young women and he ended up being involved with Mutahi’s mother. The two separated and his mother took him with her.
After this revelations, he took to his social media account to express his feelings about being a Luo. The herbalist recognized him thanks to a birthmark on his face.
“ I apologize to the LUO NATION unreservedly. No harm INTENDED. I am a product of Luo SCHOLARS whom I RESPECT immensely. I eat the HUMBLE PIE (sic),” he wrote.
Marriage
Mutahi is married to Judith Lang’at. His wife grew up in the United States before coming back to Kenya. The two met at a wedding where they were both playing the piano.
They formed a friendship which grew into love and got married. The couple is blessed with four children- three daughters and a son. Unfortunately, they lost their son in 2016.
Two of his daughters are lawyers and live life out of the limelight. The other daughter June Mutahi is a professional in her own right and works at forthall school of governance.
This is a firm that analyzes short term and long term effects of political decisions and also political trends in the country.
Career
The outspoken man began his career immediately after completing primary school education. He worked as an untrained primary school teacher.
Currently, he is the principal fellow at both TCH and IPEX, where he has worked and consulted for more than fifteen countries in both Africa and Europe.
House goes up in flames
His Runda house went up in flames under unclear circumstances on 14/07/2021. Then Tangatanga blogger Dennis Itumbi took to twitter to urge the Nairobi Metropolitan Service (NMS) to respond promptly to mitigate further damage and loss.
Mutahi Ngunyi revealed that he had lived in that house for 27 years and went on to chide Itumbi for his tweet asking him to ‘Enjoy’.
