Ojwang' was one of us.

Yes, I watched and loved Vitimbi. It shaped my ideas of a social conscience when I was a boy. Some of its lessons would only become clear when I left home, crossed an ocean and discovered the world beyond my father's farm. 

I never knew his real name, not for the longest time anyway. I believed his name was McDonald McGregory Mr Ondiek Ojwang' Hatari Sibuor Mang'ang'a Mbrrr and that he had two wives, Mama Kayai and Mama Nyanduse. I don't ever remember laying eyes on Mama Nyanduse. I remember his employees, Maliwaza, Othorong'ong'o and Masanduku. Even after educating myself about television entertainment, I still believed that Ojwang' was his name and the character he inhabited was the one he lived.

I only ever saw him in person once. At the JKIA International Arrivals Terminal. He looked frail. Old and frail. I couldn't believe that the old man who ran his home and hearth with a mix of humour, charm and a certain inexplicable ruthlessness was standing in front of me looking so thin and careworn. I was awestruck. At that moment, I understood better than I ever could the incredible waste that Nyayoism had wrought on our fair land.

I don't know where Benson Wanjau lived when he wasn't being Ojwang'. I heard that has was recently (in 1999, that is) "allocated" a house in Mbotela by Baba Moi's serikali. The cast of Vitimbi have parlayed their skills on the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation's stages for forty years and it took the fake largesse of Kenya's pre-eminent strongman to get a single cast member a "decent" house. In Mbotela. Meanwhile successions of KBC top honchos live it up like Hollywood producers. The late Mr Wanjau's sad little house shames me for not noticing how the Nyayoist rot made slaves of us all.

There are those who will hijack Mr Wanjau's legacy. His cast-mates will live it, of that I have no doubt. But the hyenas rekindling the spirit of Nyayoism will almost certainly pervert what is an invaluable legacy of sacrifice and passion. One already has, mouthing off about Kikuyus and Luos. Maybe I missed it, but even though Ojwang' spoke with what might have passed as a caricature of a Luo accent, only the ethno-jingoist remembers Ojwang' as a Luo. To me and the millions of children who grew up in Nairobi's Eastlands, Ojwang' was always one of us: an Eastlando guy with two wives, one who lives "huko reserve" - wherever that was.