Poor, jiggered and hopeless: The rise of a vegetable vendor to Kisii Governor

The rise of a vegetable vendor to Kisii Governor

From jigger-infested feet and childhood hardship to the governor’s office, Simba Arati’s unlikely journey is a story of grit, survival, resilience and ambition.

Before the suits, political rallies and official vehicles, young Paul Simba Arati was a village boy in Nyamache, Kisii, walking barefoot and carrying dreams he could hardly explain.

His childhood, he says, was marked by hardship — the kind that teaches a child to endure before he is old enough to understand why life is difficult.

There was little in his early years to suggest that one day he would occupy the governor’s office and preside over the affairs of an entire county.

During a special interview with KahawaTungu at his home in Motonto, Bobasi, Arati recalled growing up in a humble family that struggled to make ends meet and give him a chance in life.

“I was born into a life where poverty was not a word we read about — it was the reality we lived every day,” he says.

Jiggers found their way into his feet, turning what should have been carefree childhood days into periods of pain and discomfort.

“Sometimes you would look at your feet and wonder why you were going through such pain,” he recalls. “But when you came from a poor family, you learnt to live with things. You endured because there was no other choice.”

The experience appears to have shaped his outlook on life.

“You grow up knowing that life does not owe you anything,” he says. “If you want something, you have to fight for it. You have to wake up and keep moving, even when the circumstances are against you.”

A restless youngster

The Deputy ODM party leader was, by his own account, a difficult and restless youngster.

His behaviour worried his parents, who feared about the direction his life was taking.

At one point, they bundled him onto a bus and sent him to live with an aunt in Bura, Tana River, hoping that a change of environment would help him settle down.

Few could have imagined where the restless boy was headed.

After returning home, Arati found a foothold in education.

At Nyamache Secondary School, he was, by his own admission, a naughty student. He later moved to Suneka Secondary School, where he completed his secondary education.

“I knew hunger, I knew hardship, and I knew what it meant to have very little — but I refused to believe that my beginnings would determine my ending,” he says.

Life in Nairobi

Then came Nairobi.

Like many young Kenyans searching for a foothold in life, Arati arrived in the capital without wealth, influence or powerful connections.

He turned to the one thing immediately available to him — hard work.

He became a vegetable vendor.

His days were spent in the noisy and crowded markets of Nairobi, selling vegetables and chasing customers. He worked in places including Kawangware, Gikomba, Wangige and Marikiti.

There were no political crowds waiting to hear him speak. There were customers to convince, vegetables to sell and bills to pay.

“I was not selling vegetables because I had chosen that as my final destination,” he says. “I was selling vegetables because I needed to survive. I needed to pay my bills and, more importantly, I needed to educate myself.”

Every shilling had a purpose.

“I knew where I had come from. I knew what it meant to grow up with nothing. So whenever I made money, I knew it had to take me somewhere,” he says.

Arati says he used his earnings to finance his education.

He eventually joined Kenya Polytechnic, now the Technical University of Kenya, where he studied Tourism Management.

It was there that another side of him began to emerge — politics.

He ventured into student leadership and contested for office, but lost.

For someone who had already experienced hardship, however, losing an election was hardly enough to end his journey.

“I had already lost many things in life,” he says. “So losing an election could not make me give up. I had learnt that falling is not the same as failing. Failure is when you refuse to get up.”

He kept moving.

“The hardships of my childhood did not bury my dreams; they gave me the courage to pursue them,” he says.

From councillor to governor

Arati’s political fortunes eventually changed.

He became a nominated councillor in Nairobi before winning the Dagoretti North parliamentary seat in 2013.

He successfully defended the seat in 2017.

The former vegetable seller had become a legislator.

But Parliament was not the end of the dream.

In 2022, Arati returned to Kisii and entered the race for governor.

It was a risky decision.

He was leaving behind the political territory he had built in Nairobi and seeking to conquer a fiercely competitive political landscape in his home county.

“I may have started life with jiggers on my feet, but I carried dreams in my heart,” he says.

He prevailed.

On August 25, 2022, Arati was sworn in as Governor of Kisii County.

The distance between the boy with jigger-infested feet and the man occupying the governor’s office became the most compelling part of his story.

The governor’s chair can easily conceal the journey behind it.

But behind the official motorcade is a former vegetable vendor.

Behind the political speeches is a man who once had to work to finance his education.

And behind the polished shoes are memories of feet that once suffered the pain of jiggers.

“I sometimes look back and ask myself, ‘How did I get here?’” Arati says. “The journey has been long. I have seen poverty. I have known pain. I have sold vegetables. I have lost elections. But every experience prepared me for the next step.”

His story is therefore more than a political biography.

It is the story of a boy whose childhood circumstances offered few guarantees, but who refused to surrender his future to his beginnings.

“I want young people to understand that where you start does not necessarily determine where you finish,” he says. “You may start with nothing, but you should never allow that nothing to convince you that you are nothing.”

The boy could scarcely have known how far life would take him — from the village and jigger-infested feet, to the market, the classroom, Parliament and finally the governor’s office.

“My past is not something I am ashamed of. It is the foundation upon which I built my future.”

It is a journey that makes the governor’s chair look less like a destination and more like a remarkable footnote to a life that began with pain, struggle and uncertainty.

“I did not choose my beginnings, but I chose what to do with the life those beginnings gave me.”

Sometimes, the most extraordinary journeys begin in the most ordinary — and difficult — places.

“Looking back, I realise the pain of those early years was preparing me for the battles I would later face.