Highly rated Mount Kenya comedian Geoffrey Mwangi, popularly known as Kianangi, who disappeared on September 21, 2017, was a man of great ambition.
He was often overheard saying that he would do anything to provide for his wife and two sons, even if it meant ‘milking a lion’ to provide for them. He often said he was on a mission to defeat the poverty that saw him drop out of school.
But his dream seemed short-lived, after he disappeared in 2017.
Here are 10 things to know about him, leading up to his disappearance.
- Kianangi was born in 1976 to Francis Waweru Kinuthia and Loise Muthoni Waweru in Gitiri village of Gatanga constituency. He was the fifth born of eight children, having four brothers and three sisters.
- He dropped out of school in Form Two. He then moved to Nairobi in 1993 and joined street entertainment troupes that featured popular names today like Kihenjo, Wandahuhu and Njaaga.
- He teamed up with Ephantus Mbuthia aka Macang’i Man Solo Papaa in 2003 to start producing dramatised audio visuals that started selling like hot cakes in Mt Kenya region.
- Kianangi started feeling short-changed in royalty share-out and parted ways with Macang’i in 2014. He began his own production but piracy pushed him out.
- He then began frequenting River Road in the evenings and would introduce himself as a Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) pharmacist. Friends report that his dressing code suddenly became sharp and he appeared more focused on making money. Kianangi’s wife Catherine Njeri reveals that he was working at KNH but not as a medic. She produced a contractual agreement that indicated that Kianangi had been recruited in the communication department as a performing artiste to generate dramatised awareness programmes on health issues.
- He was a tenant in Nairobi’s Kasarani area where his monthly rent was Sh15,000. He would be heard telling his friends in River Road, where he occasionally took his five beers on daily basis, that his monthly budget was Sh150,000.
- By 2016, Kianangi is reported to have upgraded his circle of friends and would be seen more with wheeler dealers than with artistes. He is reported to have become very close with a Kiambu County politician.
- On September 21, 2017 he was picked from his house at 10.30am by a male friend and his phone signal moved from Kasarani to Kahawa West where they took roast meat in a joint. The two were driving a small car registration KCL 023Y. His signal got lost at 12.03pm at Ruiru Bypass roundabout near Membley Estate. The male friend called Kianangi’s wife at around 4pm to announce that Kianangi had disappeared.
- The vehicle the two had been using was found abandoned in the same area where his phone signal went dead. Police were notified and in the company of Kianangi’s friend and another male who introduced himself as owner of the vehicle, they drove it to Ruiru police station. It was eventually released to the owner two days later.
- The case is still retained at Ruiru police station marked as a Missing Person Report and its status being Pending Under Investigations (PUI), with sources claiming that “this was a case of abduction, murder and dumping that was never investigated.
One of Kianangi’s older brothers who operated a taxi in Nairobi’s Eastleigh Estate had in 2014 returned from Somalia as a radicalised recruit and was picked by Pangani police station officers never to be seen again.
Kianangi’s wife now wants President William Ruto, Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua and Interior CS Kithure Kindiki to help her find her husband, saying she believes that “police got everything to do with his whereabouts and his state.” BY DAILY NATION