Wahome Muthahi

Wahome Muthahi (- July 22 2003) was one of the most beloved humourist of Kenya. He was popularly known as Whispers after the name of the column he wrote for The Daily Nation from 1982 – 2003.

Muthahi was equally well-known in theatre where he wrote and acted in English and Kikuyu plays that caricatured Kenya's society and politics. Outside of Kenya, he wrote humour columns for Ugandan publications The Monitor and Lugambo. Among his books are Doomsday, and the immensely popular How to be a Kenyan based on his newspaper columns. Whispers offered a satirical view of the trials and tribulations of Kenyan life.

In 1986 Muthahi was arrested with his brother Njuguna Mutahi and detained in the infamous Nyayo House torture chambers of Nairobi. He was charged with sedition and alleged association with the underground Mwakenya Movement and later transferred to Kamiti Maximum Security Prison. They were both released after fifteen months without ever being brought to trial. His imprisonment inspired him to write Three Days on the Cross and Jailbug.

In early 2003 Muthahi underwent what was supposed to be a routine, minor and painless operation at the Thika District Hospital to remove a lipoma from his back. He had been assured by a surgeon friend, who had offered to do the operation, that the procedure would take less than 15 minutes. Possibly because of a blunder by the Anesthesiologist He went into a coma from which he never woke up. His family was waiting for his condition to improve before they could fly him to London for corrective neurosurgery.

Muthahi died on July 22 2003 at the Kenyatta National Hospital after 137 days in a coma. All his life he expressed his solidarity with the average Kenyan through his refrain: "I am neither too clever nor too foolish."