You won’t fail to notice David ole Sankok, nominated MP representing persons with disability, in Parliament chambers.
Sankok is vocal, controversial and sometimes comical. He is that MP in a green suit detailed with the Kenyan flag colours. To him, it represents the environment and helps in his branding.
During the heated debate on the Political Parties (Amendment) Bill 2021, he got involved in an altercation with Embakasi MP Babu Owino, who took his crutches saying he’d use them as a weapon. The sessions were chaotic and punches were exchanged. An MP was injured.
The next time Sankok rose to contribute, he held his crutches up, saying he had seen Babu Owino and he feared the younger colleague would take them again.
Sankok says Babu put him at risk.
“Suppose a fire broke out, or something else happened,” he posed during an interview at his Parliament office on Wednesday.
Sankok describes himself as a son of a peasant pastoralist born to a community in Narok where physical health is everything so as to move the cattle in search of pasture and water as well as to defend them from predators and rustlers.
The doctor who made me disabled is a very good friend of mine. And I cannot pass by Naivasha without seeing him to celebrate what he did. He did nice because I would have been dead long time ago through cattle rustling
The firstborn son in a family of eight – four girls and four boys – was not born disabled.
Sankok says he was naughty. During that time, each family was required to send one child to school. The family decided to send the naughty boy to school—as punishment.
At Ole Sankale Primary School, he became a bully and was mostly the last—position 72 out of 72.
His life would, however, take a twist – for the best, now he reckons – at age 12. He suffered from pneumonia and had to be carried by his parents to hospital in Maela, Naivasha, 32km away at night. That was the nearest hospital, Narok was 42km away.
He got an injection, which he says the sleepy doctor did wrongly. While he got better, he couldn’t feel his leg in the morning.
When he was taken to Kijabe Mission Hospital days later, the White doctor there gave him crutches and told him to learn to use them as he would have them for the rest of his life.
Sankok stayed out of school for about two years until missionaries rescued him. Having crawled for long caused more deformities. He was taken to Kijabe Mission Hospital for corrective surgery. It is a facility he still supports to date through partners and donors.
“I went there, did fundraising and so far, we have linked Kijabe Mission Hospital with Cure International, where we do corrective surgeries for free," he says.
"With the aid of donors, philanthropists and friends, including Deputy President William Ruto, we have bought the adjacent land and built a fully-fledged hospital with a theatre and now towards a 100-bed capacity. First Lady Margaret Kenyatta has also assisted us.”
When he went back to school in Std 6, it was his turn to be bullied. His safe place was in class and that’s how he improved his performance, moving from last to position 18, 13, three and, finally, best student. That’s how he secured a slot at Kericho High School.
Here, he started developing his leadership skills—he became chairman of five clubs and school captain. He later went to the University of Nairobi for medical studies. He was mostly influenced by the “needle accident” and he wanted to understand how "such a tiny thing" would make him disabled.
But before joining university – during the two-year break – he joined Narok Youth Polytechnic for a carpentry course. He has made a lot of his furniture in his house.
At the UoN, he served as chairman of the Nairobi University Association of the Disabled and later led the vibrant Students Organisation of Nairobi University in 2000. On the day he was being sworn in, he says, his firstborn daughter Naserian arrived.
He married Hellen Seyianoi quite early in life, with whom they have seven children.
As Sonu chairman, Sankok says he opposed the commercialisation of education through the parallel degree programmes.
This, he says, earned him a 15-year suspension – initially three years - and three attempted assassinations in Kericho, Thika Road and Narok.
He went to Bergen University, Norway, to study Diploma in Medical Research through the help of an academic from the country who sympathised with his situation.
“To study medicine at the time [parallel programme] cost Sh600,000 per semester, that’s about Sh5 million or Sh6 million for the course. How many people can afford that? I told them an A without money cannot be a C and a C with money cannot be an A".
Sankok says was offered a white Land Rover, a KUL and Sh600,000 as a bribe, which he rejected.
“My politics then and now are the same. I have fought for the hustlers at UoN and I am doing the same now,” he says.
Sankok maintains he is himself a hustler as he sold secondhand clothes and sharpened knives and Maasai swords in Suswa in his early days. He says his shop premises in Suswa were burnt down by state operatives.
He reckons that commercialisation of education has lowered professional standards in many sectors, among them medicine and engineering.
But Sankok believes everything happens for a reason and God had a purpose for him to become disabled.
“That’s why the doctor who made me disabled is a very good friend of mine. And I cannot pass by Naivasha without seeing him to celebrate what he did. He did well because I would have been dead a long time ago through cattle rustling,” he says.
“I would also not have gone to school. I believe it is he who ignited my passion to study and sent me to Parliament indirectly 30 years later. I now get a salary because of my leg. My disability is an asset to me, a blessing in disguise.”
DISABILITY REPRESENTATION
In the three years he served as National Council for Persons with Disabilities chairman, he prides himself on raising the profile of people with disability and the council itself.
Sankok says he changed the narrative among many communities that PWDs are a liability or a curse.
“My objective was to show the world that there is ability beyond disability. That’s why I am very active in Parliament, doing business, playing football and everything else I do,” the Manchester United fan said.
“So, my clarion call is ‘give these people an opportunity and they will showcase their ability'.”
Among the achievements he cites during his time was waiving of taxes for people with disability, including importing vehicles duty free, the making of sign language as the third official and examinable language in Kenya, introduction of disability mainstreaming unit in architecture and engineering courses and disability inclusion as a performance indicator in government institutions as well as integration of education in regards to special schools.
He left at the age of 38 to offer opportunity to others.
NATIONAL POLITICS
Sankok has aligned with DP Ruto with whom, he says, he shares an ideology. He supports Ruto's bottom-up economic model that he says is labour intensive rather than capital intensive, thus creating more job opportunities.
He also says he has a personal touch with the DP, as he gifted him Sh20,000 during his campus days to buy crutches.
He is thus investing his time in campaigning for Ruto, upon which he will retire from politics at age 43 and focus on his business interests.
Sankok says it's time the post was given to someone else. His business interests include Osim Country Lodge.
He is glad to still have his parents, including his in-laws, who are all agemates in their early 70s