Nandi Senator Samson Cherargei has shared a throwback photo from his days at Moi University.
The youthful senator who shot to fame in 2017 after he won the Nandi senator seat aged just 28 on a Jubilee party ticket shared the image with the caption: “Tbt 2008, Supreme coat”
Cherargei started out as an activist in 2013, years before he became an advocate of the High Court of Kenya where together with the then Nandi senator Stephen Sang, they criticized the county’s first governor Cleophas Lagat.
According to the Senate of Kenya, the senator finished his secondary school education in 2006 at the prestigious Kapsabet Boys High School before joining Moi University for a degree in Law.
Cherargei elected at 28
He completed his bachelor’s in 2011 and obtained the Kenya School of Law post-graduate diploma in 2016, just one year before making history as one of the youngest elected leaders in Nandi.
In 2017, Cherargei was elected as the Senator of Nandi County at 28 years old. He took over from the current governor Sang who had also been elected to the seat in 2013 at 28.
In the elections, Sang ousted Nandi County’s first governor Lagat and became the youngest governor in the country at 32 years. Sang got 91 per cent of the vote to trounce his predecessor and seasoned politician Henry Kosgey.
Cherargei, just like Governor Sang, was re-elected in the 2022 elections. The two have been on a collision path, with one accusing the other of making useless talk and the other accusing the governor of mismanagement.
Term-limit extension
Lately, Cherargei got national attention after he sponsored an outrageous bill at the senate which sought to increase the term limit for all elected leaders from the MCA to the president by an additional two years.
In his proposal which was vehemently opposed both by the ruling party United Democratic Alliance and the opposition, he argued that 5 years was insufficient for service delivery. He noted that it takes a year to settle into office while the last year in office is usually squandered by early campaigns.
The bill was shot down after over 90 per cent of citizens rejected it during the public participation exercises carried out online.
On October 25, 2024, the Senate confirmed that its mail system had crashed after Kenyans sent over 200,000 emails commenting on the proposal to increase term limits for elective seats in Kenya.
“Thank you for the overwhelming response to the Constitution of Kenya (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill, 2024. Due to high volumes of submissions, our email system has temporarily experienced issues,” the Senate announced.
“The Senate received over 200,000 submissions, reaching the maximum capacity of the allocated email addresses. Alternatively, you may send your submissions to [email protected]. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.”
