Moses Nderitu: Battling the stigma of being unmarried at 51

But what he is, is less revealing than who he is. He’s the type that started off selling sanitary pads, skipped university, started at the bottom of the production industry, and rose to produce Kenya’s first game show; Omo Pick a Box.

He started Excloosive toilets which went swimmingly well then sold it to get into housing when the copycats started crowding him. He thought he’d get filthy rich building affordable houses, become a billionaire, and retire to a villa by a tropical beach. Never happened.

But other exciting things happened, like having children; half a dozen of them. Like motorbikes, he's loved riding for a long time, chasing his curiosities and learning the value of listening to his thoughts over the relentless winds of life. Traveling and grabbing opportunities.

He’s 51 now and the things he hasn’t done, he will admit, are few. Like getting married. Now that he’s mellowing down and he has better clarity of things, maybe he will. Chances are he won’t.

He bounds in a tad tardy for this interview bearing an apology and an electric personality presented in a commanding preacher’s voice.

You strike me as a guy with a tall story. Where does your story start?

I grew up in Buru (Buru Buru estate). During my childhood scheduled buses were available in Nairobi. I would walk to Harambee and take bus number 22 or 20 to St. Mark’s, where I attended Westlands Primary School.

After primary school, I moved on to Highway Secondary in South B, right around the time when the manyanga (pimped ride) craze was taking off and South B had the loudest matatus. I experienced that scene and completed high school.

Soon after finishing school, I visited my brother in Mombasa. During my time there, I made a friend named Ronnie, who worked for Procter & Gamble as a van salesman.

I got my first formal job as a van assistant, which involved travelling to shops selling sanitary pads. I explored every part of the Coastal region, all the way up to the Taita Taveta border.

I can’t recall my exact pay, but the job was incredibly fun; I drove around in a Mitsubishi Canter filled with merchandise.

After three months, I returned to Nairobi, decided to skip university, and instead studied CIM at SPS. Meanwhile, I also acted at the National Theatre, where I came across a company called Fast Forward that was producing TV and radio content for US agencies. I joined them as an intern. Is this too much detail?

This is good detail.

During that time, there was a war in Somalia, and Fast Forward was contracted to provide logistical support to international TV crews operating out of the country.

While we were engaged in this work, the Rwandan genocide occurred and we had to provide support as well, which kept me very busy.

I quickly advanced from an intern earning Sh1,000 a week to a production assistant making Sh20,000 a month. By 1994, I was richer than I am today. In 1995, I bought my first car for Sh40,000.

Eventually, Unilever came calling and I was hired as a junior producer for Omo Pick A Box. By the age of 21, I was producing Kenya’s first game show and continued in that role for eight years.

However, when Fast Forward became redundant, I began to take on freelance jobs while still producing Omo Pick A Box. I then launched my own TV production company called Level One.

We created several successful advertisements, including the famous one featuring a man chasing a chicken for Kenchic. Do you remember that one?

Yes, I remember that one.

Yes, we had to go to South Africa to find a chicken wrangler, like guys in the movie industry who train animals. In South Africa, I came across mobile toilets, really nice executive mobile toilets.

I bought four of them and brought them home and started Excloosive. I made outdoor events happen in this country because, for a long time, you had to have events in facilities with amenities. We did all the events you can imagine. All. I was still in production shooting ads and documentaries.

Then I got restless, so I sold Excloosive and got into housing because I realised how brutal mjengo (construction) was and unscrupulous fundis (masons) were while building my mom a house in Nyeri.

Surely, there was a better way to build houses. Curiosity led me to Malaysia where I stumbled on a company called Koto Housing and was impressed by their business model. I convinced them to work with us, came here, found investors and we started Koto Housing Kenya.

Quickly we bagged a contract and built 200 houses in six months for the Kenya Police. It was going quite well; the affordable housing dream. I was sure I was going to be a billionaire. That didn’t work out because the 2017 elections happened and politics happened.

I left the company in 2019. A few months later, the Covid-19 pandemic hit and we made some important discoveries like, you could drink gin instead of whisky. [Loud laughter] And when gin became expensive, we discovered Kenya Cane.

Anyway, seriously, Covid-19 made me look at life differently. And it was at that time that, with a lot of time on my hands, I started researching EVs and trying to understand where the EV market was going.

I see how it’s all connecting…

Yes. Maybe I should have mentioned that between 2015 and 2018 I was on the board of NTSA (National Transport and Safety Authority) as a non-exec member.

It’s there that I got a lot of insight into transport. Also, that’s how I started consulting and eventually working for this current company, BasiGo in 2022.

What a busy trajectory…so when did you get married and things?

I didn't. [Loud laughter]. I was busy, man. Of course, at some point in my life, I felt the pressure to get married but it felt like a rite of passage, so I didn’t.

I had too many opportunities to get married, which for whatever reason I did not take. But I have children whom I love and I’m present in their lives. I figured that you can be a father without needing to be a husband. [Laughs]

I may say it as a joke but I think I would make a damn good husband now because I'm chilled. I don't need to be out every day. I'm not chasing every new club or every woman who passes.

I think what's more important is finding somebody you enjoy being with and making that choice every day and not because you signed a contract. If I am to get married today it would not be because I'm ticking a societal box.

How many children now?

I have six.

Those are many children. Not from the same mothers, I suppose?

[Chuckles] Well…oh that’s a nice EV. [Points at a Volvo leaving the parking lot]

Is there a stigma that comes with being 51, successful, and unmarried?

Oh, yes. People see you as a player. Especially if you have children. It’s worse if you don’t have one; you are commitment-phobic. 

There must be something wrong with you. Why are you not married when everybody else is suffering in their marriages? [Laughs] Who the hell are you not to be suffering?

Your married friends’ wives don’t want their husbands hanging out with you. Your married friends think that you are getting so much 'action'.

So there is stigma but I don’t care. I don’t have secrets. To anybody coming into my life, I always say ‘These are my children. These are their moms’. This is how I have operated.

Are you a good father?

I think I did a good job. I'm close to my children. I'm very present and I've been for a long time - that's my biggest motivator.

Given a magic wand, what would you change in your life?

I would start investing early. In my early 20s, I earned extremely well. I was extremely liquid. I could have invested way much more, and that investment would be doing better today. But I don’t regret it because I enjoyed my life. I lived to the fullest. There was no club I didn’t go to. There was no destination I did not go to.

What do you give a lot of priority now at 51?

Happiness. I know it sounds cliche but I don't want to be stressed. There is a lot of pressure in my job, so I have to make time for myself. That is something I value a lot. I enjoy riding my motorcycle.

You cannot be a biker if you don't enjoy your own company because when you're under that helmet you’re by yourself and have to focus on the ride.

I used to enjoy hiking but, when I lost my daughter something switched and I struggled to go back into that. The last two years have been my least active. I put on weight but I'm trying hard to get back into it.

I'm sorry about your daughter. That must have been tough.

Yeah… September 2022. She died in a road accident on Langata Road. At least we got a chance to see her before she succumbed to internal injuries. [Pause] It's one of those things I am still not able to describe.

It's... It makes you question a lot of things and choices that you've made. [Pause] It makes you more reflective and appreciate that you're not in control. I'm a spiritual guy and believe there is something beyond us.

Do you mind me asking how you got the burn scars on your hands?

No problem. September 28, 1995, TV commercial, we are setting up camp in Magadi. We are putting up camping gas in the car, you know, those little blue canisters, so that we could distribute them in the tents.

There's a bit of a leakage. The guy I was with lit a cigarette. There was a big hot whoosh. Then raging fire. I was trapped in the car for God knows how long burning. I got burns on my hands and my face.

I stayed in the hospital for two months. I survived. Just this morning I was talking to a friend about this bike ride half across Africa and he was saying that he really should do something like that one day. I told him, don’t wait to ride to Cape Town, start by riding to Magadi or Nanyuki. Do what you can now.

He recently had a heart condition which almost killed him. Why are you waiting for all the ducks to stay in a row? It doesn't happen.

Just make time otherwise we will always be waiting for the best moment; when you get a new job, or get married, after the children are off to university, or when they grow up, or after you finish your Masters…the right moment will never come.

What makes you insecure now?

My weight. I don't like what I see in the mirror. I mentioned this earlier about how I got here. I don't feel great about it. But again, I say there's no point in feeling insecure, yet you have an opportunity to do something about it.

But maybe you should also ask me about my fear. I fear that I have not done enough. That in case today was my last day, that I would leave my loved ones in a good state, that they would be sorted.

But at the same time, I can also say that they'll also get an opportunity to do something for themselves because I've done everything I can for them up to this point.

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