If you thought that the celebrations since the release of the 2024 Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination results are for top performers only, then you are wrong.

This as the sleepy Kipkenyo Ward in Kapseret Constituency, Uasin Gishu County, woke up to a celebration of its kind on Saturday.

Area residents gathered to celebrate their Member of County Assembly (MCA) David Kimeli Letting aka Kokwas who got a mean grade of D- in the 2024 KCSE exams.

And just before you think of underestimating him, he says: “I am ahead of 400 and 80 something students who have wasted 15 years, and me I go there in 30 days of exam only, I have never gone to any school…even a tuition. There is nobody who has come to where I am and told me that this is this and this is this, I am trying to do my exam through God.”

Kokwas sat for his KCSE exams last year as a private candidate managing to get a mean grade of D-. According to his provisional results, he had four Es, two D- and one C- in Biology, his best performed subject.

“Just imagine bwana, ati nimeshinda watu 400. What I want to tell you is this, in Biology I (scored) C-…and there is nobody here who has (scored) C-. Because I am somebody who is learned from the stomach of my mother…I am a person who is different,” he stated.

“Hiyo Kiswahili kwanza haikuwa mbaya, nikaona sasa ntapata E plus, wengi wakaniambia ata E plus haipatikani…sasa mimi nikajikaza tu lakini juzi nikakuwa surpised kupata kwamba niko na D-.”

The 64-year-old terms his academic prowess innate as he dropped out of nursery school in 1970. Four years ago, Letting registered as a private candidate for the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) and scored 150 marks; he would then get inspired to take it to the next level.

“Wakisema watu wa O level mimi nitakuwa mmoja wao, sitatolewa na hii kazi ya MCA, kuna wakati walikuwa wanasema kama hauna certificate ya Form Four huwezi pewa…sasa saizi hakuna kitu wataniambia,” he said.

Despite being elected with no academic papers, the Kipkenyo Ward MCA had a deep desire to further his education and be able to articulate issues in English at the Uasin Gishu County Assembly and contribute to debates in the House.

“I am happy that I already know how to speak in English and explain because that is my nature and this is from God,” said the MCA.

The area residents were full of congratulatory messages for their leader Kokwas, as they fondly call him.