Mzee Jackson Kibor will be remembered as a self-made man who made his first million in plantation farming and a voice for the boychild.
His rags to riches story saw him become a tycoon whose wealth was valued at 18 billion. Under the patronage of President Moi, he rose to a top KANU echelon and had a stint as an alderman in Eldoret Municipality. Surprisingly, he became an emblem of masculinity in his eighties.
Kibor contracted COVID-19 in 2020 but had braved it and later admitted at St. Luke’s Hospital where he succumbed to Kidney failure on Wednesday (16.03.2022) at the age of 88.
Gun drama
Taste of the limelight was the gun drama where he trained a Ceska pistol to his son Ezekiel Kipng’etich embroiled in a land dispute. Then, he felt that his six children conspired against his extensive 1500 acres in 1250-acre parcel of land in Soy, he sought recourse in court, lodging a case in November 2016.
Nasty divorces and finding love again
He sought to legally annul the marriage to his third wife, Naomi Jeptoo bringing to a close, the 43-year-old union. The court acquiesced him to do paternity test on his sons before he could bequeath them his property.
Just six months earlier, he had terminated a marriage with his second wife, Josephine Jepkoech. A common denominator in both cases was conjugal rights since he said that his wives had deserted him. When the twin years divorces wre finalized in 2017, he was left with his fourth wife, 36-year-old Eunita Kibor. Although she was 46 years junior, age could not tame him. His first wife died long ago.
With this, Mzee Jackson Kibor went down as a man who beat the odds of spousal neglect, expropriation of his property by careerist kids, and the creeping loneliness at this age.
Mzee Kibor is survived by 26 children from his four marriages.
Men’s conference chairman
Kenyans were awestruck by his sheer grit and honored as the patron of Men’s Conference, an all-men annual event, then mythical. Kibor, an internet sensation rose above the memes, social media sentiment, and jokes to become the de facto symbol of patriarchy and masculinity. He would later launch the real event in Eldoret 2019.
As the rise of male centered subcultures, cults, and patriarchal schools of thought emerged he was hailed as the source of the man-code, a founding father, or so. Today, the men-only event has become a big forum with chapters in other cities and countries.
The earned praise raised for wise counsel — his cookbook on relating with the second sex, crisis of masculinity, and particularly called out his entitled sons who wanted to seize his property. In wealth and women, he was a macho-man; a stud who sired over two dozen off springs, the traditional standard of wealth rich. He would later turn to Christianity, or as others say, he was struck by the thunderbolt of the Lord and was baptized by Reverend Silas Yego in Boma Inn, Eldoret.
The cockerel came, crew and became a symbol of machismo.
