24-year-old shamba boy wins lavish three-bedroom apartment in Nairobi

Joshua Kilonzo was working at a farm when he received an unexpected call from a person that introduced themselves as an employee of Kenya’s leading telephony’ firm- Safaricom. 

The call was not prank. Neither did it require him to send money before he could receive his gift. 

Safaricom had called him to inform him that he was the new lucky winner of a fully furnished three-bedroom apartment in Riruta. An upscale Nairobi neighbourhood. 

An elated Kilonzi says he took the day off to ruminate on the new trajectory that his life as a farm-hand with a meagre wage was about to take. 

“I never expected to win, I have never won any competition in my life, I could not believe that I had just won a brand-new house, this is a miracle,” he said. 

And on Friday, February 28,  a 24-year-old Kilonzi was unveiled as the last winner in the ongoing Safaricom Lipa na Mpesa Promotion in a colourful event that culminated in him getting the keys to his new home. 

The former farmhand who was accompanied by his brother to the fête now joins  several other Safaricom subscribers who have won three-bedroom houses in Mpesa’s grand promise of ‘transforming lives’. 

As testimony of his new-found  fortunes, Kilonzi was ferried to his new apartment aboard a swanky white Landcruiser. 

His life as he knew it had transformed overnight. For the better.