Kenya could now make an entrance into the Guinness Book of Records for having the oldest man on earth currently if a DNA test on Julius Wanyondu Gatonga confirms he is 136 years old as indicated on his national identity card (ID).
The supercentenarian who was born and brought up in Mukurweini, Nyeri County is not even in the Wikipedia (the free web encyclopedia) list of the 50 living oldest people in the world though according to his identity card, he is 19 years older than the current holder of the slot Kane Tanaka of Japan.
According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Kane Tanaka has clocked 117 years having been born on January 2, 1903. She was confirmed as the oldest person alive in March 2020.
Frenchman Jean Calment is listed as the oldest person to have ever lived in modern times. Calment was born on, February 21, 1875, but died on, August 4, 1997, at the age of 122 years, 164 days.
If the date of birth of Wanyondu is as stated in his Identity card, he would break Calment’s age record by 14 years.
Wanyondu was born in 1884 according to his ID but his family contends he might have been born three years earlier according to his own account on the matter.
“As you Know during those colonial days the level of illiteracy was very high and so my father’s birth date was not recorded. Going by the ancient stories he has been telling us he could be even older than the dates on his ID,” claims his 76-year-old son with the second wife Jackson Gatonga.
