A self-taught engineer from Mikumbune, Meru County, Godfrey Mutwiri has spent years turning scrap metal and salvaged electronics into working innovations, despite never completing primary school.
Known widely by his nickname Skago, Mutwiri was forced out of school in Class Seven after being diagnosed with diabetes.
Radio Station Built From Ruins
Rather than abandon his curiosity about how things work, he redirected his energy into hands-on experimentation, teaching himself electronics and mechanical systems through trial and error in his home base of Nkubu.
His most celebrated project is Skago FM, a radio station he assembled entirely from discarded components, including parts stripped from old mobile phones, vehicle systems, transformers and amplifiers.
What started as a transmitter with a reach of roughly 10 metres now broadcasts across approximately 500 metres, thanks to modifications Mutwiri made himself.
He has also constructed a functional CCTV system and completed several other electronics projects using similarly unconventional materials.
Plane That Never Flew
His ingenuity, however, has not been without consequence. After building an explosive device as part of one of his experiments, Mutwiri found himself under arrest, with anti-terrorism police suspecting he had connections to the militant group Al-Shabaab. He spent approximately six months in detention.
During that period, authorities asked him to replicate the device in order to prove he had built the original one himself, which he did.
Mutwiri also designed and built an aeroplane, which he attempted to fly at Mitunguu in Meru County. The flight never took off in any lasting sense. Police arrested him shortly afterwards, and the aircraft was seized.
Each setback, whether medical, legal or logistical, appears to have done little to dampen his drive.
Mutwiri has expressed willingness to return to formal education and pursue structured technical training, should he be given the chance to do so
His story has drawn attention to a broader question about what Kenya’s many informal innovators might achieve with access to resources, mentorship and institutional support. Skago remains in Nkubu, still experimenting, still building, and still dreaming of what comes next.
