IKINU, Kenya (Reuters) - A woman in Kenya‘s Central Province could be the oldest person in the world, according to her family, who say she is 143. If the family‘s claims are to be believed, Njoki Wainaina was born more than 15 years before Livingstone met Stanley. Certainly Njoki, who lives in a village north of Nairobi, looks as though she could be 143, with her wizened face and tiny, birdlike frame. She can no longer see, and can hear only with difficulty, but still manages to command centre stage among her family as she sings songs and recalls scenes from her life. Njoki attributes her long life to God. Her longevity may have been helped by her simple diet, which includes bananas, maize, orange squash and home-brewed beer. And she seems to have got away with her weakness for taking snuff. Italian anthropologist Giovanni Perucci studies ageing among Njoki‘s ethnic group, the Kikuyu. He has met her several times and said it was possible she was 140 or even older. But since she possesses no birth certificate, Njoki is unlikely ever to be officially recognised as older than Jeanne Calment of France, who died last year at 122.