His father, Karmijan Qojahmetov, was a railroad engineer, machinist and a disabled World War II veteran who was from Semey and happened to leave the town before the Soviet Union tested its first nuclear bomb on 29 August 1949 there.
There, he faced terrible conditions at the training center which mostly had Russians, and constant physical and emotional abuse by his peers.
As a result, he ended up escaping the facility in February 1970 by walking next to a railroad track and sneaking into different train wagons where he eventually made it to Alma-Ata.
There, he complained about the discrimination in the Soviet Army, dealt with a court suit where he found lack of support and was sent to a psychiatric hospital.
He came to Alma-Ata to distribute 670 articles and leaflets to expose the discriminatory policies of the Soviet Union and the CPSU to the students of the Veterinary Institute.
After the Supreme Council of the Kazakh SSR announced elections on 16 October 1991, Qojahmetov sought to be a candidate.