The late Professor George Saitoti faced many tests during his political life and while serving as vice-president in the KANU regime, he was wary of plots on his life.
He was never one to talk about them but in 2003, at a NARC rally in Kikuyu, he let Kenyans in on his frustrations.
“Kama kuna mtu ambaye amefanyiwa majaribio, ni mimi Prof Saitoti. Hata walijaribu siku moja kunipatia poison (If there is anybody who has been subjected to tribulations, it is I, Prof Saitoti. At one time they even tried to poison me),” he divulged.
The incident happened in February 1990, a day after the death of Robert Ouko, at an Indian restaurant he frequented in Muthaiga. He was served food on a plate laced with cyanide gas.
Cyanide can be made into a colorless gas, which was probably sprayed on the plate and food served on it. When ingested, it may result in cardiac arrest or heart failure.
President Moi later opened up saying that those who killed Ouko were the same ones who poisoned Saitoti in an attempt to destabilize his government.
After the incident, Saitoti refused to stay in the hospital, fearing that the assassins would strike to finish the job, and instead converted one room in his Kitengela house to a hospital ward.
Those who saw Saitoti at the time said that his skin peeled off after the poisoning and a new one grew in its place.
It seems that alongside the new body cover, also came a different view of life and its risks. Doctors at the Nairobi Hospital where he was rushed, said that it was the swift and immediate actions of those next to him at the time that saved his life.
From then on, Saitoti kept the number of people around him and his home at a bare minimum and was never one to be found in social circuits at night.
For his personal security, Saitoti stuck to his trusted security guards for years, never allowing them to be replaced probably because of the extended fear of the unknown.
Prof. Saitoti died in a plane crash in 2012 together with his longtime bodyguard Inspector Joseph Tonkei and his assistant minister Orwa Ojode.
It is widely believed that Saitoti could have been killed by the big drug barons he was about to name even though the official report by the commission set up to investigate his death blamed the crash on human error.
