Following the death of Nyandarua MP JM Kariuki in 1975, the country was filled with rage and was slipping slowly into panic mode.
The man who was supposed to steer the country, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta was down with a gout ailment.
As the country got tenser by the hour, Cabinet ministers removed flags from their vehicles and retreated to the safety of their homes fearing mob attacks for the death a loved government critic.
The government almost came to a grinding halt and looked on to the president to resuscitate it and provide the way forward.
Kenyatta was bedridden in Gatundu but he was revived by his doctors and informed that his ministers had run away, he instantly called a Cabinet meeting.
On the appointed day at 10 am, Kenyatta, who was in pain from gout and other ailments, confronted each of his ministers with a single question.
"I am informed that you have quit the government, vacated your offices and removed flags from your vehicles. Now I want to hear it for myself that you are no longer in government,” he asked them.
The Cabinet members feared Kenyatta who was known to be a firm ruler.
When each of the petrified ministers said they had not resigned but tried to explain, a furious president cut them short and ended the meeting.
A Kenyatta confidant, former Nakuru MP Mark Mwithaga later intimated that the old man swore that if his Cabinet had resigned, he would have abdicated his position and let Kenyans decide their own destiny.
Kenyatta then directed recruits from Armed Forces training school to hold their pass-out parade at State House, Nairobi, and then march them through the city as a show of strength and might.
The Kenya Air Force also had a fly past and the provincial administration organised delegations to Ichaweri to pledge their loyalty.
Kenyatta would then go on to keep mum about the killing of JM in public.
