Not many would imagine hanging up a call from President Uhuru Kenyatta, whether or not the call carried good tidings of bad news.
Former State House operative Dennis Itumbi recalled during a past interview how he hung up on President Kenyatta three times in a row.
At the time Uhuru was consolidating a team that would help him launch a campaign for the presidency.
“I was called by a gentleman who introduced himself as Uhuru Kenyatta and I laughed and replied that I am the King of England and disconnected the call. The number called again and the president introduced himself again. I laughed it off and hang up again, it happened three times.
The fourth time I decided to listen and he told me to meet him at the Intercontinental Hotel. I decided since I was coming from KICC let me try and see what this is. When I got to the hotel a man came and told me Uhuru was in a pickup parked nearby. I thought it was a prank until I saw him in the car,” Itumbi narrated his first encounter.
The two drove to a dingy bar in South B and interacted with mechanics around there. The next destination was in Limuru to visit a mother who was struggling to raise nine children.
By that time, Itumbi did not know why Uhuru had tagged him along and at the end of the day, Kenyatta revealed his intentions to run for office in 2013 and gave the blogger a week to think about the offer.
A week later Itumbi rejected the offer explaining that he didn’t think Uhuru was a strong candidate, arguing that a lot of voters thought that he was out of touch with regular Kenyans on account that he was born into a wealthy family.
“When I listed the problems he would face in his campaign he challenged me to find a way to fix them and I agreed,” Itumbi recalled.
He was absorbed into the team that created President Kenyatta’s campaign strategies which helped him win over his rival Raila Odinga.
Itumbi added that he had previously worked in retired President Mwai Kibaki’s team in 2002 and had been promised jobs in the government.
“On the day Kibaki won, our contact person who was the retired president’s nephew Alex Muriithi, handed us appointment letters which claimed that we would be working in the head of the state’s communication team earning a Ksh 70,000 monthly salary.
“When we went to State House with the letters, we were chased away by the security officers and our contact changed his phone number. We would only see him on TV,” the blogger concluded.
Itumbi worked for President Kenyatta in his first terms and part of his second term until he was let go in March 2020.
The Public Service Commission announced that it had scrapped his position within PSCU due to redundancy.
The blogger and his colleagues are believed to have had a fall out with President Uhuru Kenyatta long before their sacking.
