Former Cabinet Secretary John Michuki once got a dose of Kenya's first President Mzee Jomo Kenyatta's anger when he was the acting Secretary to Cabinet.
As told in former CBK Governor Duncan Ndegwa's book, Walking in Kenyatta's Struggles, Michuki failed to heed to a request by Mzee on a particular parcel that he had wanted to open personally.
Despite the president's caution, Michuki went ahead and opened it to check its contents himself.
The parcel Michuki had opened contained a watch and he proceeded to give it to Kenyatta.
The president flew into a rage in the presence of his Attorney General Charles Njonjo and Michuki so the latter had to defend himself quickly.
"Sir I would never wish the house of Michuki to be bestowed with the ignoble role of having led to the death of the first president of the Republic of Kenya after handing him an explosive device when I could have prevented it," Michuki responded.
The matter ended when Mzee Kenyatta burst into laughter soon after the explanation.
It later took the intervention of other State House officials to convince Kenyatta to let his staff always check letters before forwarding them to him.
Indeed, this is how Ruth First, the radical South African who edited Oginga Odinga's autobiography, Not Yet Uhuru, met her death.
She opened a letter bomb addressed to her while in exile in Mozambique that had been sent by the apartheid spy agency, the Bureau of State Security (BOSS).
