A young man who defied the President’s security detail and asked for a job from the Head of State last month, is now on the government payroll.
Mr Philemon Agwanda, 28, is an employee of the ministry of Public Service, Youth and Gender Affairs.
Mr Agwanda said he was hired on the same week the media carried the story of how he braved the presidential security detail and gave President Uhuru Kenyatta his phone number.
“They placed me somewhere,” he told the Sunday Nation on phone.
Asked which assignment he had been given and where he had been posted, he replied, “Si sasa tu ikuwe kwa youth service hivo? Nina prefer ikuwe hivyo (Won’t you just let it be that I am in youth service? I prefer it that way).”
Pressed further, he said he is at the youth department. “I’m enjoying it. But you know there are things I wouldn’t wish to share at the moment,” said Mr Agwanda. “I thank the President for putting me somewhere.”
PRESIDENT’S ENCOUNTER
As Mr Kenyatta’s convoy crossed Kisumu’s Obunga slum on February 7, Mr Agwanda called out to the President at the top of his voice and caught his attention. To his surprise, Mr Kenyatta asked him to write down his phone number.
Four hours later, he received a call from State House. He then explained to Mr Kenyatta that he had not found a job since leaving university.
Later, Mr Agwanda was asked to send his CV to Ms Sicily Kariuki, the Cabinet Secretary for Public Service, Youth and Gender Affairs.
He said he travelled to Nairobi on a Thursday and that the next day he had his letter of employment.
Mr Agwanda’s is but a page in the book of stories on people who have used unorthodox means to catch the President’s attention.
BETHUEL MBUGUA
In the 1980s, Bethuel Mbugua pulled a similar, if not more daring, feat. He was then an eight-year-old boy in primary school and he wanted to talk to President Daniel arap Moi.
Young Mbugua had taken instructions from his father and, on a cue, he dashed to the dais where Mr Moi was seated.
The then Vice President Mwai Kibaki ordered the security personnel not to drag back the lad. A photo of Mbugua talking to Mr Moi was all the rage in the next day’s newspapers.
That was the moment Mbugua had his claim to fame, and henceforth the country came to know of a boy many considered a genius; who left many in awe for his aptitude in complex biological concepts.
Though it was later announced that he failed an IQ test, Mbugua would travel to the United States for studies and later got a master’s degree in public health.
There are also others who caught Mr Moi’s attention without having to do anything extraordinary. One of them is a teacher identified as Ibrahim Guyo who, like Mr Agwanda, got a taste of presidential benevolence in Kisumu.
While having lunch at an MP’s home in Nyahera, Kisumu, in the 1980s, Mr Moi saw Mr Guyo in the crowd. “Is that Ibrahim Guyo?” President Moi asked.
“Yes sir, I am,” a faint, shaking voice came from an ageing Mr Guyo in a grey suit as he stood up.
Mr Moi then told the gathering that he had taught in the same school with Mr Guyo 30 years earlier. He then promoted him to the next grade.
Still on catching Mr Moi’s eye, the former President was so moved by a young poetess in the 1980s that he offered to pay her fees.
JACQUELINE KAMONYA
Jacqueline Kamonya, then a pupil at Mukumu Primary School, tickled Mr Moi’s funny bone with her poem Sukumawiki Kipenzi, which she recited at State House Nairobi.
After her education, she worked with the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation before crossing over to nursing. She is currently plying her trade at the United States.
Mr Moi’s successor Mwai Kibaki might not have made many such displays, but it will be remembered that his wife Lucy once paid school fees for a poor girl who had passed KCPE but could not afford to be in secondary school.
Stella Wanjiku had scored 413 out of 500 in KCPE examinations in 2010. Mrs Kibaki was touched by her story and paid her school fees for four years.
She would later scoop an A of 82 points from Bishop Gatimu Ngandu Girls High School in Nyeri. After KCSE, she got to meet Mrs Kibaki.
In a development related to national examinations, the name of President Kenyatta appeared in almost all news bulletins when the KCSE results were announced on March 3. A boy whose education the President had sponsored had scored a C+.
DANIEL OWIRA
Funny man Daniel Owira, who left Mr Kenyatta in stitches as he told the narrative Otonglo Time in 2014, was a centre of attention in the media, and he said he was happy with his mean grade – the minimum required to join university.
Related to Owira’s story is the case of Emily Wanjiru, who made laughter rain at the Sagana State Lodge in 2014 when she recited her poem Mvua Hii (This Rain).
Following Mr Kenyatta’s bliss on hearing the poem, a State House team delivered goodies for the girl, who was then aged six and who was a pupil at Gachororo Primary School in Kiambu County.
There is also the story of Dennis Ngaruiya, the 15-year-old who impressed Mr Kenyatta in October 2014 during Kenya Defence Forces Day celebrations at 3KR Barracks in Lanet, Nakuru.
His humour-packed poem, Our Father, left Mr Kenyatta and other guests laughing out loud. And that earned him a visit to State House and, subsequently, having his education sponsored by the President.
He sat the 2015 KCPE at Nakuru East Primary School and scored 212 marks out of 500. He is now a Form One student at Menengai High School. State House footed his Form One admission costs.
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