Days to his death in 1978, Mzee Jomo Kenyatta collapsed at the dais at a public function in Msambweni in Mombasa, according to his then Secretary of Press Lee Njiru.
In a previous TV interview, Njiru who was later on inherited by Kenyatta's successor Daniel Arap Moi, revealed that after landing, Kenyatta sought to wipe out the mess immediately.
He was aware that the public was watching him and would panic, which led him into coming up with a way of assuring then that all was well, after top state officials sought to take him away.
He said that the ageing Kenyatta loudly shouted "Harambee!" his signature slogan, as the officials who had accompanied him gathered and attempted to drive him away.
“You could not just put him in a car and drive away because we wanted to hoodwink the people since they could have panicked. He (Kenyatta) then said “Harambee”. It was the loudest I have ever heard," he told Citizen journalist Jeff Koinange.
But he also revealed that the people close to Kenyatta, the likes of Minister of State Mbiyu Koinange and Coast Provincial Commissioner Eliud Mahihu, contributed to his death shortly afterwards.
He claimed that instead of taking him to hospital, the group drove him to the statehouse to sleep, despite the fact that the Pandya Memorial Hospital was only a stone throw away.
“From there we drove back to State House Mombasa. What shocked us was that Kenyatta was not taken to hospital. Naturally if you collapse we do not take you to go and sleep. We take you to hospital,” recounted Njiru.
He added that Njiru, part of the team that was already discussing Kenyatta's succession, left the founding father sleeping in the Mombasa statehouse and took a flight to Nairobi.
Shortly after, Kenyatta was announced dead, which saw Moi, who some of the Kikuyu politicians around the president wanted to block, automatically succeed him.