Founding father Mzee Jomo Kenyatta was a man of anger, and repeatedly demonstrated this through outbursts, which is the same case with his son President Uhuru Kenyatta.
According to his second vice president Joseph Murumbi, whom he referred to as 'Joe' there was a time when Kenyatta was so mad at his ministers that he threatened to beat them.
He says that the ageing president was aware that his ministers took advantage if his old age to exploit him, with some proceeding to engage in corruption and other wrongdoings.
Murumbi who also served as Minister of Foreign Affairs claims that his turn came one day when he was threatened with a beating after a disagreement with Kenyatta.
However, he walked out, banged the door and left, and went to his office to await his sacking, which would never come.
"He threatened to beat me one day. But I walked out of his office and banged the door and disagreed with him. And I went to my office and was just waiting for a call: ‘Joe, you are sacked.’ But it never happened, perhaps showing another side of Kenyatta," he says.
This is according to Anne Thurston in her book "A Path Not Taken: The Story of Joseph Murumbi".
Murumbi says that he would later in the evening apologize, to Mzee, and though he was forgiven, it was not before again being threatened with several bakora (walking stick) thrashings.
This was when he met the President at the Parliament Buildings.
"If you do that again, I will beat you… I appreciate your coming and apologising," he told Thurson in one of their conversations, quoting Kenyatta ad having told him.
This came amid a budding friendship between the two, which even made Murumbi one of the few politicians who believed that Kenyatta had nothing to do with the assasination of Parklands MP Pio Gama Pinto years before.
The assassination, however, came only shortly after Pio insulted Kenyatta by calling him a 'bastard' within the Parliament, after an argument.