Imagine, the President does offers some goodwill to help you curb the economic tides he provides a house for you, only for you to decine. Do you think this is honetly fair? On October 14, 2014, 13-year-old Dennis Ngaruiya recited a poem for President Uhuru Kenyatta. 371 days later, the invitation to State House materialized during the 2015 Mashujaa Day. Ngaruiya and his mother Damaris Wambui were among other guests for attended State House luncheon. “I can’t fully explain how I felt as we entered the residence. Then came the President who recalled me and shook my hand saying ahadi ni deni. He would later see us,” narrates Ngaruiya. It was in the late afternoon that the President found an opportunity to sit down with the family, an opportunity they had been waiting for a year.
“The President asked me what I would like him to do for me. Since I am the sole breadwinner of four other children I asked him to offer my son a scholarship. That would have made it easier for me to handle the other needs,” said Wambui. Wambui said that the President told him that he would educate her son to the highest level he could wish but asked her to give her own needs as well. “That statement almost made me speechless. I told him that I had no home to call my own and a stable job to support my family,” said Wambui.
The family left State House full of hopes that they were soon moving to their own home in a few months. That spiralled into a long wait as the President’s aide kept dodging her calls until she gave up. Four years later, it has now emerged that Wambui has rejected the house that was built for her.
The decision by a single mother to decline a house from President Uhuru Kenyatta saying it was not the perfect gift the Head of State intended has sparked heated debate on social media platforms. Ms Damaris Wambui Kamau, whose son Dennis Ngaruiya cracked President Kenyatta’s ribs with a thrilling poem four years ago, said the house gift in Murunyu in Nakuru County is substandard. The house compound is overgrown with weeds and some of the window panes are broken. Its porous barbed wire fence and a wobbling wooden gate are a stark reminder the owner is yet to occupy the house.
State House Spokesperson Kanze Dena however, says the house was built and furnished and only cutlery and mattresses are missing. To date, Wanjiru is still living in a single room mud-walled house with her children for which she pays Sh1,200 every month. She survives by doing laundry, knitting sweaters and farm jobs in the neighbourhood hoping that the promise would come true one day. The scholarship however she says has been dully paid.