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Please forgive me for being too ‘high-handed’, Magoha pleads with Kenyans


Education Cabinet Secretary Prof George Magoha has asked Kenyans to forgive him for his perceived high-handedness. Speaking on Wednesday during after commissioning phase 2 of the Competency Based Curriculum (CBC) classrooms in Embakasi, Prof Magoha also thanked Kenyans for having walked with him and having taken his good, bad and ugly side because he is just a human being.

“There is no one who is perfect and I believe that for me to serve here it was by the grace of God. We are eagles and we fly high and we are not afraid. And we deliver. We deliver to the extent that even if you don’t like us as eagles, you can go and count what we have delivered,” he said.

“If during that process, we have looked like we are arrogant, then we seek your forgiveness but not that we are about to change. Eagles always keep on flying. Even when the eagle is going, he just disappears into the sky,” he added.

While describing himself as a courageous man whose rise to the ministerial position he holds was by God’s grace, the CS also said the results of his work speak for themselves.

Last month, Prof Magoha was forced to apologise to NTV journalist Rukia Bulle for remarks he made which appeared to associate the scribe with an outlawed terrorist group.

The CS made the remarks while responding to a question from the journalist when he officiated a ceremony to lay a foundation stone for the second phase of the construction of a CBC junior high classrooms at Pumwani Girls and Pumwani Boys Secondary Schools in Nairobi.

The CS instead of responding to the question asked by the journalist demanded where she had come from before making the remarks which were deemed to have profiled the scribe and associated her with the terrorist group.

Prof Magoha later apologised to the journalist, the Muslim community and Kenyans after meeting with a group of Muslim leaders led by the chairman of the Supreme Council of Kenyan Muslims (Supkem) Hassan Ole Naado.

A week later, he was caught in yet another controversy after he was caught on camera dismissing a man in a rather demeaning manner. The incident happened as he was again inspecting and commissioning a new CBC phase two classrooms at Bar Union Secondary School in Kisumu County.

In the video that also drew a lot of criticism, a man is seen giving the CS a jerrican to water a tree that had been planted in his honour. But the CS reacted by shooing off the man.

“Get away from me, you smell of alcohol!” Magoha barked at the man, in the presence of police officers, teachers and students.

In yet another incident in November 2020, Prof Magoha was seen reprimanding a grey-haired senior citizen before dismissing him.

Prof Magoha is known for being brass and stern in his pronouncements and one not to back down on his stance when issuing directives.