In their first interaction which occurred in 2010, Ruto at the time was the Agriculture Minister while Njoka was an intern at K24 TV.
“I was very timid and so I was assigned to cover the Minister’s event in Murang’a. His entourage would pick us and take us to the site of the project,” he stated.
Njoka was assigned to two duties, as the camera person, and as the reporter. He narrated that the camera was quite analog and he had to balance the settings to get a clear picture.
K24 TV anchor Eric Njoka in studio on April 17, 2020.
In the field, Ruto had already given his speech as he toured the plantation. Njoka tried to record his sign-off message, which he explained took many takes to get right.
“People were laughing at me and Ruto at the time noticed that I was struggling and he glanced at me,” He narrated.
The journalist explained that when he had recorded what he thought was a good sign off the then-Agriculture Minister intervened.
“Ruto stopped and glanced at me. I was extremely nervous. My battery was running low and I was never good with Piece to Camera (PTC) I had to write them down and cram them,” he stated.
“No! that’s not how you talk. How do you operate the camera?” Njoka recalled Ruto’s words. Without hesitation, the DP approached the journalist and offered to stand in as his cameraman.
“I started sweating and shaking,” the K24 TV anchor recalled but proceeded to show the then-Minister how to operate the camera.
Deputy President William Ruto addresses the media outside his Karen, Nairobi home on Thursday, April 9, 2020
File
Njoka recorded his sign off which turned out to be good as the security team tried to have Ruto head on to his next engagement.
“The security team was panicking, trying to get him into the vehicle but he said that I was his friend and he was trying to help me,” the anchor recalled adding that the encounter was their first meeting ever.
After recording, Njoka explained to the DP how the camera works as he showed him clips of the event.
From that interaction, Njoka went on to interview the DP three more times in his career.
Here is the narration by Eric Njoka:
