A 15-year-old girl who scored a mean grade of ‘A’ plain of 84 points in the just released Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) results wants to meet President William Ruto and his predecessor, Uhuru Kenyatta.
Mercy Chari, an alumnus of Kenya High School, wants to meet the President and personally thank him for helping her to join the highly coveted National school and to present the result she promised him when Ruto was Deputy President in 2021.
She wants to meet the former President to remind him of a promise he made to her in Machakos during the Mashujaa Day celebrations in 2016, where after Mercy had recited a poem, the president promised to build her a house in Nairobi City and take care of her.
Mercy’s friendship with the President and his predecessor started in 2016 when, as Deputy President, Ruto visited Gongoni ward and the girl recited a heart-warming poem to him.
Mercy, who aspires to study medicine and surgery at Harvard University in the United States of America, says the former DP (now President) held her and encouraged her to work hard, promising to take her to Kenya High School and educate her.
Ruto also granted Mercy’s request to entertain former President Kenyatta during the Mashujaa Day celebration in Machakos and facilitated the same.
When Uhuru noticed her talent, he encouraged her to work hard in her studies and promised to build her a house.
Mercy, who was born in 2009 was just seven years old then and will celebrate her 16th birthday in a month’s time.
The third time Mercy had tete a tete Ruto was in 2021 when then DP was campaigning for the presidency.
After reciting a poem to entertain the gathering, Mercy presented Ruto with an artefact of a giraffe and a wheelbarrow with the inscription ‘Ruto wetu anaona mbali (Our Ruto is farsighted)’, and in appreciation, Ruto promised to take her to Kenya High School for her secondary education.
That was not to be, as the girl, who scored 380 marks in the 2020 Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE) was admitted to Bahari Girls Secondary School in Kilifi County in 2021 and studied in the school until Form Two before the president facilitated her transfer to her dream school in 2023 when she was in form three.
“When President Ruto became president, our Member of Parliament (former MP Harrison Kombe) assisted me to meet him in State House, Nairobi, where I had a chat with the president, who then called the Principal of Kenya High School and handed me over to her. He paid my fees for the first term,” she said.
Mercy, who scored an A (plain) in seven subjects and an A (minus) in one, said the words of the two prominent leaders inspired her to push to the limit to get a good grade, and now that God granted her the results, her wish is to see them and present the results to them.
She says she aspired to be a medical doctor because of her love for Biology and her desire to help people with their medical conditions.
“I want to do medicine because I have a very big interest in Biology. I also want to study at Havard University because I know it is one of the best institutions in the whole world,” she said.
Her parents, Solomon and Mary Kisagi thanked God for their daughter’s performance and asked the two leaders to honour their pledges to the girl so as to enable her to realise her dream.
