@basil.jambason.otieno: Story Behind The Photo This was somewhere deep in Taita Taveta, near the Kenya–Tanzania border. There’d been some tension brewing, something about Tanzanian police arresting Kenyans at the crossing points. Word had reached Jakom the day before at a rally, and in his usual confident tone, he promised to call his “friend Magufuli” to sort it out. True to his word, the next day, while passing through the area, Jakom stopped the entire convoy, stepped out of his car, and made the call right there by the roadside to President Magufuli. They spoke for several minutes as everyone watched, and in that rare moment, I managed to capture this photo of him completely alone, a near-impossible feat for anyone who’s worked around him. The photo soon went viral under the hashtag #BabaChallenge, because just a few weeks earlier, President Museveni had also made headlines for stopping his convoy mid-journey to take a phone call,only his version came complete with a plastic chair and some countryside ambience. Jakom, of course, didn’t need the chair. Just the moment, the phone, and the authority to call a president directly.

Basil Jambason Otieno

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Region: KE

Monday 27 July 2026 22:00:47 GMT