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How Regina Mutoko was a private public person

Heads Up

I met Regina Mutoko when she was working for Surazuri Casting Agency. I had just been contracted by Unilever to produce the Omo Pick-a-Box Show in 1994, and I was looking for presenters who could give the show a family face.

Regina never applied for the job because she was the one bringing candidates for auditions.

Despite my nagging to have her apply, she refused, until much later when we became friends. It is then that she agreed to give it a try.

For the six years we worked together from 1994 to 2002, Regina was the most God-fearing and organised person I ever met. Her meticulous planning and attention to procedural detail was phenomenal.

When we started shooting, she was a student at Moi University in Eldoret, and we used to shoot based on her class and exams schedule.

She never missed her exams or classes because of the show. After clearing campus, Regina landed a job with Fintech Kenya and was posted to Angola. Surprisingly, she still managed to co-host the show by organising shoots to coincide with her visits to Nairobi, once or twice a month. What many people didn’t realise then was that most of the episodes were prerecorded up to three months in advance.

This was so well planned to fit with the times and seasons each show was to be aired. For instance, if a programme was scheduled to run during Christmas, the presenters would exude the joy and merriment in line with the Christmas theme. We had this special bond that made us really tight and despite the show being shelved in 2002, we still remained close friends.

In fact, Regina had lunch with her former co-host Martin Mbugua on the Sunday of September 14. I used to have breakfast with her at least once a month, mostly on Saturdays.

When I started my company, Level One Productions, she was a co-director and was a board member at the time of her untimely death. Unlike today’s television personalities who consider themselves celebs and would like to be treated like small gods, Regina was what I would call a private public person.

She would go back to her private life after the show and many would barely recognise her in the streets.

But despite remaining private, she was never a snob and would politely say ‘hi’ to anybody who recognised her.

I am yet to meet anyone with a negative view of this humble lady. She never joined any social media platform, which explains why the only content available about her on these forums are those posted by others on her death.

That she jealously guarded her privacy is clear from the fact that no blogger or tabloid ever featured any sensational story about her. Despite the fact that she was in the limelight when Kenya Broadcasting Corporation had no competition, which gave her unrivalled viewership, she took her position just like any other job.

Perhaps it’s this humility that ensured she remained in the minds of millions of Kenyans 12 years after she left the screens for a quiet life. The Omo Pick-a-Box hosts were paid very well, even by today’s standards. She used part of the money to pay her way through campus, even though her parents were in a position to fully cater for her education.

In the show, she was very professional and had no emotional attachment to the prizes or winners. That we didn’t have a scandal in the six years we graced the living rooms of millions of Kenyans goes to prove that the management and production of the show was above board.

The best moments of the show were whenever someone won the life-changing grand prize - a brand new matatu.

The worst moment was when we had to close down the show after a successful six-year run.

Despite the popularity of the show, the sponsors decided to shelve it because they believed the product had attained the position they wanted, besides other marketing dynamics.

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