Collymore asked me to plan his funeral — Scangroup CEO Bharat Thakrar

Scangroup CEO Bharat Thakrar on Wednesday revealed that the late Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore had asked him to plan his funeral.

Speaking during an interview with Jeff Koinange on Citizen TV, Thakrar, who was one of Collymore’s most trusted friends, revealed a rather awkward conversation he had with Bob last Saturday.

“BT I want you to orgainse my funeral. I want to be cremated,” said Collymore.

This caught Thakrar off guard and he had to ask him if that was really what he wanted.

“I had to turn down the volume of the radio to hear him well. I even asked him if Wambui was aware of this,” said Thakrar.

‘The Captain’ as he was popularly referred to by his boys, was aware that he had a few weeks to live and wanted to plan for everything.

According to Thakrar, he knew Collymore was almost succumbing to cancer but he did not expect it to happen that soon.

His close friends: KCB CEO Joshua Oigara, Radio Africa Group CEO Patrick Quarcoo, politician Peter Kenneth and journalist Jeff Koinange all reminisced the precious moments they shared with Collymore and were full of praise for his character.

Oigara described him as a simple man who was not afraid of implementing his ideas. Kenneth described him as a jovial soul who was like the glue that held the boys club together.

Koinange, on his part, described the deceased as a firm leader who knew exactly what he wanted.

He referred to an incident where he left their WhatsApp group but Bob quickly added him back saying, “Where do you think you are going? No one leaves this group.”

Thakrar was particularly impressed by Collymore’s attention to detail and recalled one time when a Jazz Festival promo was about to go on air but Bob asked him to change the music because it did not communicate exactly what he wanted.

According to them, by the time of his death, ‘the captain’ was at peace with himself and with what he had achieved in his life.