A DAY AT THE ATHLETICS TRIALS

Kenya's Ezekiel Kemboi celebrates after winning the men's 3000m steeplechase during the 2012 Olympic Games on August 5, 2012 in London.

AFP Photo By Franck Fife Fri, Jul 12, 2013

Saturday, 13 July 2013 at a packed Nyayo National Stadium, Emmy Kosgei belted her musical classical and brought the crowd to its feet. Her ‘Taunet Nelel’ hit song electrified the crowd and set it ready for the explosive athletics action that soon followed. The stage had been set for the Moscow 2013 World Athletics championships trials, on a sunny Saturday morning in the Kenyan capital.

The athletics action perhaps offered a worthwhile distraction from the disappointing show that our Harambee Stars had put on in Kitwe, Zambia during the 2013 COSAFA Cup. But truth is, as a soccer-mad nation, we are now used to the football heartbreaks that Harambee Stars perennially put us through. Our track stars so proudly fly our flag high and it never gets any better, than when our national anthem is played in honor of our world-beaters during major sporting events such as the Olympics and the World Athletics champions, the two world’s greatest track events .Track events such as KipchogeKeino, NaftaliTemu, Catherine Ndereba, Paul Tergat, TeclaLorupe, Bernard Barmasaiand VivianCheruiyot are our sons and daughters. Add reigning Olympic, World and record –holder in the men’s 800m, David LekutaRudisha to the list, and you see why we got the bragging rights in the athletics world.

The 10, 000m Men set the action and BidanKaroki led his training partner PaulKipngetichTanui in 1-2 finish. Even the arrival of Deputy President William Ruto could not upstage the action that was getting thick and fast on the Nyayo Stadium track!  Away from the track action, the entire stadium watched in awe as Julius ‘YouTube-man’ Yego, shattered the national Javelin record with a new throw of 82.09m! I was part of this history-defining moment! An incredible feat! Simply put, this is just 8m shy of the entireNyayo National football pitch! Just like other Kenyans, I am strongly optimistic Kenyan that Yego will be in the running for a medal in Moscow. Never forget that he is the first ever African to make it to the finals of the Olympic Javelin, back in London 2012.

Ezekiel Kemboi, the reigning world 3000m steeplechase champion brought the curtains down, with his trademark dance to that moved the London crowd to its feet during the 2012 Olympic Games after winning the gold medal. The crowd cheered on as Kemboi performed his magical gig, never minding that he was placed 6^th in the race, but he is the world champion and he board the plane to Moscow, with the hopes of the entire nation that the 3000m Steeplechase Gold will remain in Nairobi!

Perhaps the absence of reigning world and Olympics 800m maestro David Rudisha and 5000m/10,000m world champion, Vivian Cheruiyot, both injured and expectant, respectively, must be a source of heartache to all Kenyans, and a relief to our arch-rivals, Ethiopia.

Our team of world –beaters to Moscow 2013 had been selected after a grueling day at the Nyayo Stadium. To the international media, thetrials double as a mini-Olympics and this were attested to by the battery of international journalists capturing the action and interviewing our athletes after the finish line.

All in the day of a budding journalist!

NOTHING TO JUBILATE ABOUT IN AFRICA UNION’S JUBILEE CELEBRATIONS

So Africa Union, AU is celebrating its Jubilee year and 50 years since its inception in 1963, formerly as the Organization of African union (OAU).  But do we really have all the reasons to celebrate as a continent as though we do not have our home-made African troubles? There are many reasons to jubilate, just as the Coca Cola soft drink advertisement says that we have a billion reasons to believe in Africa’. But let us not be so ignorant of the continent’s dark and evils that have been a cause for tears.

African heads of states converged in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa in late May, for the week-long African Union summit that marked the golden jubilee of the body born out of the efforts and aspirations of our founding fathers. The brain child of the Selassie’s, Kenyatta’s, Nkrumah’s and Nyerere’s who led the continent in her fight against the colonialists has turned 50 years old, but really is all smiles about our Africa? Film festivals, musical extravaganza, sports, symposiums, seminars, exhibitions and helicopter flight arts were on offer as Africa Union marked her 50th birthday in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

But chief among the summit’s resolutions is the threat of a massive pull-out from the Hague-based International Criminal Court, ICC, by all African states. This is a threat that Botswana distanced herself from. Botswana has refused to be part of the blatantly oppressive yet pretentious leadership that AU had endorsed in its threat of mass pull-out from the ICC. We must laud our brothers and sisters from Botswana and their president, Lieutenant General Sereste Khama Ian Khama. Kudos Lt Khama for refusing to use this cheap blackmail by AU to cover up the suffering and crimes against humanity that most Africans have been forced to accept as a norm!

I am proud to be an African, both by blood and by soil, but am not proud of our leadership norms and most of the individual heads of states. One may castigate me for unpatriotism to my continent, but I got reasons for my apparently unpatriotic stand!

Coup d’états and armed bloody take-over’s of power are an accepted norm of ascending to the presidency in several African states. Abuses of state power, massive plundering of state resources, suppression and consistent intimidation of political opponents, love for war and cultures of impunity are what best define most presidencies across the continent, with the exception of a few states. Let us too not forget the ‘presidents for life’ ideology that is rife in African. To many countries, presidency in Africa is nobility that has ironically been the African curse. It has been a cause of deaths, destruction, bloodbath, anguish, agony and all words that describe human suffering. This is the far cry from the source and beacon of hope, inspiration, peace and development that presidencies should be.

The threat of a massive pull-out by African countries from the ICC best describes the insensitivity that most of our presidents across the continent have towards the very people whom they are supposed to be sensitive and equally responsive to. It is an open secret that most of these presidencies are a source of agony, the means of ascending to power have been bloody and democracy is a word that best works on paper. Those who democratically think of challenging the status quo in some of these African countries are met with unmatched force and brutality by the security forces. Our brother in Uganda, Dr. Kizza Besigye is a perfect case in point.

Television images of how the security forces met his peaceful walk-to-work campaigns with cruelty were nasty, mind-boggling and at best despeakable. One really wonders how Besigye’s walk-to-work demonstrations were supposed to poison and threaten Museveni’s presidency. This was back in 2012, the year when the Maghreb revolution rocked the status quo in Libya, Egypt and Tunisia. This wind of change was slowly blowing to neighboring Uganda as Besigye took the courageous step of rocking Museveni’s leadership. But sadly, the revolution did not last the rough ride and died out, with Besigye badly maimed and critically injured. He had to be flown to Nairobi for specialized treatment. You can rightfully say that Kampala is living the Kenyan dark days of the Moi regime when those who dared challenge Moi’s presidency were labeled dissidents and traitors and had to endure torturous detention inside the now infamous Nyayo House torture chambers. But this is what really happens when some of these presidents for life- minded leaders smell revolutions in the air. One must be forgiven for thinking that these presidents do not think of life outside the trappings of power.

In Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe is apparently the only man fit enough to lead the country, in Equitorial Guinea, Theodoro Nguema Obiang and his son are leading the country and plundering it in equal measure. Just as in other African countries, the people of Equatorial Guinea are some of the poorest and life is a daily struggle despite the vast deposits of oil and other minerals. Equatorial forests are rapidly disappearing and in their places are multimillion palaces! Talk of misplaced priorities. Somebody once said that Africa is rich in resources but poor because it is poor in mind!

Most of the African leaderships do not offer us means and ways of improving lives across the continent, as a result of these minerals. Instead it is the complete opposite. Bloody conflicts and wars reign supreme as a result of these rich minerals. Niger Delta has never known peace due to the oil deposits, Democratic Republic of Congo is so accustomed to rebels and crimes against humanity are a norm due to the fight for gold and other minerals in the vast and naturally endowed country. Sierra Leone has never recovered from the bloody conflict occasioned by the infamous blood diamonds, our neighbors in South and Northern Sudan are still uneasy over the oil-rich Heglig region and Omar-el-Bahir is a wanted man by The Hague-based ICC. Former Liberan strongman Charles Taylor and Omar Bongo of Ivory Coast are awaiting to know their fate inside the court-rooms of the ICC. They are just some of the many African suspects at The Hague or wanted to answer charges of crimes against humanity. But we too have suspects from other continents; most notable is that former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic died

Some of our African leaders might strongly protest and argue that the ICC unfairly targets African, but this is not necessarily the truth. They do so just to protect their friends in power who are wanted men by Fatou Bensouda and her legal team. We too must question some outrageous statements, especially when former prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo infamously said that he was to use the Kenyan case as a perfect lesson to indeed prove that the Hague-based court had teeth and could bite in equal measure. Questionable and outrageous statement indeed! This is story for another day. But let us not forget that most African countries have never known peace, primarily due to poor and incompetent leaders and an apparently unquenchable thirst for power.

Civil wars and strives, coup d’états and militant groups have all greatly occasioned unprecedented human suffering. From child soldiers during the Sierra Leone civil war to the Dadaab Refugee Camp in North Eastern Kenya, Africans have indeed lived through hell. And to compound an already dire situation, except after the infamous Rwandan genocide of 1994, there has been no proven political goodwill to help address these problems. That is the point where the ICC must come in and see to the bitter end that justice indeed prevails. With regard to most of these wars and conflicts, most African leaderships have shown that they cannot provide the required political goodwill to address the teething issues that have been the bane of human suffering across the continent. This unquenchable thirst and hunger for power by all means possible and the bloody fights over the natural resources in most African countries is one area where successive presidencies in Africa have dismally failed in.

The African leadership is mainly divided into a minority of leaders who are champions of democracy and the rule of law and a majority to whom democracy and the rule of law best exists on paper. Our beloved Kenya, Ghana, Botswana and South Africa represent the few countries who are champions of democracy. However, others like neighboring Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Zimbabwe and many others form the African side where democracy best works on paper. Worse still, DRC and Somalia and others, perennially in civil wars and strives are not the best of news.

As a continent, we must be truthful and in as much as we celebrate the beauty and success of our beloved continent, take a moment away from the eerie and realize that we have teething challenges and problems that most of our leaderships have proven to be incapable of solving and worse still, just blatantly refuse to solve.

Let us learn to see an half- full glass as a positive instead of lamenting and cursing why it is not full. Likewise, we must learn to appreciate the efforts of the international community and the many ways in which it chips in to help us. The ICC represents the only pragmatic way of holding to account the perpetrators of crimes against humanity, war, rape, murder, forcible circumcision and displacement of innocent civilians. These innocent victims, women and children, who mostly bear the full brunt of civil wars and strives are destined to live with permanent scars and trauma of what they are forced to live through.  Others across the continent are forced to live in uneasy calm and peace under constant mass violations of their human rights and leaderships are forced down their throats.  

Most Africans have suffered; physically and psychologically maimed, shed tears, lost lives and their loved ones due to the rich and vast natural resources on the African land. Sycophancy and cynicism best describes the mediocrity of most African leaderships and this has sadly made Africa to play the catch up role globally, despite the fact that we are the most endowed continent in natural resources!

Africa is not the sad story in the world’s history. We have numerous positives that we draw pride in. Unfortunately, due to leadership problems, we have been forced to play second fiddle to the rest of the world. We must wake up and correct the leadership before it is too late!

LAPTOPS VERSUS THE ROUGH KENYAN EDUCATION TERRAIN

The Free Primary Education (FKE) introduced by former President Mwai Kibaki, upon his assumption to power in 2002, was indeed a milestone in the Kenyan education sector. Children from unfortunate families, who could not afford the monetary value of primary education, could now afford it. Kimani Maruge, the octogenarian from Rift Valley, too went back to school to get what he had only heard of and imagined. Never mind that he was 86 years, arguably the sunset years of his life. Yet he had decided to go back and get what he should have done I his early childhood. This just shows you what it means when the wise minds say that education is the key to life! Sadly, Maruge passed on before he could fully realize his education. But not before he had walked into the Guiness Records as the world’s oldest pupil, and some trips to the United States of America! The man had attained worldwide recognition and a movie blasted the walls of Hollywood, all in his name. Rest in eternal peace, Mr. Maruge.

However, despite all the positives that we realized as a nation due to FKE should not blind us from the bitter facts, especially faced by our brothers and sisters in the marginalized regions of this country. Inadequate teaching staff, lack of decent classrooms for these young minds to learn uninterrupted, and a general lack of all the basics best characterizes the Free Primary Education. Pupils lack enough desks, others sit on stones under trees to escape the scorching sun. Accessing the free education is a challenge to most children in these marginalized regions. Yet as a nation, we have all along turned a blind eye to the predicament of these young Kenyans. Free primary education is not free passé; many children have been forced to pay in many ways.

The laptops puzzle is here with us now. An election pledge by the Jubilee government in the run up to the last General Elections, this ambitious plan has elicited all manner of reactions. But mainly the nation is divided along two schools of thought here; one, that laptops are not a priority as of now and two, that our kids need to embrace technology from the earliest age possible.

But, let us examine the real situation with regard to primary education in the country. We have pupils in the rural areas and the marginalized regions whose access to this invaluable commodity is a daily struggle, laden with all manner of seemingly insurmountable challenges. Many lack, desks and chairs to sit on and learn, teachers are few in numbers and pose a serious deficiency, classroom walls have tumbled due to the harsh weather, pupils go to school on empty stomach, lack clean water to drink, there are no adequate text books for the pupils and worse still, others trek to and fro for at least 15 kilometers daily, in search of this basic education. In some parts of the Northern Frontier, insecurity, mainly in the form of clan reprisals, cattle rustling and terror attacks, pupils can no longer go to school. And now, due to the countrywide teachers’ strike, pupils in public primary schools are stuck at home, praying that the government and the teachers strike a compromise and normalcy returns. 

These are the challenges faced by the ordinary Kenyan pupil, who is not fortunate to see the walls of private primary schools or the not -so -good facilities in public schools in urban and some rural settings. The nightmare that he wishes away so quickly, the hardships that he prays for a miracle to take away! These are what the Jubilee government should focus on solving, in order to ensure quality free primary education. The free primary education is laden with worlds-apart disparities. Let us solve this then become rightfully ambitious and set up Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Centres across the country’s 47 counties. We do not even need to give laptops to each pupil in the country. We should again be realistic and dream sustainable dreams! The laptop per pupil dream best remains a dream!

Meanwhile, Wilson Sossion and his entire teachers’ workforce have stayed put and it might take serious government efforts to get them back to class. The hide and seek game that Labour secretary, Kambi Kazungu and his education counterpart Jacob Kaimenyi have been engaging the teachers in for the past week, can never solve the strike issue. Issuing ultimatums and legal action against the teachers will even make the situation even more unpalatable.

AFC LEOPARDS LETTING KENYAN FOOTBALL DOWN.

Business owners and proprietors around Nairobi’s City Stadium are yet to come to terms with their razed and destroyed investments. The venue which played host to the latest show of post-match hooliganism by a rowdy section of AFC Leopards’ faithful. Just as it has been all too common in this year’s Tusker Premier League, TPL 2013 season, this unruly section of Ingw’e faithful has ruined an otherwise decent match. Violence is slowly taking root in the Kenyan game and apparently is happening unabated.  It has happened right under the noses of the Football Kenya Federation and the Kenya Premier League Limited, KPL. Sad scenes and worrisome trends indeed!

The men in the centre no longer make the final decisions but the unruly do. The fans have perfected the art of meting out this entire discontentment. It is football the Kenyan style! This was best exemplified during last month’s Super Eight knock-out clash between Ingw’e and Chemelil Sugar at the Nyayo Stadium as the match entered its closing stages. An enraged fan scaled the perimeter fence and headed straight for the centre referee who had apparently made a wrong call in a game that Ingw’e was losing. This happened as police officers watched. The man even had the audacity to splash beer all over his victim’s face as the police officers took time to respond and players from both teams offered little help to the besieged whistle-man who had to run for his safety.  Events that followed were absolutely ridiculous as AFC Leopards were banned from the stadium and the game awarded to Chemelil Sugar. However days later, Ingw’e were reinstated to the stadium and little or no action taken on these rowdy fans. Kenya Premier League, Football Kenya Federation, Sports Stadium Management Boards and AFC Leoprds then went to sleep and have now been awakened by the latest ugly incident where fans looted and burned business premises around the City Stadium, on Saturday after their team lost  by a solitary goal to Mathare United. So what is next to stem this?

Last season, Gor Mahia fans were the culprits of football violence but seem to have passed it onto their mashemejis.  Over the last few seasons, the beautiful name has not lived up to its name, at least going by what the fans of Kenya’s most successful clubs that command a near religiously fanatical following have been doing.  Violence is what has best described games of the two teams, and sadly lives have been lost in recent derbies at the Nyayo Stadium, most infamously in the 2010 season, whereby a pre-match stampede resulted into the death of at least four fans.  However, it seems our football administrators never learn and little efforts have been made to stem football violence in Kenya. One wonders whether we are really waiting for a Cairo-like disaster when in February 2012, chaos erupted in the infamous Port Said Stadium disaster, which left more than 70 Al- Ahly fans dead and scores of others injured. This was after a fiery Al- Masry versus Al Ahly match, when fans took matters into their own hands and knives, swords, clubs and stones became the weapons of choice as they sought to mete out anger and frustrations onto each other!

In Kenya, Gor Mahia and AFC Leopards fans have used stones to settle matters off the pitch, often leaving innocent business owners, pedestrians and motorists on the receiving end of matters they knew little of. Violence is slowly being accepted as a way of football life in Kenya. This is best exemplified by the casual and hands off approach to matters football violence whenever sections of K’Ogallo and Ingw’e fans turn into fanatics and football maniacs who are out to kill the beautiful game. As a nation, Kenya has proved to be a poor student of history, and disasters have recurred often with devastating losses. But the football fraternity should not wait till it tastes the sharpness of this deadly sword of violence with its own flesh!

It is sad and equally disturbing that the recent gains made in Kenyan football, chief among them being the live broadcasting of premier league matches by pay television channel, Super sport and the rise of Victor Mugubi, Dennis Oliech, Macdonald Mariga and others into Europe’s crème de crème of football have been marred by the hooliganism and uncouth behavior by some fans in the stands. We have silently accepted violence as part of Kenyan football. Just as in any other part on the planet, fans are a responsibility of their clubs. The consequences of unsporting behavior and rowdiness by the fans are passed onto their clubs and this should not be any different when it comes to Kenya.Violent behavior chases away sponsors, scares away some real football fans and gate collection greatly suffers, property is destroyed, clubs are faced with bans and fans can even die. Must we wait for this to happen?

Am sure that the streetwise storylines of Afadhali FIFA isiingilie haya mambo yetu! rule the air whenever violence breaks out on the stadiums. War unto us if the Blatter-led body intervenes because players will sell their boots to youngsters and coaches will switch careers. The ban can be lengthy and equally deterrent. Our already dilapidated footy grounds will turn into green grazing grounds for our cows! This unsporting and uncouth section of AFC Leopards should be nipped in the bud before they land us into serious trouble with FIFA. Am sure that those informed well enough know that FIFA is not as toothless as most of our local commissions of inquiry! Football federations who have crossed roads with FIFA all know this too well and Afc Leopards and Kenyan football administrators should listen to them!

National federations and clubs alike have paid the heavy penalties for their fans violent conduct. The Serbian FA was in December 2012, fined £65,000 when their fans subjected England’s Danny Rose to racism chants during a European under-21 play -off match. Russian and Spanish FAs were handed a combined fine of   £40,355 in June 2012 for improper conduct of their fans. At the club level, Italy’s Lazio and Portugal’s Porto have too been fined as a result of their fans unsporting behavior. In June 2009, Chelsea was fined £85,000 for failing to control its players and fans after a stormy semi-final loss to Barcelona in the UEFA Champions League.

These are just some of the incidents where the unsporting behavior of fans has proved to be a costly affair to their clubs. These European leagues have a near religious following in Kenya, yet on the part of stemming football violence we do not always go the European way. This is a challenge to our football administrators and clubs whose fanatics go march into the stadiums for the sole purpose of causing violence, all done under the guise of cheering on their favorite teams!

Let us join hands and kick violence out of our football fields before FIFA catches up with us!

GREED RELOADED!

The ‘Digital’ tenure has already begun! The cabinet is already in place and working on delivering Jubilee’s pre-election pledges to Kenya. The country is highly expectant and optimistic of the free laptops for primary school pupils and the five modern football stadiums across the country.

However, the 11^th Parliament has been fast off the blocks in delivering the post-election goodies to the Kenyan voter, albeit on the wrong side! They are breathing fire and threatening apocalyptic consequences to whoever threatens to derail their bids of slashing away the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC); the body that they have blamed for their reduced paycheck. The Sarah Serem-led Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) has under heavy political gunfire as Nithi legislator, Mithika Linturi ahs not once threatened to sponsor a bill to the Parliament. His cry is that the Serem-led team should be disbanded for flouting constitutional provisions in revising the Mps’ paycheck at the end of the month. And in perhaps what defines the unity of our Cord and Jubilee parliamentarians, Mithika has received unwavering support from both fronts of the house. The 11^th house that had proved to be irreconcilable in the formation of teams to major committees of the house suddenly disappeared into the political clout. This rivalry died and these legislators have come together to slay this white elephant that Serem’s team had suddenly become to them. It is a move that has drawn the ire of the entire nation.  

The last nail on its coffin was perhaps the pig demonstration along Parliament Road. The innocent sow and his family found themselves in the middle of a nasty physical confrontation between the law enforcers and outraged Kenyan demonstrators. The activists were clobbered, pepper water sprayed on them, teargas canisters exploded at their feet as and the innocent animals taken to a safer home within Nairobi. But going by the outrage that Kenyans have poured in the social media, the fight is on and the honorable greed is certain of facing sterner tests, both in the streets and on social media. Just as the Arab revolution that slayed Mubarak, Gaddafi and Ben Ali, the Kenyan revolution might too be retweeted and posted on face book walls. It is a battle that has all the makings of a long and grueling fight, pitting the Mps on one side against an angry Kenyan public, civil society groups, the media et al on the other.

The only legislator who has openly opposed this greedy move is Cherangany Mp and marathon world-beater, Wesley Korir. The rest have been mum albeit to evade public ire. Others like Kiambu legislator, Jude Njomo have threatened to quit their posts over the pay issue. But we are waiting to see if they can make good their threat. However, the consolation that hungry and angry Kenyans have is in the president, His Excellency Uhuru Kenyatta, who has opposed the Mps greed and told them to deliver, before seeking to fatten their wallets.

Take away the hoopla, the ire and anger that the Mps have caused across the country. Let us examine the issue soberly. Our Mps are unrealistic, insensitive and all words that describe their big disconnect from the people whose interests they apparently represent. The economy is still struggling, the legislators’ number has increased from 224 in the 10^th House to the current 340 Mps, the country is grappling with the ticking time-bomb that is unemployment among the youth, Kenyans are living on less than a dollar a day, our police force is in dire need of attention and insecurity is a key national concern, university graduates are decrying the lack of jobs and the country is fighting on all fronts to march towards the Millennium 2030 Goals.

It is sad and unfortunate that our Mps may be at pains to accept the new Kenya, where salaries in the public service are controlled by the SRC, but it is the new constitution at work. These are some of the ‘hard truths’ and ‘bitter pains’ that we unanimously voted in and promulgated at Uhuru Park on 27 August 2010. Our Mps, even after seeing their salaries and perks greatly reduced by the SRC are still among the world’s highest paid legislators, even more than their British, American and French counterparts. The perplexing irony in this awkward reality is that the above are all first-world countries where the economy is mega stable yet ours is still on its knees, struggling for stability. One might be forgiven for thinking that Kenyans pay taxes and struggle to grow our economy just to pay our Mps. The Kenyan Mp has been a lucrative job and career path that does nots call for so much academic qualifications.

In Kenya, being a member of the August House has for long been a moneyed career, whereby people seek it under the guise of working for the ordinary mlala hoi. A fact that has best been exemplified by this Linturi-led onslaught, disguised as a move to disband a law-defiant commission. Our legislators should tone down on their undesirable desire for more money from the public coffers, and instead come down to earth and the bitter Kenya, whereby citizens are gnashing their teeth and cursing as the cost of living shoots through the roof, with every dawn. They should show this undeterred determination and commitment in formulating policies and creating an enabling legal environment upon which the economy will tremendously grow, as investors, both local and international pump more money into our economy.

Meanwhile, the Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC) has handed its report to President Uhuru Kenyatta. Just as expected, influential Kenyans and politicians have been adversely mentioned and the correct action recommended. As a nation, we are eager to see whether the Bethwel Kipalng’at-led to gather dust in the shelves.