By Omulo Okoth
As the Jubilee Team prepare to start work 48 hours from today, I want to remind them to fulfil their pledges on improving sports facilities.
A youthful pair, who force their security detail to jog while they are walking, they strike quite awesome sporting figures. During their campaigns, we saw their colourful billboards depicting some jaw-dropping sporting facilities they plan to construct around the country.
The Kibaki Administration may have done quite well in infrastructural development, especially the road network. But they did not do as well in building sporting facilities.
Granted, the Kibaki Government structured an awards scheme, which inspired upstarts who had not handled the kind of money their more illustrious compatriots earn when they win road races abroad or sign for European football clubs.
But it fell short in ending land grabbing within local authorities, where sporting talent can be tapped. It fell miserably short in building new and improving existing, but dilapidated, stadia around the country.
Not even once did the outgoing head of state attend a football match or a National Athletics Championships. His predecessor, Daniel Moi, was a permanent fixture in all major football matches and National Athletics Championships every year, so long as he was in the country. He would even work his diary around such important national events.
Kibaki, on the other hand, never missed a single Kenya Open Golf, which is one of Professional Golf Association series. During one of those events, I watched with amusement as some politicians, who had no idea what a bunker or a bogey is all about, follow the presidential party around the golf course.
Only the outgoing President and a few people were in the know and anxiously hoping that long-hitter Dismas Indiza would make the cut.
At the Nyayo National Stadium, the atmosphere is completely different. Football and athletics are a peoples’ game. Adrenalin levels run high and they bring together a people, as we saw when Harambee Stars’ initial performance in the 2010 Fifa World Cup final qualifying matches brought together a country that was then still nursing wounds occasioned by the 2007-8 PEV.
We also saw how Beijing Olympics of 2008 united a nation, especially communities in the Rift Valley province who had that same year butchered one another after the events of the disputed presidential poll. Samuel Wanjiru’s historic victory in marathon was cheered in social places in Eldoret and Kapsabet as much Jebet Lagat’s or Pamela Jelimo’s win was received with joy in Nyahururu and Nyeri and Kiambu.
President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto must end senseless grabbing of public land in major towns and construct sports facilities there. But first, they should reclaim Ruring’u in Nyeri, improve Kip Keino Stadiums in Eldoret and Kapsabet, Moi Stadium in Kisumu, Mombasa Municipal Stadium, Afraha Stadium in Nakuru, Kisii Municipal Stadium, Kakamega’s Bukhungu Stadium and Nyahururu, among others. We need tartan tracks in Eldoret, Kisumu and Mombasa for sprinters. Our youth also need floodlights so that they are not lost when competing under such conditions abroad. But sports is not about football and athletics, or golf and equestrian sports.
Finally, County Governors need induction courses on how to manage sports development in their areas of jurisdiction. They need to prepare for Public Private Partnerships to help develop infrastructure and manage already existing facilities in commercially-profitable ventures.
They could tap into the expertise of Sports Stadia Management Board (SSMB) and relevant arms of the Government to help in this regard.
— The writer is The Standard Sports Editor
iomulo@standardmedia.co.ke
