How suspended Football Kenya Federation duo Sammy Sholei and Dan Shikanda erred

By Tom Bwana

I once hired a Mama Safi to clean my house on one lazy weekend. Later, she complained that she could not arrange all my books because they were too dusty.  Inwardly I wondered “Isn’t dust part of the dirt she was to handle?” Hold that thought.

I pity the Football Kenya Federation (FKF) suspended duo of Sammy Sholei and Dan Shikanda. These are young professionals with the requisite modern skills of football management. To add on to their vibrant youthful energy, they have been involved in the game playing club football and patriotically representing Kenya with Harambee Stars.

When they were elected to serve the new national football body FKF, there was a great sigh of relief in the whole country beaming with expectations that at last the wearers of the shoes were managing the game.

But that hope was blown off when, just a few days old in office, FKF Vice Chairman Sammy Sholei started bellowing about the ills of his boss Chairman Sam Nyamweya. He called numerous press conferences launching scathing attacks on his supremo claiming Big Sam was ruling the federation with an iron fist. True to Shollei’s word, Big Sam’s iron fist first got him and soon the bickering Sam, together with Dan Shikanda, was suspended indefinitely from FKF.

Several suspensions have thence followed the Shikanda-Sholei debacle including Nyanza NEC Representative Tom Alila. It tickles to think that Tom Alila was a member of Nyamweya’s inner circle that presided over the suspension of Sholei and Shikanda. 

I strongly hold the view that Shollei and Shikanda dug their own grave. They did not mean any good for our football.

Don’t get it twisted. This in no way denotes that Sam Nyamweya is the saint. No. Never!

The two gentlemen, like my Mama Safi, forgot their mandate upon election. On the eve of the election, the football house was in a mess. It was dead and rotting! Football needed a saviour. It’s for this reason that individuals who had played the game were needed to clean it. Actually Shikanda and Sholei campaigned on the platform of their having been footballers.

 They promised to overhaul the game and present to us an organization that would have direction in managing football in Kenya. The delegates bought their ideas and rightly voted for the two in their respective spheres.

You see, when you hold a political office you are judged on the promises you made to the electorate. Instead, the two prolific strikers only managed own goals. They kept yapping to us how there was great filth in the game’s management, how corruption and favouritism was the order of the day at Kandanda House and how high handedness was Nyamweya’s other name.

As the country sympathized with them, I said ‘deal with it!’ For the records, I don’t hold brief for FKF Chairman Sam Nyamweya. We all know, or at least been made to know, he’s the bad guy in this movie. And it’s for this reason that Shikanda and Sholei were elected; to help change the image of our game!

They should have learnt at least one of the 48 laws of power that to slay a monster, befriend it first to win its trust. When you are its confidant, that’s when you can launch missiles to stir a revolution.

I do not intend to justify their suspension. I’m only saying many sports lovers are disappointed in their tactless mannerisms while at the federation! 

 

— The writer of this article is a commentator on local football issues ([email protected])

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