Love drama at City Stadium

BY JOHN LAWRENCE

It was meant to be a sporty kind of love with a ‘they-lived-happily-thereafter’ tag. He is a dependable Gor Mahia defender, she is the Nairobi Water handball team centre back and national team captain.

But the defensive combination starring Musa Mohammed and Mitchell Adhiambo did not hold for long. It instead fell apart, quite publicly, during a Gor Mahia versus Western Stima match last month at the famous City Stadium — known to some as Tok Komwanda.

On that Sunday afternoon as Mitchell sat at the VIP stand next to three K’Ogirlo (hardcore female Gor supporters) beauties, a woman carrying a suitcase approached her. The woman with the baggage turned out to be Sakina Nshimirimana, a professional tennis player from Burundi, who plies her trade in Kenya. She is also said to be Musa’s wife.

In a scene more suited to a Mexican soap opera than a stadium stand, Sakina and her friends spared no words in telling Mitchell to keep off the footballer. Strangely, the suitcase the tennis player was carrying turned out to be Mitchell’s.

Among the few printable statements Sakina told the handball player was: “Take your old and worn out suit case but leave my husband alone!”

Mitchell was later to explain to The Nairobian that her act of kindness had been used to ruin her reputation.

“I had given out my suitcase to Musa Mohammed because he wanted to travel. But what followed was a big confrontation by a group of women,” she claims.

Recalling the stadium drama, Mitchell explained that she was sitting with her friends Louise Juma and Tumme Mum when Sakina asked to talk to her. But the tennis girl’s friends seemed to prefer a more aggressive approach, accusing her of kuwaharibia manyumba na mabwana zao (destroying their marriages and snatching their husbands).

“I was talking to Sakina, but the others joined in saying that all of them had issues with me, which was nothing but malicious rumours,” says Mitchell.

But the defiant handball star, while denying the accusations of being a husband snatcher, has a clear message: “Kama mnaona mimi kazi yangu ni kuwanyang’anya mabwana, si mwafunge hao mabwana zenu na kamba!” (If you think my work is to snatch your husbands, why don’t you have them on a tight leash.)

Mitchelle also defends her closeness to Musa, but claims the footballer might have been economical with the truth.

“I never knew Musa had a wife and in all our meetings he only talked about his child and claimed he was separated with the mother,” says Mitchell. She explains that all this is now behind her, and she has apologised to Sakina for any misunderstanding.

“I would just like to let them be as I pray that they live happily as a family. Musa and I were friends because we are both in sports, but he betrayed our friendship,” Mitchell told The Nairobian.

On his part, Musa says: “Mitchell can say anything. Whatever issue they had should not have been brought to the stadium, which is my place of work.”