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| Kenya Sevens Rugby team are back to square one after coach after Mike Friday resigned. [Photo/ INTERNET SOURCES] |
By ANIL BAKARI
The President sent a new chief to my village three months ago — at least that is what we were meant to believe. The new chief oozes style and sophistication.
The chief assured he would do everything to ensure our location is safe, attains a Gross Domestic Product of six per cent and all children know something about laptops.
In short, he was going to be the eye and ear of the president, cascading everything happening nationally to our location. The chief started well, emphatically promising — in his inaugural speech — that he would eradicate insecurity, teenage pregnancies and perennial land disputes that threaten to start a feud of World War proportions in the village.
Pounced
Three months down the line, little has changed. The number of girls getting pregnant remains high, the only market was closed after an influential private developer fenced off the land and security has gone to the dogs. Things are bad. A thief recently pounced on my grandmother’s priced cock as the sun set and disappeared with it. The chief has not done anything about it, yet the bird was the only precious thing she owned.
Yet each morning, residents see the chief making rounds in the village in the comfort of his Probox. They cannot meet him since he has delegated some of the tasks that used to make it possible to meet him, like signing vital documents like death certificates, to his juniors.
Graft
To fight insecurity, his predecessor used to hold meetings with village elders and strategise how to curb the menace. To say the truth, crime had gone down during his tenure.
Then, he had fought tooth and nail to save the market, which the private developer finally took over. But there is nothing to celebrate about the new chief, yet he is one of the most colourful fellows to hold the post, what I believe the president considered before dispatching him from Nairobi.
Villagers are fast losing faith in the chief, who upon his appointment, made them the most optimistic residents in the district.
Doesn’t this tale rudely remind you of the sorry state of our sports and the manner it is managed? Nothing seems to be working as it should. In athletics, doping claims are threatening to consume athletes. In rugby, the coach is gone. In football, graft claims are rife, hooliganism rules and Harambee Stars is grounded. Boxing is dead, and so are many other sports.
Sports secretary Dr Hassan Wario, this ball is in your court.
