The Kenyan record-breaker who never was

When you talk of Kenya’s most audacious swindles, what immediately comes to mind is Goldenberg, Anglo Leasing and, more lately, the attempt to steal sh 800 million-plus from National Youth Service.

There are however quite a number of others that in their times, gripped the national psyche but which have receded into the mists of time.

The cause célèbre of the early 1980s was the case of a Ugandan woman known as Aluma who, after pulling off a number of remarkable feats, performed the jaw dropper of “selling” International House, a prominent feature of Nairobi to a clueless German investor for Sh80 million, a stupendous sum in those days.

It took the German a while to realize that he had been conned big time. Aluma’s accomplishments seemed to have inspired a pretender to stardom for the wrong reasons in the person of Eric Awori, scion of Kenya’s better-known families.

At the time Kenyans were enjoying the glow of motoring fame with the racing achievements of Joginder

Singh and Shekhar Mehta and Awori decided it was time to add another feather to the national cap.

In 1985, the cocky young fellow decided that his road to fame lay in When I was young, a parent’s word was law, and discipline was the word of the day — everyday.

The smallest mistake would earn you a date with daddy’s belt, or you would come face to face with the business end of your mother’s mwiko.

Such punishment would be followed by long, boring lectures that were popularly known as msomo.

What’s more: discipline was a communal affair, meaning every adult was technically your “parent.”

Some of us might never forget the excruciating pain we endured in the hands of neighbours, relatives and many of our parents’ friends. And whenever such a beating was reported to your parent, chances were your parent would side with the other parent, so you were guaranteed of another beating, followed by yet an equally agonizing dose of “msomo”.

Away from the neighbourhoods, school was another battleground. Some of the atrocities that were committed in those institutions should probably be investigated by an independent Commission of Inquiry.

Back then, teachers had several things in common with the average terrorist. Teachers were a law unto themselves, and they would whip you like a rented mule for the smallest fault. It is generally agreed that those punishments were responsible for the breaking the world record in driving reverse, then held by American Gerald Hoagland.

He somehow convinced the media that he had driven in reverse all the way from Mombasa to Nairobi and onwards to Rongai in Nakuru and back to Nairobi.

The “achievement” and a gift of the gab won him instant media celebrity status and he was feted at a reception at the Hilton Hotel and given an award.

I was among the throng of press people who tried to gatecrash the event but a hawk-eyed Awori was at the door and would not let me through.

Even after Yusuf Wachira, the well-known and much-liked photojournalist tried to plead my case, he would not budge.

“It won’t wash, Yusuf,” he said dismissively and I was left out in the cold. An upbeat Awori announced that he planned to take a stab at another world record by reversing a seven- tonne lorry from Mombasa to Nairobi.

By this time, the motor industry in Kenya was eating out of his hand and DT Dobie obligingly offered to donate a Mercedes Benz truck to be loaded with building materials for building a harambee classroom. the new system in “modern” Kenya.

Not surprisingly, my neighbourhood is teeming with children who openly commit unspeakable mistakes and there is nothing you can do about it.

Among the people who have suffered for playing quasi parent is our house girl Maggy.

On Thursday, she had a tiff with a neighbourhood boy named Jemo, whose family lives two gates away from my hacienda.

Jemo was playing in our compound, and Maggy had laundered our clothes and put them on the line to dry, so she politely asked him to move and play elsewhere.

Nobody paused to ask how feasible it was to reverse a loaded lorry over that distance on one gear without causing grievous damage to the transmission system.

DT Dobie also donated fuel worth sh10,000, a princely sum in those days, while the media announced that a Mr John Miller, “an independent adjudicator for Guinness Book of Records” had arrived in Nairobi to assess the feat.

The truck was flagged off in Mombasa by Shariff Nassir, an assistant minister but its progress thereafter remained hazy, with the country keeping track through updates from Kenya News Agency.

The last update was from “John Miller” confirming that Awori had broken another world record. These “accomplishments” had the effect of inspiring the young man to go international and early in 1986, it was announced that he would be participating in a reverse driving contest in Auckland, New Zealand.

By this time, companies were falling over themselves to sponsor the wonder kid and one of them was the Daily Nation, which carried a caption announcing that “a tired-looking Eric Awori and his service crew arrived in Auckland, New Zealand yesterday morning, where a crowd of about 5,000 enthusiasts of reverse drive were waiting to give him a rousing welcome.”

For about three days the country was riveted on a Kenyan’s heroic efforts to make motoring history and on a number of occasions snatching victory from the very jaws of defeat.

Finally on February 10, telex was sent to the newsrooms in Nairobi confirming that that “Awori has re-written motoring history by becoming the first African driver ever to win a contest in a ‘European’ country.”

A mystified New Zealand High Commissioner in Nairobi however high rate of school drop outs in some places. Things have changed in recent times, however, and discipline is no longer a communal affair.

Gone are the days when parents outsourced discipline to members of the public. If you ever come across your neighbour’s child committing a crime of whatever form, my advice is to walk away without a word.

It matters not whether the brat is brandishing a home-made grenade, or trying to hijack a jumbo jet, or rigging an election.

Just stay mute, unless you are ready for a lawsuit and a possible fine. I know it sounds reckless, but that is However, the boy treated this warning with the same skepticism that most Kenyans have for weather forecasts and kept playing.

His ball hit one of our bedsheets at some point, so Maggy pinched his left ear and marched him out of the compound.

“Naenda kushow masa yangu,” Jemo threatened, but Maggy ignored him. His parents would not listen, she thought, as nobody wants to raise a brat. Alas, that evening, our door flung open to reveal Mama Jemo.

Having dispensed with the necessary pleasantries, she quickly trained her attention on Miss Mboch. “Why did you assault my son?”

she bawled. In her defense, Maggy pointed out that the boy had disobeyed her.” Mama Jemo, your son soiled my laundry and I simply pinched him.

I was just trying to be a responsible adult,” she said reasonably. However, according to Mama Jemo’s version, Maggy had pinched her son, yelled at him and called him names.

“Be a parent to your own children!” Mama Jemo hissed, adding that Maggy should have reported her son’s wrongdoings to her.

She then stormed out while muttering a number of unprintable words, leaving Miss Mboch in the kijasho chembamba state. Miss Mboch has vowed to be as hands-off as everybody else. denied that such a race had taken place in his country.

Finally, Eric Awori was unmasked for the fraudster that he was and charged in court. It was also discovered that he never drove in reverse gear from Mombasa to Nairobi, never travelled to New Zealand and that the telexes announcing his progress had emanated from an office in Westlands and another on Mama Ngina Street.

These revelations were particularly painful to me for having been thrown out of a party by a fraudster.