Born city: ‘Camp Toyoyo’ will change Jericho for good

By Ojiambo Ainea | 8yrs ago | 3 min read

Sometime back I wrote how impressed I was when the chair of Jericho All Stars, Nick Ambala, invited me to Camp Toyoyo grounds which is called “Jeri uwanjo Soo” to watch a match.

That was my great return to the area after nearly 20 years.

‘Jeri’ is Jericho estate just so you know and the type of cohesion I saw and development was amazing. I was talking about it with interior designer Kennedy Orinda and he couldn’t believe what was happening in Nairobi’s Makadara Constituency where Jericho is.

In my wildest imagination, I had never dreamt Jericho grounds would have an artificial soccer turf. By now you know I was raised up in Buruburu estate and, of course, I would have expected ‘Buru’ to have such grounds.

Unfortunately, that won’t be possible as all the football grounds have been grabbed by private developers.

Let me give you a small history of the rivalry between ‘Jeri’ and Buru. Us guys were proud of Buru, the estate that was opened by Prince Charles. It was the gem of Eastlands. In fact, we thought it should be teleported to other side of Uhuru Highway.

Jeri chaps referred to Buru guys as ‘mababi’ fleshed from the name ‘Babylon’ which Rastafarians use to connote Westernised brats. Jeri chaps were rough bullies.

Back then Buru Phase Two shopping Centre had not been built and we had to buy stuff from Jericho Market.

Even the Catholic faithful had their Sunday Mass at Jericho Catholic Church. By then City Council was effective and all of us got cough syrups from Jericho Clinic, a public facility.

There were endless estate fights between Jericho and Buru with our fighting hopes pegged on guys like Zingich, Joram, Oduori and Babu — the commanding officers.

Believe me these were real battles that included stone throwing with most parents getting shocked at the sight of flying stones along the road as they returned from work most evenings. This rivalry extended to football matches.

The common perception back then was that Jericho was that estate where thuggery was a culture with the running joke being that “Jericho wizi ni utamaduni”.

But after going back I must congratulate the current Makadara MP Benson Mutura for using CDF funds to renovate Camp Toyoyo grounds. He surely knows the votes are with the youth and women.

With the grounds, dreams of being the next Victor Wanyama or McDonald Mariga are not far fetched so that lads can decent living from soccer.

Jerico mothers are happy their children are occupied in sports instead of crime. There is a time a certain OCPD had even made it difficult for youth to play football as his argument was that it was in the field where most exercised to be fit and out run the police during robberies!

The renovated Camp Toyoyo has brought many visitors even from neighbouring countries to hold tournaments.

Sports scouts like Kerubo Momanyi who has a passion in developing the talent of girls is also a usual visitor and many from Jericho have benefited. The grounds have created employment, brought down insecurity.

I hope the Nairobi County government can borrow from Jericho and renovate such pitches and help the youth. Despite having moved away from Buru many years I still vote there.

As you can guess Benson Mutura has my vote.

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@AineaOjiambo