Rio is cocktail of errors that should never happen again!

-Kenyans won gold in Rio even before any of our athletes competed. Our gold medal was in the often ignored sport we invented: blunders.

Thanks to a fresh cocktail of errors, we’ve taken blunders to unprecedented new levels in Brazil, perfectly exemplifying the Olympic spirit of achievement.

Consider, for instance, that the Team Kenya chaperone and global athletics royalty, Catherine Ndereba, did not have accreditation to enter the Olympics Village and had to stay at a decrepit apartment and fend for herself.

Her place alongside athletes, their coaches and support staff was taken up by a mistress, or useless official of the National Olympic Committee of Kenya (Nock).

Sprints coach John Anzrah, himself a former celebrated athlete, was expelled from the games mostly because some incompetent, selfish official didn’t get him accreditation to enter the Village.

The 61-year-old had to request Ferguson Rotich, an athlete 35 years his junior, for his badge so that he could have breakfast at the Village. When an anti-doping officer looking for Rotich found him, they took him along, and the now famous mix-up that saw him sent back home occurred.

DREAM KILLERS

That wasn’t even the only gaffe affecting sprints. US-born Carvin Nkanata was ruled out of the games because he travels on an American passport.

Nobody had bothered to get the 25-year-old’s documentation in order and get him a Kenyan passport. “I feel so devastated…” he tweeted from Rio. “I was on my way to greatness…” Congratulations, you dream killers.

“Participating in the Olympics is a four-year project that cuts across 26 sports disciplines watched by two billion people across the globe, generating billions of dollars in TV rights,” points out IMG Kenya CEO Peter Gacheru.

“Surely, such a huge undertaking cannot be entrusted to a few persons without proper structures and funding.” He was in Rio and saw first-hand the messy affair it was.

While Sports Cabinet Secretary Hassan Wario’s bodyguard, Peter ‘Mystical’, was living it up on the beaches, some athletes struggled to even get tickets or flights for their coaches.

That was the case for javelin’s break-out hero Julius Yego, who allegedly found out he had not been booked into a flight when he arrived at the airport. While Kenya’s sports administrators have always been just regular negligent or run-of-the-mill corrupt, we reached peak stupid this time.

SHAME OF ALLOWANCES

Nike sent enough kits for all the athletes, but most say they only got a quarter of what they were entitled to and some items like sunglasses and sandals were never even issued.

The shame of allowances that has been a long-running theme at every international event continued. You even wonder why anybody competes for Kenya at all when they could just easily change their nationality and cash in.

Gacheru is convinced that the former athletes that run the federations are not as gifted in management.

“Sports federations will need to invest in professional secretariats that can oversee development programmes and sponsorships,” he says. “Sports administration ought to be taken seriously and not as a retirement alternative. Medals have always come easy to Kenya and we have taken for granted the level of preparation required at a world platform.”

Even though he’s worked at international sports federations for two decades, he won’t say what everyone is thinking. All those old geezers at Nock need to go, like yesterday!

That James Chacha and Stephen Soi are still allowed to run any federation is one of the enduring mysteries of our time. A parliamentary committee pointed fingers at them for abuse of office after an equally messy outing at the 2011 All Africa Games in Maputo, Mozambique.

COUNTLESS JOYRIDERS

That stinging indictment alone should have seen them declared unfit to hold office, but they’re still here running, ruining things. I was in London for the last few days of the Olympics and saw first-hand how gaffe-prone the Kenyan officials were.

Then, like now, there were countless joyriders travelling on taxpayer expense and taking up places that should have gone to deserving sportsmen.
Deputy President William Ruto has also showed up in Rio, no doubt with an entourage of his own. That’s besides Wario and hangers-on from his ministry and a long list of other people who have no business being there at all.

The 2011 Sports ministry was criticised by the same parliamentary committee probe’s report for “corruption, abuse of office, mismanagement, impunity and disregard for procedures in the sports federations.”

Five years and a different administration later, has anything changed? Rugby has traditionally been the best managed sport in the country and the benefits were always evident.

Even though our middle- and long-distance runners consistently bring us glory and great public relations abroad, the stench emanating from the back office is now unbearable. Time to clean house.

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Is 'negotiated democracy' really democracy?

MARSABIT GOVERNOR UKUR Yatani has the green light to vie again for his seat, but not so for his Mandera counterpart Ali Roba. A council of elders - mostly from the Garre clan - have ordered him and 23 other politicians to surrender their seats next year.

They include Senator Billow Kerrow and MPs Mohamud Mohamed, Fathia Mahbub and Mohamed Huka. It is being called a "negotiated democracy" and enjoys strong support in the northeastern part of the country.

Roba doesn’t like it now and insists his track record speaks for itself and he intends to run again. “The population of Mandera knows where I stand for them. It is only that population that will determine my fate as governor through their democratic will,” he says.

Nobody this prominent has ever gone against the clan-led process before, so this will be a test for how strong their word is and if they really hold sway with the people. Senator Kerrow is among those who have agreed to step aside once their current term ends.

“This rotational model was agreed upon and a charter approved by all the 20 sub-clans in 2012,“ he says. Is this still democracy if only some people decide?

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We can go the China way to end traffic jams

EVERYONE LAUGHED IT OFF when the rendered concept videos first surfaced online. Take it back, because China went and did it. In the province of Qinhuangdao, they tested the Transit Elevated Bus.

It runs on electricity and can carry up to 300 passengers with speeds of up to 60km/hr. The most impressive feature is that it is higher than most vehicles on the road, so you can just breeze through the usual Mombasa Road jam like it’s not even there.

That was just a brake and consumption test and there is no word yet on when it might be ready to ship or how much it will cost. Several countries have already expressed interest in either acquiring it or licensing it - India, Brazil, France and Indonesia.

I showed the video on TV and hinted loudly that it was exactly what Kenya needed, hoping that someone in the Transport ministry was watching. This is just to reiterate.