Rio Olympics emblematic of the Kenyan ‘spirit’

A lot has been made of the ‘Rio fiasco’ in which sports officials totally and comprehensively mismanaged the national team leading to ridiculous outcomes that made us the laughing stock of the sporting world.

Athletes’ tickets were allegedly ‘misplaced’, joyriders exceeded actual athletes, one coach had no access to the Olympics village and had to ‘borrow’ an athlete’s credentials in order to get in, and sports kits meant for athletes were hoarded and stolen, leaving athletes in embarrassing situations.

Reading the news one would be forgiven for imagining that the Rio outing was our worst since 1956 when we were first represented at the games.

One would expect with the morale-sapping clowning our sports officials engaged in, our athletes would be completely pissed off that they would hesitate to give their best performance for a country that doesn’t care.

Interestingly, this was not the case. Most of our athletes gave their all despite the frustrations, and returned an overall performance that stands out as among our very best in history.

Our athletes brought home a record-equaling six gold medals, as well as a historic six silver medal haul. The women’s performance was the best ever. One wonders how much more we would have won had we handled our athletes with more integrity.

Rational readers anywhere in the world will be puzzled by this mismatch between morale and performance. However, a discerning student of Kenyan social behaviour will not be surprised.

Quite contrary to expectations, bungling officialdom in any field is not expected to have any effect on eventual performance. People are expected to achieve whatever results are demanded of them in spite of the hurdles placed in their way by those that should facilitate them.

Very often, heads of government departments are made to sign performance contracts with lofty targets that are then broadcast to all and sundry, after which they are left to their own devices with dwindling financial and other resource allocations.

During performance appraisals, they are not allowed to complain of inadequate resource allocation, but instead to justify their suboptimal performance. Miraculously, many still go ahead and achieve the set targets, a testament to their creativity rather than any facilitation by their superiors.

MODEL ATTITUDES

A teacher is given a hundred pupils to teach under the free primary education programme, contrary to the norms she was taught in college. She is expected to impart knowledge and skills in these children, and model attitudes that will be useful to the children in future.

She is supposed to personalise her teaching plan to ensure no child is left behind. The performance of her class is expected to be better than or equivalent to that of a class of thirty-five pupils taught by a similarly qualified teacher. Nobody is surprised when pupils from this poor school perform as well as those from better-resourced settings.

In fact, a poor performance earns the teacher a stern reprimand or even manhandling and eviction from the school by what the media often describes as ‘irate parents’.

A nurse in a remote outpost receives a patient in critical condition, accompanied by very worried relatives. He feels like running away because he knows his small facility does not have the capacity to handle a case like this. But he cannot run away because the ethics of his profession do not allow it.

He must do his best to save this life, even if it means going beyond the call of duty. Most times he succeeds, and many lives are saved due his ingenuity.

But the day he ‘fails’ to save a critical life despite his best efforts the entire county administration descends on him like a ton of bricks, accusing him of absenting himself from duty and treating patients recklessly.

Hardworking Kenyans have accepted to be ordered around by lazy ne’er-do-wells whose sole remit is to loot whatever is produced. This, indeed, is the Kenyan spirit.

Atwoli is associate professor of psychiatry and dean, School of Medicine, Moi University; [email protected]