The real shame is ours when we shield and vote for cheats

If Athletics Kenya president Jackson Tuwei was correctly quoted by Reuters, we should be bracing ourselves for yet another body blow to our sporting reputation.

Mr Tuwei was reported as saying that another high-profile Kenyan runner had failed a drugs test.

He later denied saying any such thing, but the report brings into focus the dark cloud hovering over our national athletics crown jewels.

The latest reports came in the same month it was revealed that Jemima Sumgong, who won Kenya’s first ever Olympic Games women’s marathon gold medal in Rio de Janeiro last year, had tested positive for banned drugs.

If a second test confirms the doping, Sumgong will lose the gold medal, and blight Kenya’s record Olympic medal haul. She will also suffer a lengthy ban.

FAILED DRUG TEST

The effects of the failed drug test are actually already being felt as Sumgong was disinvited from the London Marathon last week, and could not defend her title as compatriot Mary Keittany ran away with the race.

We should all have felt a sense of outrage and shame from Sumgong’s failed drug test, but from what I read in the media and Facebook chatter, we largely diverted our anger to the drug sleuths rather than to the perpetrator.

We were annoyed, not because Sumgong might have taken banned performance-enhancing drugs, but because she was caught.

And for that, we blamed the International Association of Athletics Federations, the World Anti-Doping Agency, and other “foreign” bodies we felt were unfairly targeting Kenyans.

COVERING UP SCANDAL

The reaction reminds us how our media have been complicit in covering up the scandal of a growing doping scourge in our famed athletics training camps.

It remains a big shame that it was foreign rather than local media that investigated and exposed the extent of doping in Kenyan athletics.

Instead of condemning a scourge so damaging to the reputation of our world-class athletes and so dangerous to the careers and health of the runners, we started running public relations pieces in praise of the athletics camps implicated in doping.

NATIONAL DISEASE

Our attitude was that these are “our” athletes so we must shield and protect them.

That “our people” syndrome is our national disease is captured so clearly in our approach to politics and leadership.

Look, for instance, at the party nominations supposed to provide candidates for the August 8 General Election.

We are wilfully and consciously selecting known thieves, looters, fraudsters, sexual predators, ethnic warmongers, bandits, narcotics traffickers, violent extremists and all kinds of felons.

A look at the main political formations, the Jubilee Party and Nasa and its affiliate parties, will reveal that an inconvenience called Chapter Six of the Constitution of Kenya has been discarded.

In a nutshell, the chapter on leadership, ethics and integrity requires that a person seeking or holding public office, whether elective or appointive, recognise that leadership is a public trust to be exercised in a manner that demonstrates respect for the people, brings honour to the nation and dignity to the office.

PERSONAL INTEGRITY

The guiding principles, include personal integrity, competence and suitability for office, and zero tolerance on nepotism, favouritism, or corrupt practices, and selfless service based solely on the public interest.

Did any of the political parties vet the aspirants on the above principles?

No, and that is why they had in their lists or in their background strategy teams individuals implicated in the Goldenberg, Anglo Leasing and National Youth Service scandals.

But did we as voters ensure that those who fail the test do not win nominations? No!

As a consequence, the ballot papers in the August 8 elections will be full of dishonourables who have made their own contributions to looting of the national wealth and pauperisation of the citizenry.

CATTLE RUSTLERS

We will be sending thieves, looters, cattle rustlers, terrorist sympathisers and other assorted criminals to State House, the Senate, the National Assembly, county governors’ mansions and the county assemblies.

Why? Because they are “ours”. They are “our thieves”, “our killers”, “our criminals”.

They represent our party and our tribe and we must, therefore, vote for them no matter how much their crooked ways have impoverished the country and incited ethnic hatred and bloodshed.

We have suffered at the hands of bad leaders, but continue to elect them. The shame and pain is on us.

Email: [email protected] Twitter: @MachariaGaitho