There must be a way to rid us of these dinosaurs glued to offices

In 1975, when Isaiah Kiplagat became vice chairman of the Kenya Amateur Athletics Association (KAAA), Jomo Kenyatta was President of Kenya, Idi Amin Dada was calling the shots in Uganda and Mwalimu Julius Nyerere was leader of Tanzania.

South Africa’s Nelson Mandela was languishing in Robben Island while Robert Mugabe had only been released from detention in Rhodesia.

Mass access to the Internet was still a distant dream (the founder of Facebook was born just under a decade later while Bill Gates was only then beginning to tinker with computer systems at Harvard) and Margaret Thatcher had just become leader of Britain’s Conservative party.  

How is it possible for one man, and his fellow officials such as David Okeyo and Joseph Kinyua to hold on to the reins of power for so long?

The simple answer is that sports federations – and trade unions – operate under different rules from those that apply to other Kenyans.

The officials that run these entities are a law unto themselves and are virtually accountable to no one. It is impossible to remove them from office, because the branch heads that are supposed to vote in elections such as those held periodically by Athletics Kenya or by umbrella trade union Cotu are beholden to the national officials for cash disbursements.

CONSIDERABLE STRIDES

At the best of times, one can only hope the officials retire voluntarily, but they rarely do. Mr Kiplagat has promised to stand down a few times in the past but changed his mind each time.

These federations are an anomaly in Kenya because in other spheres of life, society has made considerable strides forward. No Kenyan president, for example, can think of extending his term and hope to get away with it.

While Kenyans may wail and bemoan the excesses of MCAs or Governors, at least they retain the power to eject them from office.

But when it comes to the officials of major sports federations, from football to the top honchos presiding over the smallest ones such as cycling, body building and tae kwondo who have been there for ever to the major ones such as athletics, frustrated fans find themselves with few options on how to effect change.

One of the reasons for this is a failure in policy circles. Every Sports minister who has taken the position comes into office promising to introduce what is called the “Section 2A” of sports administration (so named after the clause which was amended to allow multi-party politics).
The clause is simply a demand in the Sports Policy that no official shall serve more than two terms in any federation.

The ministers always take office vowing to implement this change but, after a short period issuing empty threats, soon quietly shelve the idea.

In the same way that every incoming Energy minister soon holds consultative welcome talks with the oil lobby and basically becomes part of the industry and very few Finance ministers can take on the banks squarely over interest rates, sports officials, too, have successfully lobbied several Sports ministers not to implement changes with the enthusiasm that would make a difference.

LORDS OF IMPUNITY

A second problem lies outside Kenya. Sports officials of the international federations – the super patrons of national officials – are famous for being lords of impunity and patrons of corruption who stay in office for too long.

Spain’s Juan Antonio Samaranch presided over the International Olympic Committee for 21 years and, when he died at the age of 89, his achievements in steering the IOC to a stable financial footing were recorded but it was also noted he turned the IOC “into a personal fiefdom which became synonymous with arrogance and corruption”.    

Under his watch, it was received wisdom that you had to pay hefty bribes to receive the nod to host the Olympics and one of his final insults to the athletics fraternity was the installation of his son, Juan Antonio Jr, as an IOC member.

A year before Kiplagat became the number two man at KAAA, the forerunner of Athletics Kenya, Joao Havelange became President of Fifa and presided until 1998 over a regime known for large scale corruption.

This took the form of “personal commissions” from firms seeking to obtain marketing rights for the World Cup and when one such group, ISL, collapsed in 1982, the court battles that followed pointed to bribes worth millions of dollars going into the pockets of Havelange and Company.

These super patrons of graft are, therefore, unlikely to lift a finger against their supporters at national sports federations and when any action is taken by the government, they tend to move in swiftly to decry “interference” in sports.

Three possible paths to break this culture should be explored. On the international level, the United Nations culture department should demand that international sports federations abide by the same financial reporting standards as major global financial entities, because, after all, the IAAF, IOC and Fifa are at the end of the day multi-billion dollar businesses. This would help to reduce the closeted culture of unchallenged corruption that exists in these bodies.

PLAY ROUGH

The second option national governments can explore is to play “rough” and demand changes.  

Nigeria recently did this. They sacked the Nigeria Football Federation chief Aminu Maigari after the World Cup, knowing this would attract a ban.

They were duly suspended by Fifa but later, the Nigerian Sports ministry brokered a deal reinstating the fellow and secured an agreement that he would not run in elections due next week.

Kenya, similarly, should demand that the likes of Kiplagat step down and, failing that, should strictly implement the two term rule.

Finally, and this is probably the least likely option to work, wananchi can call on the remaining honour of these men and ask them to step aside.

It was the great American President and war general, George Washington, who popularised the role of term limits in the modern world when he declined to run for a third term, at a time when it was obvious nobody could beat him.

No man has a monopoly of wisdom, Washington said, and it was also his “ardent wish to pass through the vale of life in retirement, undisturbed in the remnant of the days I have to sojourn here.”

“Prudence on my part,” he wrote in a letter to his supporters, “must arrest any attempt of the well meant, but mistaken views of my friends, to introduce me again into the Chair of Government.”

After presiding over their fiefdoms for decades – through some good times – and many bad ones including endless rows over bonuses, frustrated athletes at international events, football stars locked up due to unpaid hotel bills, kit procurement scandals and the like, these officials should recognise, like the vulture in Chinua Achebe’s poem, that they are now “full gorged” and let the “broken bones of a dead tree” — which they have held for so long — go.