#FRONTROW: Bahrain’s gold medallist should not be rebuked for abandoning Kenya

Ruth Jebet has an extra Sh52 million in her bank account this week and she is only 19. That is the reward the Kenyan-born athlete is getting for winning Bahrain its first Olympic gold, according to her manager Gregory Kilonzo. She memorably snatched the victory from right under Hyvin Kiyeng’s feet in the women’s 3,000m steeplechase to much consternation from most Kenyans.

She was approached by the Gulf nation three years ago after she competed at the World Junior Championships.

“You have to go for trials and compete just to get a chance and its only one person who gets selected for a particular race,” Kilonzo told CNN about the Kenyan competition.

“But in Bahrain they don’t even do trials for the athletes, they look at your previous competitions.”

All the ignorant criticism levelled at the teenager assumed that it was only a financial decision to change her nationality. Kenya is the biggest athletic nation in the world and even those who don’t make the cut at our Olympics trials would still qualify in most countries.

UNFAIR JUDGEMENT

Jebet was not even alone in having switched allegiances, just the best performing. In Rio de Janeiro, there were over 30 other athletes wearing foreign colours for such countries as Turkey, Israel and even Bosnia.

A tweet from the popular Kenyan band Sautisol calling her win “a sad moment for Kenya” is exactly the kind of high profile condemnation she doesn’t need. They, like everyone else passing judgement on a young lady who made a life-changing decision, should know better.

The alternative was that she could have been among the Kenyan track and field stars wondering where their Nike kits went. Or she could have arrived at the Galeão International Airport and found there was no one to pick her up like happened to men’s marathon winner Eliud Kipchoge.

Maybe, she could have showed up at the airport in Nairobi and discovered she didn’t even have a ticket in the first place like javelin Silver medallist Julius Yego. Maybe he must have thought then about his reported offer of Sh1 billion from Qatar and if he would have been in significantly different circumstances.

There is a reason why Kenyan-born Tour de France champion Chris Froome now cycles for Great Britain. That way, the dinosaurs in sports management won’t claim credit for your success and completely diminish your athletic achievement.

DUMB TWEET

“PS Sports Amb Ekai and Kenyan MPs 6 hrs sessions with Kenyan athletes at Olympic village may have contributed to Gold & Silver in W 5000m,” tweeted Kenya’s Sports ministry.

That dumb tweet from the account takes the cake for a whole series of inane updates during the Summer Games. Someone employed by the Kenya Government actually believes that their six-hour face time and not months of training is what brings success in track and field.

Outside of sports, Kenya’s biggest export is probably Barack Obama. Fine, he wasn’t actually born in the country but his father was and that is pretty much the same thing.

Obama wouldn’t be as successful in Kenyan politics — nationally because he’s Luo and regionally because he’s not Luo enough. I guess that’s why you don’t see him rushing to acquire dual citizenship.

Lots of other people have given up their Kenyan passports for the convenience that comes with a more superior travel document. Even within Africa, a British or American passport is often stronger than those who travel with documents issued within the continent.

In the age of global migration, countries of birth could one day just be formalities and people may be free to choose where they truly want to belong.

THE LIMITS OF PATRIOTISM

The patriotism card is dated and irrelevant and no athlete should be judged on whether they “sell out” or “cash in” to change their nationality. There is no honour in keeping your Kenyan citizenship if it condemns you to a lifetime of poverty and missed opportunities.

“Since she went to Bahrain, she has built me a house, bought me two dairy cows and land. I am happy I no longer live in a thatched house,“ says Jebet’s father, Joel Sitienei. Patriotism doesn’t pay bills and can’t be used as security for a loan. 

You won’t deposit your Kenyan passport at a bank and get money against it. But for athletes whose only skill is their ability to out-run the competition, they can discard it for actual money. That is honourable, not a shameful act and it should be applauded.

This is not to glorify financial success over national duty, this is a practical approach to a complex issue. Those who choose to keep their Kenyanness against all odds are worthy of our appreciation in this ungrateful nation. Patriotism is overrated anyway, if you can defect and move ahead in life, go for it.

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Kenyan healthcare not good enough?

Many high-profile Ugandans seek treatment in Kenya when their healthcare facilities fail to measure up. You will see plenty of news reports in Kampala talking about this minister or that MP at Nairobi Hospital or at Aga Khan University Hospital.

You know where prominent Kenyans go for their treatment? Not Kenya, of course. They go to London, South Africa, and America and only to India if they’re relatively poor.

Former President Mwai Kibaki was flown to South Africa after falling ill over the weekend. It is not surprising that an 84-year-old man has failing health.

It is especially not out of the ordinary for a man who had a fairly serious accident in 2003 and still somehow made a full recovery and led the country through two terms.

What’s odd, though, is how Kenyan healthcare is not good enough even for those who have been in charge of it. What it seems to say is that the country’s hospitals are good enough if your bank balance can’t afford you better treatment elsewhere. Or it suggests that local doctors are not quite well trained for the ailments of the rich.

Not good, either way.

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The irony of John Kerry’s trip to Kenya

US Secretary of State John Kerry stopped by Nairobi earlier in the week, exactly four years after his predecessor, Hillary Clinton, visited. He’s here to hold bilateral talks with President Uhuru Kenyatta that centre around peace in South Sudan.

When Mrs Clinton was here in 2012, she dropped in on us to lecture us about democracy and good governance and the type of things Americans preach to the world.

She told reporters then that “the United States has pledged to assist the government of Kenya in ensuring that the upcoming elections are free, fair and transparent.” The General Election was coming up and Washington did not trust us not to misbehave again.

A few years later, it appears that we are so well behaved that we can be trusted to teach our neighbours how to run a good Western-style democracy. She's now a favourite to win the American presidency as her opponent self-destructs. How times change!