Mr.Sam NyamweyaStory by our guest writer
Hotel Pan Afric’s Simba hall was full to capacity on Thursday the 21ST July 2011 when Sam Nyamweya finally launched his bid for the chairmanship of the national football governing body(KFF)in the elections slated for august 13th.In an election that has been pushed back and forth, since April, Nyamweya’s entry was perhaps the most important thing on the calendar because it adds dash and colour to the anticipated contest. Other than Hatimy, he is probably the only other serious contender who is most likely to clinch the seat.
Right from the main entrance, where Rangers FC’s white and red replica jerseys were on display, to the high table and the auditorium, Nyamweya can reflect on that evening as perhaps the most satisfying night of his career. He could even be excused for assuming the chairmanship is his for the taking.The overwhelming presence of football fans, players and a big number of MPs from Kisii region, plus Charles Nyachae the chairman constitution implementation commission. must have given him something to smile about smug in the knowledge that his return to football administration is eminent and that the election will just be a procession.But that was it, and probably the only positive thing on the evening that Nyamweya proved once again that he is just another African Big Man, who loves power for the sake of it and he will stop at nothing until he achieved his objectives no matter what.For a good measure, the event had overwhelming and irritating echoes from the past. The same echoes that are laced with serious political overtones which the country is trying to run away from with the promulgation of the new constitution. From the array of invited guests, the speeches and the nuances, everything looked awfully KANU and it was typical of Nyamweya of old.
The speeches were utterly blank and conceited. They were long, winding, boring and stiff. Those four or so hours at the Pan Afric hotel were a tough test on endurance at some of us present. It was like running a marathon on the murram without shoes.There was a glut of the Kanu tricks of old. Politicians were invited not to add value to the man’s bid, but as a tool of primitive political intimidation and senseless show of might that would have worked very well in the Nyayo days.
For all its worth, linking George Saitoti to football development was a horrible PR stuff to the hardcore Kanuist that is Nyamweya. Saitoti’s virtues were extolled. He was lionized and speaker after speaker described him in adoring terms. That the internal security minister was elevated to such demigod status in matters football, is a joke that was only funny to Nyamweya and the dunces who have ruined Kenya football over the years.And, pray, why was it important to drag all the MPs from Kisii to the event? Was this an attempt to tribalise and politicize football once again? Isn’t this what every one has been complaining about? What as a country we have been running away from? Many thought that having worked with Peter Kenneth the last time he was at KFF, Nyamweya should have invited the Gatanga MP to testify on his ability and suitability… his competence for the job…may be to provide the much needed across the divide moral balance…Nay.
Did the absence of Kenneth tell us something about Nyamweya? Because in politics, Kenneth is assumed to be close to Saitoti so why didn’t he pass by to drop a word for Nyamweya?
True, Nyamweya has friends, but surely associating the steel-stiff politician like Saitoti with football was the height of folly. Does Saitoti really understand the difference between a penalty and a corner kick? Can the man from Kajiado name three teams in the Kenya Premier league?
At one point Nyamweya's daughter was dragged to the podium to greet the audience. Her academic qualifications were glorified in the face of those present as if she is the only person to have gone to school, or to have a bachelor’s degree. Greeting the audience she did. But, just like dad, she had nothing other than common liners and tired clichés… the best dad in the world stuff…kind of stuff…whose dad isn’t the best anyway? Everything was all about Nyamweya, not football. Indeed this was a coronation of the last emperor of Kenyan football. When his time to address the gathering arrived, the MC asked every one to stand up for the “new KFF chairman”. One would expect Nyamweya to off-offhandedly reject such immodesty from an overexcited MC. But to associate Nyamweya with modesty is …. He seemed to enjoy every moment of it, especially at the point when he said “ladies and gentlemen, please sit down”.
Nyamweya is a typical Kenyan politician. He is so full of himself, with so much baggage that he thinks that Kenyans have such short memory to be fooled by his lack of imaginations.
His official speech was, to be mild, full of lies. Nyamweya should have posed and spared the nation the inconsistencies, the lies and half truths that ran loudly through his speech.
His resume is as long as Beyonce’s miniskirt, don’t mind that the man has been in our midst for as along as any one can remember. His CV that was read to the audience somehow start in 2008 and ends in 2011! Apparently Nyamweya is the only man whose CV starts and ends with KFF, nothing else.
Granted, the world over, football is known to be an industry where most administrators are known to be economic with the truth, but even among the dim-witted footballers, associating Nyamweya with fresh start, his slogan, was again, the height of halfntruths. It was the ultimate lie on which, why this man should not be trusted with even the management of lower division football club in Kitutu Chache.
Which Fresh Start when the man was in the thick of Youth for Kanu 1992? How can a man who has previously served as a KFF secretary general and left in his wake major scandals, identify himself with such a slogan? Does this man ever think beyond himself? The speeches were long, winding, dreary and empty. For four hours neither Nyamweya nor other speakers shed new insights about the management of football. The speeches were long and loud in complaints, in slogans, but failed to give specific explanations on how the proposed blueprint will be a success.When Nyamweya says that he is tried, tasted and trusted he is being honest. What rankles is that trusted bit. People who served the now infamous Youth for Kanu 1992 are not a trusted material no matter how hard the man tries to overstretch the word.Nyamweya claims that during his time as the secretary general of KFF Harambee Stars was a regional powerhouse. Well, may be in his imaginations because there is no proof of this weird claim. Evidence on hand suggest otherwise. He was the SG between 1996 and 2000. Simple logic shows that after 1983, Harambee stars next win in the CECAFA senior challenge was in 2002, two years after Nyamweya and Co's exit from office. After 1992, the next time Harambee Stars qualified for the Africa Cup of nations was in 2004, a whole four years after Nyamweya's exit.
Under his reign, there were qualifiers for the 1998 and 2000 Cup of Nations, none of which Kenya qualified. Isn’t this the same man who contrived with Elias Makori, sports editor at the daily Nation to give Kenya the greatest coach of all time, Christian Chukwu? A colourless and clueless Nigerian excuse of a coach? So which regional power was Harambee Stars during his time?
Equally condescending was the claim that he raised the bar in CECAFA competitions when he briefly served as the secretary general of the regional body. May be, but everyone knows that Cecafa tournaments and libraries have shared a lot in terms of noise.Nyamweya claims that during his time the world cup qualification was within reach! What a lie. The dream existed when the qualifier for the 1998 world cup in France started. A 1-1 home draw was against Olympic champions Nigeria, was followed by wins against Gabon, Burkina Faso and Guinea at home. Many football fans will remember the late Reinhardt Fabisch was in charge.They will also remember Fabisch for presiding over away travels when we only drew 2-2 away to Burkina Faso but lost the others. Particularly humiliating was the 3-0 away hammering to Nigeria that effectively put paid to all hopes of qualification.This is because Nyamweya had pressurized Fabich to take the team to Germany, ostensibly to train with the best teams for the qualifiers. You remember the Stars won matches with huge a score line, 8-0, 6-0, they had to win this way because their opponents were German schoolboys.
Nyamweya claims that he got sponsors for the national team and the Premier league. Indeed during that time cigarette manufacturer BAT and Glaxo Smithcline sponsored live transmission of football matches on radio and TV. Football being football, one can bet on the last shilling that it is the money people who came to KFF.“Youth development centres were established in Nairobi, Thika, Kakamega, Kisumu, Nakuru and Eldoret during Nyamweya stewardship…” the blueprint loudly announces.
Only kindergarten kids can belief this hogwash. Where exactly within this towns were the centres located and who housed them? What were they called? Who were the coaches? And who did they produce.We all know that the Olympics centres of 1970s associated with Benrnt Zgoll were crucial in identifying such talents as Ambrose Ayoyi, Wilberforce Mulamba, Mickey Weche, Charles Otieno, George Onyango etc .What are some of the talents that Nyamweya’s supposed centres produced? Is it Oliech, Mariga, Mugabe? “It was Nyamweya who started the premier league during and was a signatory to the 28-point agreement that established the league…” the blueprint goes on. But only 10-year olds can believe that rubbish.One may ask, so what? Any one including Kalembe Ndile would have signed. Every one has a signature and there is no indication that Nyamweya’s signature is done in gold.Who can forget the confusion at the tail end of the 1996 league season fixture when some clubs played as many as four matches in six days? The confusion was so severe that Mumias Sugar was able to fix a match against Kisumu Hotspurs? They took to the pitch knowing the exact number of goals they were to score to win the league. The defunct club scored 10 goals against Hotspurs. So embarrassing it was that Nyamweya had to cancel the results and punish the two clubs and the winner decided through boardroom maneuvers. That was the case in 1998 when congestion in the fixture spoilt the party.You can go on and on, but the dotted lines in Nyamweya’s football life can never be connected.So how has this man managed to survive all these years? When others have moved on,former KFF chairmen like Willfred Sambu are MP's, Peter Kenneth is also an assistant minister and hopefully come September next year he could be ensconced in state house as the fourth president. Even the people he was with in YK’92 like William Ruto and Cyrus Jirongo are going for the top seat in Kenya. Why not him? Why always in the small leagues?
Being the conniving animal Nyamweya has been able to survive in the political jungle that is through sheer brinkmanship, corruption and back room schemes that is anchored on compromising senior editors and reporters at most media houses in Kenya.
When he ruled at KFF, Tom Mshindi ruled the roost at the Nation and later the Standard.Mr.Nyamweya ensured that he was in his good books. Those at the two newspapers know that Mshindi had a particular interest in sports pages not because he was a sports fan, but just to ensure that he protected his friend from adverse publicity, at a fee of course.Those in the know always say that it was Mshindi who advised Nyamweya never to respond to any journalist who sought clarification on him on any negative story about him.Naturally such stories always died on the account of being one sided.One incident is particularly poignant here. It was May 2000. A couple of months after Nyamweya had lost in the election to Maina Kariuki. The new secretary general was Hassan Haji. One day Haji revealed to Standard reporter Chris Mbaisi that Nyamweya had failed to account for Sh13.5 million received from Fifa and other local sponsors.Mbaisi duly filed the story as expected of him. But hours after the first edition rolled off the print with the story, then sports editor Finny Muyeshi sauntered in the newsroom late in the evening and saw the story. By this time, the first edition had already been dispatched to the Coast.Being one of the editors who kept the gate, Muyeshi latched on the phone and reached out to Nyamweya. Few minutes later, a call was placed to Waruru Wachira’s office. He was then Group Managing Editor based on Likoni Road and after an animated discussion with Nyamweya, he dispatched Muyeshi to meet him.
As Muyeshi dashed out, Waruru summoned a crisis meeting with Kwendo Opanga,then managing editor, daily, and Ken Bosire, editor, administration, where a decision was made to remove the story from the other editions.Just as they changed plates, Muyeshi arrived with a token of Sh.1 million from Nyamweya which was shared among the four musketeers. For that, Nyamweya was saved from blushes, while the game got another jolt from a gang of journalists who should have know better.
Another scandal hit Uganda’s Sports Club Villa, also came to the fore. Apparently,the Uganda outfit had won the 1999 Cecafa club championship. As they loftily lifted the trophy, Nyamweya issued them with a cheque that was to later bounce. When the club reached out to him to rectify the anomaly, Nyamweya feigned ignorance and apologized profusely. A six months circus over the cheque followed. Nyamweya would tell a Villa official to come for the cheque in his office, only to exit through the back door once the official arrived. Not for once, or twice.
Tired of the small intrigues and con game that Nyamweya was playing, Sports Villa issued an ultimatum. Get us our prize money or we withdraw from the future Cecafa competitions. Better still, there will be a court action.It was then that Nyamweya’s puerile games hit a cul del sac. He was forced to reach out to Saitoti who bailed him out.Indeed, Nyamweya’s art of issuing bouncing cheques is well documented and goes beyond the things he did in football.Yes, Nyamweya is tried and tested, but on the wrong things.That is why he is the wrong man for the job. He must be stopped.
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