The choice of Eldoret to host AFCON is the choice of power over anthropology.
We go to elections to do many things, but the most important thing is to bring something home.
To bring something to the village.
Everyone has a village in Kenya, including the President.
In future when elections are called, stop everything else and vote. If you can vote twice, vote again!
The argument that Western Kenya and Nyanza is the hotbed of football, though persuasive, is irrelevant.
Kenya has not reached that stage of skills development where one region can entirely assume the ownership of a sport.
Not long ago the country celebrated a young lad called Kibet, whose name makes me assume he hails from the Rift Valley – that is – he is an indigene Kalenjin.
That means, at the very least, that the next football stars will come from anywhere. If the future is unpredictable, we need intelligent leaders.
In Homa Bay, Governor Gladys Wanga is heavily supporting a sports academy now building a ‘stadia’ in Ndhiwa. She also quickly completed Raila Odinga Stadium – Homa Bay, now the home ground of Shabana FC.
But Shabana FC is only sharecropping for a moment, soon the renovations at Gusii Stadium, their natural habitat, will be complete and they’ll return home.
Homa Bay residents have tasted the thrill of hosting major league football matches. Homa Bay town economy now knows the power of football tourism. Revolutions never go backward.
I foresee an irrepressible conflict between the present and the future.
The challenge for Homa Bay leaders is to begin early talks with Gor Mahia, especially, to adopt Homa Bay town as the home ground, post Shabana.
I do not know whether this is possible, but I do know the town needs a football team. And the time is now.
If we want our region to rise, our leaders must be deliberate. Hoffer was right, in times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.
To have football in Western Kenya, we must first move football away from Nairobi. But more importantly, we must be shareholders. We must capture political power.
What is important about this post is this: development is politics and politics is power.
Armed with power, you decide everything.
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Pastor Ng’ang’a grabbed a railway land and built a makeshift church. He’s squatted on this land for years, becoming a multimillionaire. Jesus never grabbed the highway to Jerusalem. Most of these prosperity evangelical churches are built on road reserves. It explains why they supported candidate William Ruto, whose rise to power was fueled chiefly by evangelicals. But that which belongs to Ceaser still belongs to Ceaser, and not even Jesus varied that law.
