Sports Cabinet Secretary Amina Mohamed has been lauded for the bold and decisive step in dissolving the Football Kenya Federation (FKF) board headed by Nick Mwendwa.
Not many fans of ‘The Beautiful Game’ will mourn the exit of Mwendwa, whose five years at the helm have achieved absolutely nothing. Standards of Kenyan football have plummeted under his watch. Opaque management of finances has seen corporate sponsors and television broadcast partners shun both the national team and the local leagues.
Sending the FKF president and his team home and appointing a caretaker committee chaired by retired High Court judge Aaron Ringera of course exposes Kenya to a ban from Fifa, including expulsion from all international competitions.
So what? Kenya has zero prospects of proceeding to the World Cup or the Africa Cup of Nations, anyway; so, there is really nothing to lose in the near future.
Football fans should be rooting for Justice Ringera to clean up the mess and pave the way for fresh elections — hoping that there will not be the usual meddling from Fifa, which has a sorry record of supporting corrupt and incompetent football administration regimes under the guise of standing up for independence.
But even as Ms Mohamed earns plaudits, we must pause and consider whether she has done the right thing. In my view, Mr Mwendwa has done nothing for Kenyan football and deserved to have been shown the door a long time ago. In fact, electing him to office was a criminal blunder by football stakeholders. The fact, however, is that he was elected, and the proper way to remove him would have been for the same electorate to vote him out at the next polls or initiate a vote of no confidence.
And if he has committed any crime, including embezzlement of football funds, then he must be brought before a court of law and formally indicted, rather than facing generalised public accusations.
Many of us, from our own experiences, have jaundiced views on government interference in independent bodies. We have seen the heavy hand of government cracking down on civil society, media bodies, professional associations and others that must remain independent of state control, and retain the freedom to monitor and call the state to account.
Proper and lawful mechanisms
If Mwendwa has committed any crime, whether against the sport or in the realm of criminal misdeeds, the proper and lawful mechanisms must be employed towards his removal. These are not matters that can be left to the whims of a CS, or even the government as a whole.
I speak here from personal experience, having been in the frontlines resisting government efforts to neuter or control bodies such as the Kenya Editors’ Guild, which I once chaired, the Kenya Union of Journalists, the Kenya Correspondents Association and the Media Owners Association.
The government went to extraordinary lengths to cripple or kill the independent media representative bodies. Files at the Registrar of Societies were hidden so that the associations could not update their annual returns, thus risking deregistration.
Quislings within the media were sponsored to file fake returns on the strength of forged minutes from annual or special general meetings that never were, purporting to have been elected into office. The miscreants responsible for those criminal actions have never been arrested and charged.
Such shenanigans were common during the one-party dictatorship and have been adopted by successive regimes even in the era of multi-party democracy.
Ms Mohamed may mean well for Kenyan football but no individual, however well-meaning, should have unchecked power to kick out the elected leadership of any independent association or to impose handpicked minions.
Kenya is a country of law and, therefore, all legal procedures should be followed. The era of roadside declarations and executive diktat ended with the onset of democracy and we must never countenance a return to the dark days.
I firmly believe that Mr Mwendwa has committed crimes against Kenyan football but never would I presume the power to unilaterally kick him out of office in total disregard of laws and procedures.
Ms Mohamed may depose him today but she may then be emboldened to take over other sporting associations and put her favourites in charge.
Her Information, Communications and Technology Cabinet colleague could take the cue and place his bootlickers at the helm of the Kenya Editors Guild. The Attorney-General could follow suit and impose a bunch of regime sycophants on the leadership of the Law Society of Kenya.
These are the dangers we face the moment we cheer government meddling in independent bodies. BY DAILY NATION