President Robert Mugabe or President Gaddafi qualified to be The President of United States of Africa

It may sound strange but this is real. The two men have never been the darling of the West and they would be the best to lead the United States of Africa if the continent decided to have one president.

The two men are able to tell off the west when they try to bully Africa and the African people.

If Africa decided to have one President, there are no strong men today that are in power and ready not to lick the westerners. The two men, Gaddafi and Mugabe have been hated by the west for too long. The reason being their unwillingness to bow down to the demands from the western leaders who want to bully Africa.

In Zimbabwe, Mugabe warned the US ambassador who had started behaving like a small king, just like the US ambassador in  Kenya who keeps opening his mouth and terrorising Kenyan leaders. Mugabe told the ambassador to shut up or leave the country. He chose to shut up. Africa needs men of Mugabe’s calibre who are ready to face western leaders head-on.

In Kenya, the leaders are allowing ambassador Ranneberger to behave like a king. That is an abuse of his diplomatic immunity. He keeps treating President Kibaki as his equal, forgetting he is just an ambassador representing his country and a guest in Kenya. What gives him the right to warn Kenya’s president all the time on the reforms agenda? Can he not write to the president through the normal channel – the Kenyan foreign minister, instead of shouting around and inciting the youth through the media?

Maybe Ranneberger should be posted to Zimbabwe where he will be thought a lesson by Mugabe, the no nonsense leader of Zimbabwe and the would-be no nonsense leader of the United States of Africa.

The Present US ambassador in Kenya keeps opening his mouth like the other one Hempstone who was there before him, who terrorised Moi government before retiring and dying somewhere in the US. There are many in Kenya who will never mourn his death. Moi does not mourn him at all, if we have to be truthful. Hempstone gave former President Moi sleepless nights unnecessarily by behaving like a small American king of Kenya. It was distasteful.

Let Africa have strong leaders who do not have time to become the darling of the west. Men and women who will serve the continent without fearing what the westerners want for Africa. Africans must understand that the west will always want that which is good for them to be done in Africa and that they do not necessarily give priority to what is good for the Africans in the continent.

By Chief Editor Korir, African Press International.

State “talking up figures,” say farmers – No-nonsense Mugabe is no darling of the west

Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe. Land reform is a sensitive issue in Zimbabwe where white commercial farmers were often violently evicted by President Robert Mugabe’s government. Photo/REUTERS 

By REUTERS

 

JOHANNESBURG, Saturday

Zimbabwe’s farming sector is in “dire straits” despite the new power-sharing government, with invasions of white-run farms continuing unabated and major food shortages inevitable, a leading farmer said on Friday.

Deon Theron, vice-president of the Commercial Farmers Union, which represents the few white farmers left, also poured scorn on official predictions of large jumps in output of key crops such as maize and wheat in 2009.

He said the farm sector was being talked up in an attempt to persuade foreign donors to loosen their purse strings.

In many cases, forecasts were four times the reality, Theron said, since commercial farmers were being physically prevented from planting crops and banks were refusing to grant loans because they could not trust land deeds as collateral.

“It’s a joke. It’s ridiculous,” Theron told Reuters in an interview in Johannesburg. “I find it incredible that those kind of figures could be put out. They’re not even close.”

Breadbasket

Zimbabwe, once the breadbasket of southern Africa, has recorded a consistent decline in its staple maize crop since 2000, when President Robert Mugabe’s government began seizing white-owned farms to resettle landless blacks.

Farms that escaped repossession have also suffered shortages of seed and fertiliser, making Zimbabwe reliant on imports and food aid since 2002. Aid groups have said up to 7 million people — more than half the population — may need food aid this year.

However, state media said this month the country would produce 1.2 million tonnes of maize this season, more than double last year’s crop.

Theron said the more likely figure was 400,000 tonnes — compared to a national requirement of 2.2 million.

“Agricultural production is in dire straits despite what the government is saying,” said Theron.

The wheat crop was more likely to be 25,000 tonnes compared to 100,000 officially forecast and tobacco output was going to be a quarter of the 1.6 million tonnes projected.

Mugabe and political rival Morgan Tsvangirai joined a power-sharing administration in February and immediately started trying to raise the billions of dollars needed to rebuild an economy crippled by years of neglect and mismanagement.

Even though Tsvangirai said in March a new wave of farm invasions threatened $150 million of crops, Theron said Harare was glossing over the problems in the hope of convincing sceptical Western donors to get their cheque books out.

More frequent

The farm invasions were, if anything, more frequent than before the joint government came to power, he said, leafing through a file of 60 incursions reported in April alone.

“It really is close to hoodwinking the international community into releasing funds by making them believe everything is fine on the agricultural front,” said Theron, who has had three farms repossessed since 2000.

“We’re an agriculture-based economy. If agriculture does not recover, Zimbabwe will not recover,” he said.

source.nation.ke

In Carson, Obama has a safe pair of hands for Africa – He has been involved with Africa for more than 30 years

The new US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Johnnie Carson, speaks at a press conference in Nairobi. Mr Carson has experience and vast knowledge about Africa . Photo/FILE 

By JOHN HARBESON

In Summary

The former US envoy to Kenya has vast knowledge about his new post

 

President Obama’s appointment of Ambassador Johnnie Carson as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs brings a man with more knowledge and experience about Africa to this post than perhaps any of his predecessors.

He has been involved with Africa for more than 30 years, represented the US in six African countries over his career, and travelled to more than 40 sub-Saharan African countries.

Mr Carson knows Kenya and is known by Kenyans from his time as US Ambassador. Indeed, Eastern Africa will be unusually prominent in the consciousness of policy makers, given President Obama’s Kenyan roots.

Senator Russell Feingold, chair of the Senate subcommittee on African affairs, has long been especially attentive to developments in the region as have been Rep Donald Payne, and the ranking Republican member, Rep Christopher Smith, on the corresponding House of Representatives committee.

Level of concern

Other members of both the House and Senate committees monitor African development closely.

This high level of concern and experience with African development in both the legislative and executive branches of the US government highlights the importance of a policy issue about which I have written: to what extent and in what ways will the new US administration promote and support continuing African democratisation?

Democratisation in Africa may be at a crossroads, in terms both of progress in Africa and external assistance in support of democratisation, at least in the US.

The respected Freedom House has reported some retreat in terms of observance of basic political and civil liberties over the last three years, though I would suggest the backtracking has been slight, more of a plateau than a retreat, particularly considered against the trends of the last two decades.

Still, Kenyans know better than anybody how fragile democratic progress may be and how elusive further democratisation progress can be.

Prospects for further democratisation elsewhere in eastern Africa and the Horn are uncertain at best, notably in Ethiopia and Uganda and, also further to the south, Malawi.

So, two critical questions are what will it take to sustain the progress that has been made over the last two decades, and what will be required in order to make further progress?

These are questions for both policy makers and academics, on which they need to work together both in Africa and in countries like the US that have supported the progress made to date.

Democratisation support is in a peculiar, even troubling position here in Washington.

The Bush administration’s legacy and the Iraq misadventure has given foreign policy idealism a black eye.

Moreover, there is the reality that the current controversy over Bush administration practices in interrogating prisoners of war and suspected terrorists may erode our credentials to speak to the world about democracy.

Against this background, Mr Carson’s statement to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was especially noteworthy.

Four objectives

He emphasised the inextricable interdependence of four principal objectives:

•supporting continuing efforts to reduce violent conflict,

•advancing basic human needs in the forms of food security, environmental sustainability, improved health including HIV/Aids reduction,

•continuing sustained macro-economic progress, the current worldwide economic downturn notwithstanding,

•strengthening democratic institutions.

Mr Carson promised “to work in partnership with African governments and civil societies to strengthen their (African) democratic institutions and to protect the democratic gains they have made.”

He pledged to seek to reverse a shrinkage of resources for democratic assistance, so as to be able to provide more support more independent judiciaries, more robust civil societies, stronger legislatures, and more transparent elections.

The key question then becomes how to do all this. To the degree that democratisation has reached a plateau in sub-Saharan Africa, or even retreated somewhat, why has this happened?

One possibility is that in the past disproportionate resources went to parallel objectives, such as advancing the global war on terror. One has rarely heard that phrase so far in 2009.

Perhaps it’s a matter of recalibrating focus. But a deeper and more far-reaching question is whether or to what extent and in what ways countries that have made important initial steps need significantly different measures to consolidate these steps and take additional ones than they have needed to take the first steps over the last two decades.

Significant gaps

Surveys in 18 countries that have generally made the most democratic progress have shown that there are significant gaps between what citizens have expected of democracy and what they perceive to have been delivered. What needs to be delivered?

Promoting reasonably free and fair elections, civil society activism, and multiparty competition have been the most important democratic achievements.

More attention is needed now to democratisation understood as building consensus on fundamental rules of the game at both elite and citizen levels.

There needs to be more consensus between parties on rules for their election competition, within legislatures on how to craft broad consensus on legislation, within bureaucracies on how to implement policies, within judiciaries on what the rule of law should mean, and among citizens and leaders alike on what rules of the game bind them together as members of one democratic constitutional political order.

John Harbeson is a professor of political science at City University of New York.

source.nation.ke

What is so special with being the first African President to meet President Obama? Nothing special, we say!

African Politics: Kikwete is the first African president to be darling of the US President: Will that help Tanzania and the Tanzanian people in any way?

What a shame! There is madness in politics. The media is so occupied with who of the African Presidents is the first to meet the newly elected US President Barack Obama.

Tanzania’s President Kikwete last week rushed to the US to meet Obama, thus becoming the first African President to be there. What was the hurry? Obama will travel to Africa and his first stop is Ghana where he was meant to meet the Ghanaian President as first African leader because Ghana has been shining as real democracy in the Continent. Now Kikwete made it look like he is the champion in Africa and while in the US, he even had the guts to discus Kenyan affairs.

We wonder: What is so special being the first to meet with him (Obama)? He is just like all the other US presidents, only that he has some good chocolate blood in his body, a sign that his father is African. Does that make him more important to be met than the past US  Presidents?

I, for one, would have loved to meet President George Bush Jr who terrorised the world making America the most dangerous place to live in, but not forgetting he had a reason to do what he did because of 9/11. His charisma is one that I feel for, not Obama’s daily faked smiles.

Let us not forget that Bush never bowed down when greeting the Saudi King, it was Obama who did that recently!

When Obama was elected, many people world over behaved like a new messiah was born. Now we start to witness that he has difficulties to run the American affairs starting with his own people who are now refusing his moves to set free Guantanamo prisoners, the setting free with intend to release them all to US states.

May be Obama should ask Norway, a country most willing to accept those suspected of terrorism activities, to take all prisoners from Guantanamo. Norway would be most willing to have them all as long as the US President praises Norway every week in his weekly Radio broadcast.

Many will not understand why I am saying this. You have to live in Norway to get it. When you are a small country in the world but with oil money that you can freely squander, you want to be noticed and you will be willing to do all sorts of things to please the international community in search of recognition. 

Just follow what happens when any country in the world is faced with man made disasters or just like the other day when Pakistan started bombing her people. Norway was the first to release millions of kroners to Pakistan. Why? Recognition of being the first to react, using money to be noticed, by helping the country after it bombs her people.

 

 By Chief Editor Korir /African Press International (Headquarters in Norway)

———————

Tanzania elbows Kenya to become darling of US

Why is Kikwete smiling to the cameras instead of giving a smile to the Chief of Protocol or is he afraid of the guard infront of him? Tanzania’s President Jakaya Kikwete (C) shakes hands with U.S. Acting Chief of Protocol Gladys Boluda as he leaves the West Wing of the White House in Washington May 21, 2009 following his private meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama. PHOTO/ REUTERS 

By MURITHI MUTIGA

In Summary

• As Kikwete claims the honour of being the first African head of state to visit White House, the growing estrangement between America and Kibaki’s regime is likely to pile further pressure on the troubled Grand Coalition Government.

 

Tanzania President Jakaya Kikwete this week claimed the honour of being the first African head of state to visit President Obama’s White House, in a move that will further highlight Kenya’s diminished status on the international scene.

The visit came on the back of a public snub by President Obama, who has opted to make Ghana the destination of his first visit to Sub-Saharan Africa.

The growing estrangement between the US and Kenya is likely to pile further pressure on the troubled Grand Coalition Government.

A statement from the White House Press office following Mr Obama’s meeting with Mr Kiwete read: “The President [Obama] and President Kikwete met and had a valuable discussion on a range of issues. President Obama expressed his appreciation for the close bilateral relationship the United States shares with Tanzania”. 

Exchanged views

Presidents Kikwete and Obama exchanged views on approaches to enhancing the US-Tanzanian partnership, improving development policy in the fields of health, education and agriculture, and working with other partners in the region to solve some of the most pressing conflicts on the African continent. 

They expressed a desire to work together to solve common problems in the future.

This was the first African head of state to visit President Obama at the White House.

According to a veteran diplomat, Mr Bethwell Kiplagat, Mr Obama’s decision not to visit Kenya should serve as a warning to the Grand Coalition to get its act together.

“If I was planning to visit someone’s house and I realised that they are not getting on well, I would think twice about going ahead with the visit,” he says.

Mr Kiplagat says the calculation from the White House was that President Obama might have been embarrassed on visiting Kenya at a time when the discord between coalition partners Orange Democratic Movement and Party of National Unity has made the coalition erratic and unpredictable.

“I am sure they (Americans) are sending a message on the need for unity. It is clear that when you are wrangling, quarrelling and contradicting each other as a government, your effectiveness is markedly reduced,” he says.

The frosty relations between Kenya and a number of its key Western allies represents a sharp turnaround for a nation described by the US pointman to the continent Johnnie Carson as the “keystone” country in the region.

In 2003, when President Kibaki led the National Rainbow Coalition (Narc) in ending Kanu’s 40 years in power, Kenya was regarded as the toast of the continent.

The peaceful nature of the transition and the overwhelming mandate secured by Narc won the government admiration from around the world and instantly seemed to have repaired the strained relations between Kenya and the West.

President Kibaki and First Lady Lucy Kibaki were treated to a White House state banquet, a rare honour for an African leader.

Former US President Bill Clinton, when asked which world leader he admired most in a television interview in early 2003, named President Kibaki for his introduction of free primary education.

The good times did not last. Allegations of corruption in the new administration, particularly the Anglo Leasing scandal, made Western donors wary of dealing with the government.

The outbreak of violence following the disputed presidential election in 2007 also dealt a blow to Kenya’s reputation as a stable and peaceful democracy.

Following the violence, the US ambassador to Kenya Michael Ranneberger, has been a relentless advocate for implementation of reforms under what is known as Agenda 4 of the Accord mediated by Kofi Annan.

These include changes to land laws, and institutional reform of the police and judiciary besides tackling mass youth unemployment.

The accord also led to the formation of a commission headed by Mr Justice Phillip Waki, which called for the establishment of a tribunal to try the masterminds of the post-election violence. Parliament is yet to agree on setting up such a tribunal.

Mr Ranneberger’s voluble demands for reform have rubbed some MPs the wrong way with a number criticising him last week.

According to Mr Kiplagat, the coalition deserves credit for implementing some reforms. He pointed to the appointment of an Interim Independent Electoral Commission and establishment of a boundary review commission.

He also said the publication of a bill to establish a Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission was a positive step. But he said the administration must move faster.

“It is essential that these commissions move with speed to carry out their mandate. Line ministries must also ensure the commissions are well funded. In the end, though, the image the government projects will depend on its ability to speak with one voice,” said Mr Kiplagat, a former permanent Secretary in the ministry of Foreign Affairs.

source.nation.ke

US President Obama and Tanzania’s President Kikwete secret talks on Kenya

  Men in secret talks on Kenya: US President Obama and Kikwete of Tanzania

By Oscar Obonyo

President Barack Obama’s administration could deploy its clout to force Kenya to hasten constitutional reforms.

For the second time on Saturday, the US Ambassador to Kenya, Michael Ranneberger, told The Standard on Sunday various options are available, including travel bans.

His statement reinforced another this month by Obama’s official emissary to President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga, Johnnie Carson, who made it clear his brief was to “warn a friend” America could soon “flex its muscles”. Ranneberger spoke against the backdrop of a closed-door meeting between Obama and Tanzania President Jakaya Kikwete. It is believed Kenya’s troubled coalition and the gradual loss of grip by the weak-kneed Somali government featured at the meeting.

A secure Kenya is viewed by America and the European Union as guaranteed vanguard against the spill over of terrorism from lawless Somalia.

The turn of events, coming at a time the local economy and political fabric are tattered, rekindle memories of the first months of last year, when then US President George Bush sent messages to Kibaki and Raila that power sharing was not a matter of personal preference but inevitable.

Again like it is today one man, who played a big role in breaking the ice between Kibaki and Raila, was in the loop – President Kikwete who had just been crowned the African Union chairman. Bush flew into Tanzania – and it is after they met that Kikwete crossed over to Kenya with a message now believed to have been choosing between power sharing and dispatch of United Nations peacekeepers.

At the time, before Bush landed and with Kibaki having named a half-Cabinet with Kalonzo Musyoka as Vice-President, the VP flew to Tanzania to meet Kikwete.

This round again Kalonzo left the funeral of Water Minister Charity Ngilu’s mother, saying he was flying to Tanzania to meet Kikwete. While there, his press service as well as the Tanzanian Press, curiously did not mention he had had closely-guarded talks with Kikwete, who was about to travel to the US. It is the journey that made him the first African leader to meet Obama as President.

As Kenya was told by Rannerberger, Obama would not set foot here, despite this being his ancestral roots, because of political disorder and jolt to the reform process.

Meanwhile, Ghana was celebrating Obama’s decision to choose her as his first stop as the President of the world’s only superpower.

In what our sources described as a “critical encounter”, Kalonzo met Kikwete on May 15.

According to a report filed from Washington in Saturday’s Daily News of Tanzania, Kikwete and Obama discussed Kenya’s political situation and “other trouble regions of Darfur, DRC and Somalia”.

Raila’s one-week tour

The details of the discussions were however scanty, but given the stand US ambassador in Kenya has taken on the confusion in the Grand Coalition, and the slow pace of reforms, and with Kikwete’s perceived ‘expertise’ on Kenya’s affairs, it cannot be ruled out the issues raised by Rannerberger featured.

Asked what was discussed by the two world leaders on Saturday, the ambassador, who has adopted grassroots-based healing and reconciliation effort among communities scarred by post-election violence, said he did not know.

Interestingly, Kikwete’s visit to the US also coincided with that of Raila’s one-week tour of the superpower nation, where a few weeks ago, his wife Ida, met Mrs Mitchell Obama.

Raila’s team was tight-lipped on whether he tried or may even have talked to Obama, or even what Ida discussed with US first black First Lady.

From Tanzania, the regular VPPS dispatches captured events involving Tanzania’s VP, Ali Mohammed Shein.

“The two (Kikwete and Kalonzo) met although no details were divulged and we have been warned against running the story,” an editor of Rai, Tanzania’s weekly political newspaper, confirmed to The Standard on Sunday.

According to the journalist, Kalonzo flew to Dar on Friday, and was met by his Tanzanian counterpart who drove him straight to State House for a meeting with Kikwete.

“Officially, your Vice-President’s host during the two-day trip was Dr Shein and not Kikwete. We could not run this story because State House officials confided to us President Kikwete was sensitive over the Kenyan affair as he did not wish to be seen to favour any side of the political divide,” the editor said in a telephone interview.

Although details of the Kalonzo-Kikwete meeting remain hazy, chances are the encounter was linked to the Obama meeting at the Oval Office on Thursday.

Kalonzo, a former Foreign Affairs Minister, played the same role, flying into African States shortly after the disputed presidential election, to give the PNU account to the international community.

It is not clear whether Raila was also in touch with the Tanzanian leader ahead of his meeting with Obama. The Standard on Sunday also could not establish whether Raila was scheduled to meet Obama, although Kenya’s ambassador to the US, Peter Ogego, said the PM was not expected in Washington.

A fortnight ago Obama warned President Kibaki and PM to ease political tension and fully execute the National Accord as crafted by former United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan.

His message, through Carson, was blunt: “The US is ready to take necessary steps should the coalition fail to implement the Annan agreement.”

Tattered economy

The apparent scramble for Kikwete’s attention by local leaders is understandable. The Kenyan situation after all formed part of the agenda of Obama-Kikwete talks.

Obama’s dissatisfaction with the local political leadership comes in the wake of a gloomy Economic Survey report by Planning Minister Wycliffe Oparanya. With a just 1.7 per cent growth, Kenya’s economy is no better than warring Somalia’s 2.6 per cent.

And even as the US is increasingly lumps Kenya with failed States in the region, the disturbing aspect of the unfolding drama is the country’s inability to tap and take advantage of the US President’s roots.

The one man, who is running away first with possible political and economic advantage from Obama, is Kikwete. Since election as Tanzania’s President in 2006, Kikwete has enjoyed closer ties with the ‘Big Brother’. That was the case during the reign of 43rd US President George W Bush.

His country’s clout and fortune have correspondingly risen as Kenya’s plummet.

In mid-2006, for instance, Kenyans reacted angrily when news filtered through that Bush and Kikwete had discussed Kenya, during a bilateral meeting in Washington. Foreign Affairs Minister, Moses Wetangula, then an Assistant Minister, demanded a public apology from the two leaders.

Two years later, Bush flew to Tanzania when the country was burning, from where he issued threats to Kenyans to stop further bloodshed and form a coalition government. Kikwete delivered the message and it worked.

Today, Kikwete still occupies that special and envious place in the eyes of American leadership.

Last Thursday, he met Obama in Washington. When Kikwete invited Obama to Tanzania, which former President Clinton like Bush, visited and snubbed Kenya, the new US leader’s response was more than curious.

“I would like to visit Tanzania. Last time I saw your country from the other side of Serengeti National Park,” he said, referring to his 2006 visit to Kenya.

Then, Kibaki’s spokesman, Alfred Mutua, dismissed Obama as, “a junior Senator from Illinois”. Mutua was reacting to Obama’s assertion corruption is undermining Kenya’s development.

 

source.standard.ke

Blind warrior’s sprint to success and fame – He is Kenya’s Wanyoike

 By Kiundu Waweru

Henry Wanyoike dramatically burst into the international limelight during the 2000 Sydney Paralympics games. With only 50 metres between him and the gold medal for the 5,000m race, his seeing guide ran out of breath and broke step with him. Wanyoike tugged him along, pulling on the tether cojoining them by the wrist. Spectators were mesmerised and some rushed to the track and shouting ecstatically, guided Wanyoike to the finishing line. He won his first gold medal a heartbeat away from breaking the world record.

 

Wanyoike and his wife Myllow who he met in a phone booth! Photo: Maxwell Agwanda

That event marked the beginning of a colourful, decorated career. In December of the same year, then President Daniel Moi decorated him with the Order of the Golden Warrior (OGW) award, symbolically opening a floodgate of gold medal victories and world records in both track and marathon competitions for the blind. This is a feat in itself as no other runner has ever succeeded in both track and marathon.

But this success has not gone to the globetrotting athlete’s head. He remains humble and grounded. In fact, he still lives at his rural home in Kanjeru, Kikuyu, where he rears cows and chickens. He interacts freely with locals who respect him and hold him in awe.

“I have never thought of moving from my home area. It is safer for me in the neighbourhood with people who recognise me,” he explains.

He is independent and does not like being guided all the time.

“I move in the neighbourhood alone but since everyone knows my condition, they accompany me.”

Indeed, Wanyoike moves around smoothly, sometimes not even using his cane, tempting one to question whether he is really totally blind. In fact, this was the misconception when he won in the Sydney Paralympics.

“It was a nightmare. When I dragged my guide along, people thought it was he who was blind not me. Even the Olympics organisers were hard pressed to believe me. They put me through intense tests and I was in one machine or another for three days to ascertain that I was indeed blind.”

He received his gold award three days later than everyone else.

Painful memories

Recalling this ordeal conjures up even more painful memories for the star athlete with a perpetual smile and an easy aura about him. He narrates how his world came crumbling down when he lost his eyesight at 21.

“In March 1995, I suffered a mild stroke that left me paralysed for two weeks,” he says, rubbing his dark eyeglasses.

He smiles and continues: “Later, on April 30, I went to bed alright but when I woke up the next morning all I could see was a bright, intense light. Figures appeared blurred.”

Wanyoike went to Kikuyu Eye Hospital, and later to MP Shah and Kenyatta hospitals. The verdict was the same — he had lost 95 per cent of his sight, and this was not reversible, as the stroke had destroyed his optic nerves. Later, he became completely blind.

“For three years, I lived in denial,” says the 35-year-old who previously earned his living repairing shoes.

“I worked hard at home, looking after mum’s cattle and working on clients’ shoes late at night. Losing my eyesight meant that I would be dependent on others for everything and I was not about to accept that.”

Wanyoike’s turning point came at the Christian Blind Mission, Kikuyu Hospital, when he met a German doctor, Petra Vouryern who urged him to live positively. She let Wanyoike know he could do anything he wanted despite his condition.

“One day, Petra asked me to go for a blind girl from Subukia, Nakuru, and take her to school in Thika.” Wanyoike pauses for the full implication of this to sink in.

“I went to Nakuru, alone. Even with the guidance of strangers and touts, I underwent great hardship and stress. Eventually I made it!” Wanyoike says that experience opened his eyes, so to speak, and he actually looked forward to schools’ closing and opening days so that he could accompany the girl.

Later that year, 1999, he went to Machakos Institute for the Blind. There he met 80 other students who had also lost sight in adulthood.

“We were taught independent living skills among other things and it is in Machakos that I learned to accept myself.”

One day, Wanyoike told his games teacher that he used to run in both primary and secondary school.

“I was good and competed at the national level.” The games teacher encouraged him to start running again.

“I was excited but I did not know how I could manage to run without my eyesight. Nevertheless I tried and three months later won a 3,000m race in Machakos. That earned me a T- shirt and a certificate,” he says, beaming with pride.

Then they heard about the special Sydney Olympics.

“We went to the Nyayo National Stadium for the selection of the national team that would represent Kenya. I made it and suddenly felt uncertain I could do it.”

This fear of failure followed him to the track in Australia.

Annals of athletics history

“You could feel the excitement in the air with hundreds of journalists asking endless questions. To make matters worse, the announcer was introducing my competitors and I to the world through the loudspeakers. I became more scared when I learnt that most of my fellow runners had this record or that. I was the only novice. All was not lost though, the announcer proclaimed that I was a force to reckon with considering the fact that I came from a nation of great runners. He motivated me.”

 

Wanyoike, an award-winning international track and marathon star, still lives at his rural home in Kikuyu, where he rears cows and chickens.

Wanyoike went on to overlap all the competitors he feared. He was as strong as an ox and he exhausted his guide, Kyalo, putting his name in the annals of athletics history.

Today, with a string of gold, silver and bronze medals and accolades to his name, Wanyoike gives back to the community through his Henry Wanyoike Foundation started in 2005 with the help of the tennis star, Boris Becker.

“I give motivational talks in schools, which I also get to do in countries I visit through the Standard Chartered ‘Seeing is Believing’ campaign where I am a goodwill ambassador.” He says because most disabled people are abandoned; he has opened doors for them. He helps where he can but most importantly, through him, they have realised that disability is not inability and that they too can become useful.

Knows what poverty means

Born in 1974, Wanyoike went to Kanjeru Primary and Kahuho Uhuru High schools. He was brought up in the Shauri Yako slums in Gitaru, Kikuyu, and he knows only too well what poverty means. Perhaps this is why he has reached out to the underprivileged by setting them up in small businesses.

“We give chicks, pigs and cows to families. We have given out 52 cows and to keep the continuity, the beneficiaries give another poor family the calf when the cow calves.”

Wanyoike has also quenched thirst in Machakos, “We dug a borehole at the school I attended and the surrounding community now has water.”

In Kikuyu, he organises an annual race dubbed ‘Hope for the Future Run’, which is the climax of the year’s activities. Among them is cleaning of the environment, planting trees, sports as well as HIV and Aids related activities. This he achieves through a youth group he partners with.

The run takes place every May.

“May is special to me as I was born on May 10 and lost my sight on May 1. Thus it is the month of hope.”

He explains that this year, the run will be held on June 6 because he will be in Germany for the whole of this month running and giving motivational talks.

The run is meant to bring the people of Kikuyu together and there are invited speakers who cover myriad topical issues.

Wanyoike is married to Myllow Wanja and they have three children, Peterson Nderi, 17, Petra Wangui, 12, and Hugh Hurchell, five. He met Myllow in a phone booth at the Nyayo Stadium and asked for her help. Although she was first wary of him, she agreed and later they went for coffee and eventually married.

 

source.standard.ke