New CS Achesa deserves the benefit of the doubt

What you need to know:

  • Achesa passed the parliamentary vetting that - nobody has ever failed that anyway - and he answered all the softball questions rather well.
  • One gets the feeling that once the president has said so, who shall ever go against his word?

The new sports cabinet secretary has been unveiled.

He passed the parliamentary vetting that - nobody has ever failed that anyway - and he answered all the softball questions rather well.

One gets the feeling that once the president has said so, who shall ever go against his word? Rashid Achesa is the man.

We whined and cursed the Wario administration at the sports ministry until we got sore.

This former pugilist perhaps will do much better than the educated Hassan Wario, but I must admit in this column that I am scared.

We have every right to be scared since our earlier statement about Wario is the fact that his education was not in doubt. It is only his performance and omissions that made us feel like banging our heads on the nearby walls.

In Achesa, we have nothing to start upon except for the fact that he was a small time boxer who later took his immature abilities to the streets and mobilised things we would rather shut up about in the streets of Mumias.

It is not strange that you cannot talk to the man without the presence of one Stanley Livondo, popularly known as “Mr Moneybags” for the lifestyle he led while on the fringes of politics, sitting on the shoulders of the high and mighty that used him as a hatchet man. He even answers questions meant for the new minister.

Well, Livondo was also a boxing promoter and we are still in the dark on whether he once “promoted” Achesa. The education level of the new face at the ministry is not questionable at all. It is just low and he accepts it as such. When his friend and “protector” Livondo heard the question about his level of education, he was fast in his response: “I also did not go to school, but that did not stop me from achieving my dreams. Keep talking about school; others are moving ahead without education.”

That was a very good response as far as we were concerned and the fact that the new minister nodded his head in tacit agreement and admiration tells all. It told us all about the man, his philosophy and his expectations.

People should never worry about education at all. It is actually a mistake to worry about that. Don’t keep talking about education, there are Mavericks moving ahead without that thing. We still could have a doctor achieving his dream of curing cancer and doing major operations to save lives without any education at all! What counts is “wisdom” that apparently our new minister possesses without any help of the Shibale School!

'WAIT AND SEE'

We shall wait and see because he promised us that we should only focus on his work. He believes he is going to change sports in the country for the better.

One statement of his got me rather hopeful. “I have been in the field, and I know the shared narratives of sportsmen trying to make a name and earn money. I was once there.”

We too, drop the education platform and trust new things or else, we may relapse back to that topic.