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Return my house

Details

Published on Thursday, 30 June 2011 19:41

Celebrated athlete Nyandika Maiyoro is yet to get back his four-bedroom house at Gusii Stadium, two years after Prime Minister Raila Odinga ordered the Kisii Municipal Council revert it back to him.

Speaking at Gusii Stadium in July 13, 2009, Raila pointed at the house before directing then Nyanza PC, Paul Olando, who was present, to ensure the house was returned to Maiyoro with immediate effect.

But since, the directive has not been enforced and the aging athlete has been waiting to get back his house in vain, reduced to the point of literally crying for his prime property.

But the Kisii Municipal Council maintains the house belongs to the civic body.

Contacted, Kisii DC Ben Njoroge said they left the matter to the council to resolve, but was not aware that Maiyoro never got the house back.

"I don’t know how far that issue went, but the information I have is that he was given an alternative plot at Nyanchwa Estate, which he later sold," Njoroge told FeverPitch in a follow up interview. He denies this in a separate story below.

He referred this writer to Municipal Surveyor Prescott Nyakango, who dealt with the matter. Reached, Nyakango confirmed that indeed Maiyoro was given an alternative plot with an understanding that the stadium house was to remain as an office for the council.

But FeverPitch established that the house is occupied by a tenant who remits rent to the council and does not operate as an office, a finding Nyakango termed as a local arrangement.

The surveyor said he did a research and compiled a report following the premier’s directive on the status of the house.

"I did a report which was given to the Prime Minister, but we have not had a response to date," Nyakango explained.

He said the DC has all the facts and report in his file concerning the house.

Nyakango said he had made frantic efforts to call Maiyoro to his office to put the record straight, but he had never showed up.

Contacted, Kisii Mayor Samuel Nyangeso said the council had responded to the premier’s concerns satisfactorily.

"The council gave Maiyoro alternative land which he sold. He needs to come clear on this," Nyangeso said.

While making the directive, the premier said his attention was drawn by a story we ran in FeverPitch on on July 14, 2009.

"I was shocked to read a story in The Standard On Sunday report that the house had been grabbed from Maiyoro. That house was built for him by the ADC more that 50 years ago," Raila charged to the applause of the crowd.

He said it was regrettable that despite having done the country proud at the height of his athletic career, Maiyoro was being subjected to such tribulations at old age when his achievements are supposed to be recognised.

He personally invited Maiyoro to express his suffering in the hands of the council over ownership of the house to the gathering.

"I was touched by his case and sent for him to be brought to me from his farm in my car," Raila said. He stays at his Isoge farm in Borabu District, Nyamira County.

The crowd went wild when the PM retold Maiyoro’s story of how he had brought the country fame running on bare foot in foreign land where people communicated in language alien to him.

He proposed that Gusii Stadium be named after Maiyoro as an honour for great runner.

"I want this stadium renamed Nyandika Maiyoro. Unlike this days when athletes reap millions of shillings from the sport, during their time Maiyoro and group were merely rewarded with blankets or at best a goat," the PM observed.

Maiyoro, 78, who went down in the annals of Kenya’s athletics history in 1954 when he won gold for the Kenyan colony in 5,000m while running bare foot.

He told the rally that the council took away the house from him a year after he retired as stadium manager from the local authority in 2000 and since then has been collecting rent from his tenant of over 20 years.

"The colonialists built me this house near the track for me to practice and be away from village life influences that could have ruined my career," he explained.

Leaders to have maintained the house belong to Maiyoro include retired President Moi and former Cabinet minister Simeon Nyachae.

"This house has a bearing in my life and by taking it away, they are sending a wrong signal to budding athletes. During our time we just ran for our country not money," Maiyoro says.