Nyayo Stadium

Arriving back in Nairobi after a weekend away on the coast, my first priority was obviously to check the football results. The headline on the BBC Sports page, however, read "Kenya Football Stampede Kills 7". At a local game between rivals Gor Mahia and AFC Leopards at the Nyayo Stadium in Nairobi, a crush to enter through the gates escalated, resulting in several deaths and many injuries.

This story would have been much more shocking if it wasn't so predictable. We went to see a Kenya-Uganda qualifier at Nyayo two weeks ago, and the stadium was clearly a death-trap. The queues to get in stretched round the stadium, we saw one man being severely beaten by police for trying to jump the queue, and everybody started getting more and more frustrated as kick-off approached and they couldn't get inside. Once inside, the story was pretty much the same. At one point, a mass of fans ran in through a side exit, having stormed the gate. The official capacity of the stadium is 30,000, and for the Uganda game they only sold 87% of tickets in order to separate the fans, but the official attendance was still somehow 40,000.

There's barbed wire surrounding the pitch, and scores of people sitting on the ground. You did get the feeling that if there was any trouble, there's nowhere to go. There also seem to be more ball-boys in the stadium than security (which was useful for this game - the ball-boys seemed to be more active than any of the players. At one point there seemed to be 2 balls on the pitch, so one of the ball-boys just ran onto the pitch in the middle of the game to pick it up). Fortunately, the Kenya-Uganda game was so dull (and this is coming from a Bolton fan), ending 0-0 with no controversy, that most fans lost interest and wandered off. But you could see how a more competitive or incendiary game might not end so peacefully. 

It's not even the first time this has happened. In 2005, the same thing occurred, with one person dying as a result, and they stopped using the stadium for a while. They recently returned, with "new security measures" to ensure that it couldn't ever happen again. 

At work on Monday, I was talking to a colleague who I know is a Gor Mahia fan. He'd been at the game, and I told him how it must have been quite shocking. "Yeah", he said, "but it's ok. We won 1-0". 

Wet, Minister

Last week the Ministry organised a 'media breakfast' to launch its new publicity campaign. All the major news networks were invited to one of the fancier Nairobi hotels to cover the event.

Unfortunately, I think the content of the launch might have been slightly overshadowed by events. As the Permanent Secretary started his statement, there was a loud 'pop' and water started flooding in through the ceiling. Cue general panic and havoc. I have literally never seen civil servants move so fast (my boss later confided that he thought Al-Shabaab were attacking). Obviously, as this was a media event, the whole scenario was caught on camera.



The hotel later claimed that the lights from the TV cameras activated the sprinkler system, which responded perfectly, and proves the system is working. Those of us who were there, and who could smell the 'water' pouring through the ceiling have a slightly different opinion...

Anyway, it's another one to add to the list of my many media appearances (what? you didn't see me? I'm right here - you'll have to take my word for it).

Still, there's no such thing as bad publicity, right?