Most talkers were born the other day. So it’s no surprise they don’t know the history of the Safari Rally. Here is an article I got from the archives from the 1980 safari rally. I was a young boy and since my old man was the magazine’s editor. I got to keep a few copies from him.
I had promised to put this up back in Aproo this year but I kinda got busy so let me tag @Cutlass / @Makonika, @mboyshaond, @ChifuMbitika, @patco, @Mathaais and @shocks who had shown some level of interest. I just signed in after a week and got tens if not hundreds of tags from @Mzee mzima so wacha nirudishe favour. tuende kasi…
That guy saw the coming commercilization of the sport very early. This thing is just a branding opportunity for our country, hii maneno ya proving production cars by dealers iliisha zamani
It’s even worse now than what he was complaining about back then.
It’s almost reaching a point of them barring anyone with a camera from taking photos of the rally cars to protect their ‘rights’ boolshiet.
You forget who Moi was… that guy was like a virus that infected every sphere of Kenyan society. To this day it is virtually impossible to kill that virus. Sorry to the writer but it’s quite possible that Moi\KANU might have paid for such articles to be written to prepare Kenyans mentally, just so he (Moi) could engineer the departure of FIA and their top international drivers and thereby his son could get a chance to enter and “WIN” championships. Sort of grabbing the rally racket. The safari rally ended up being another Kanu event, with a few select mhindi and African drivers with cars branded Raiply ,Timsales and of course papa’s boy , Jonathan, was a champ.
And probably with the “fastest” car. If the likes of Colin McRae and Sainz wangekuwa Safari Rally hizo miaka forget it.
Moi stole everything that made Kenyan’s a little happy. And what he couldn’t grab outright he ran it down like a spoilt brat starving it of cash. Even the famous agricultural show slowly became his and for his buddies and then he dumped it. Kenyans simply became bitter audiences who clap and cheer and shake kidole and not participants.
On the contrary there are many reports out there that Moi was very much against Jonathan’s involvement in rallying.
It even came out in the speeches during his burial.
Oh yes he was. Maybe like any parent he was concerned at first but later relented. And Moi was well known to “intervene” on behalf of his kids, relatives, friends, associates etc.
