The right to taunt should be reserved for Gor Mahia  

One of the most memorable sound bites by Kenya’s second President, the late Daniel Arap Moi, was a derogatory remark he once made about his longtime second in command, Prof George Saitoti (also deceased).

That was back in April 1999 when Moi reappointed Saitoti as Vice President after ignoring a sustained public clamour for a substantive number two for 14 long months.

An exasperated Moi eventually filled up the vacant post, grudgingly though, and for good measure, with a scornful remark to an apprehensive public.

"I've given back Prof Saitoti the seat of Vice-President. Let’s see if it will add ugali on your sufurias,” Moi quipped in one of his most famous roadside announcements at a rural outpost.

That was vintage Moi, the political animal par excellence who would go down in history as Kenya’s last imperial president.

Enough of Moi and Saitoti. Now, let’s talk about football. Shall we?

So what if Tanzania lost heavily to Morocco in their opening match at the ongoing Africa Cup of Nations in Cote d'Ivoire?

Did all the trolls and brickbats that Kenyan football fans aimed at their Tanzanian counterparts add more ugali to our sufurias?

Did it bring down the exorbitant price of fuel and everything else in this bottom-up country? Did Tanzania’s loss in that match make Kenya a better footballing country?

Your guess is as good as mine.

The English have a name for this kind of uncouth and condescending behaviour. They refer to it as the pot calling the kettle black.

It’s a fact that Kenya’s national team, Harambee Stars, didn’t come anywhere close to qualifying for this year’s edition of the biennial continental football showpiece for reasons of our own making as a country. So why all the hate for Tanzania for achieving something we were unable to?

We, Kenyans, are naturally pretentious and self-righteous. We affect greater importance or merit to our abilities than what we actually possess. That is why we had the nerve to poke fun at Tanzanians while our very own Harambee Stars is a much more hopeless team.

That is why, year after year, we keep pinning all our hopes on Harambee Stars, a team that is as dead as a dodo. We may somehow co-host Afcon in 2027 – and I hope we do, as we’ve been made to believe – but Kenyans fans shouldn’t expect Harambee Stars to deliver anything meaningful in three years’ time for merely being the hosts.

If Kenyan football fans are deluded, then Kenyans online are downright obstinate and irascible. Online we are infamous for picking up fights easily and too often over the pettiest of issues.

We are the know-it-alls who will never back down in a debate. Little wonder we chose to pick on a hapless Tanzania, simply for losing a match that we would have perhaps lost by a bigger margin.

Granted, all the trolls by Kenyans online could as well be just for the laughs. It’s okay if it’s all for a friendly banter. But if we actually think that we are better than Tanzania, then we need to think again.

If we must taunt our neighbours, then that right should be reserved for Gor Mahia, the only club in East Africa to have ever won a continental title. Yes, I know 1987 sounds like ages ago, but the passage of time doesn’t make it less of an achievement.

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