Drama as Paralympics boss Oluoch attacks Table Tennis chief

Drama ensued at the chaotic end of the Extra Ordinary Meeting for National Olympics Committee-Kenya (Nock) stakeholders when two officials almost came to blows in Nairobi on Tuesday.

Journalists were treated to a free spectacle when Kenya Table Tennis Association boss, Andrew Mudibo and the Kenya National Paralympics Committee (KNPC) President Agnes Oluoch got into an embarrassing scuffle in full glare of television cameras.

After the incident, both rushed to Nairobi’s Industrial Area Police Station to lodge formal complaints against each other.

The theatrics started as soon as Mudibo started giving a statement on what transpired during the meeting that saw the new Nock Constitution fail to garner the required two-thirds majority that would have seen it formally adopted.

Mudibo had led fellow disgruntled affiliate members of Nock who had just fallen short of passing through the new legislation in a vote that ended 19-13 in their favour but failed to gain the threshold needed in a walkout from the venue to address the press.

Another affiliate member had just started calling for sobriety when the incensed KNPC boss Oluoch interrupted their address and went straight for Mudibo, dragging him down with his tie.

“I sit on a wheelchair but I’m better (than) you! I’m feeling it because I sit on a wheelchair and you see like sijui what (I don’t know what)! Shame on you! At Paralympics we do perform! Shame on you! I’m a President! I’m a President! I’m part of Nock! And you doubt me!” Olouch shouted at Mudibo.

The Table Tennis chairman was at the time encouraging members of the press to roll the cameras and capture the action, asking the angry KNPC President whether she was ‘finished’ with her tirade asking her “Who doubts you are a President?”

The cameras then turned on Oluoch.

“Any time Mudibo hears Paralympics, is that we are not supposed to participate in sports. We asked in the meeting whether Paralympics can be enjoined in IOC, he said no, when are we going to join?” the riled KNPC boss retorted before clicking in angst and wheeling away.

Speaking to Citizen Digital after they launched their complaints at the police station, Mudibo said he had gone to make a formal report and hopes that they will be able to resolve the issue amicably.

“If you want to follow somebody, you abuse that person and that person will react. I came from the meeting and I was attacked in front of the media by Agnes.

“I do not know where that attack came from. She is the only one who can give the reasons. However, going to a police station does not mean we cannot resolve the matter; it’s a matter making it formal. It can be resolved outside,” the Table Tennis boss added.

On her part Oluoch claimed she was inflamed during the balloting when Mudibo resisted attempts by Irene Tindi a Programme Coordinator of Sports Governance and Management at the Centre for Multi-Party Democracy-Kenya invited KNPC to cast their vote.

Oluoch added she was lobbying for her body to be represented in Nock as it is represented in International Olympics Committee.

Following the failure of the vote to adopt a new Constitution, Mudibo and affected affiliates have sent a letter to the IOC Executive Board informing them their roadmap to new elections had been scuttled.

This opens a possible ban for Kenya from the Olympics or sanctions against individual Nock Executive Committee Members who caused the vote to fail by going against it.