Former ODM National youth leader Rashid Mohamed addresses the press at Kakamega Golf hotel on September 23, 2017.
He is Rashid Achesa Mohamed, the new Sports Cabinet Secretary whose name President Uhuru Kenyatta has forwarded to parliament.
But to friends, he is known as Rashid 'Sonko' because of the flashy life he leads even outside public leadership.
He once served as ODM National Youth Leader and was a kingpin of the Raila Odinga party in western Kenya.
In 2017, Rashid tried to vie for the Mumias West Parliamentary seat unsuccessfully using the Jubilee candidature.
He will be the first full CS from the Mumias region, and by extension, he will be the first full cabinet secretary from his Wanga sub-tribe since independence.
He will replace Hassan Wario at Kencom House.
This is how federations view his appointment in comparison to the former minister Wario:
“It is good riddance. Wario did little to help the federations. During his four years at the helm, he never made any effort to meet us and understand our problems or how we operate. We are just getting also to learn that he never presented any sports budgets to the national government for funding or even tried to talk to sponsors on our behalf to support our activities. We, therefore, expect the new man to work closely with us and help us promote our disciplines,” said Kenya Rugby Union (KRU) chairman Richard Omwela.
“We expect support from him as we had before. We also want him to complete the work on infrastructure that is ongoing and also just improve football in general as we have agreed,” said Football Kenya Federation (FKF) president Nick Mwendwa.
“We wish to congratulate him for his nominations and we now ask him to listen to the real stakeholders as we are ready to support him. Regarding, the Commonwealth Games, we expect him to expedite the release of funds to help teams prepare well for the games. We desperately need money to move on with our preparation and hope this appointment is not a false start for sports,”said Barnabas Korir, Kenya’s Chef de Mission to this year’s Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast Australia
“It is a high time we have a rethink on how we run sports. One of the things we must look at is the Sports Act and rectify what has not worked instead of crucifying an individual,” said Kenya Table Tennis Association (KTTA) chairman Andrew Mudibo.