Kenya Rugby Union in leadership "coup"

Kenya Rugby Union (KRU) was on Wednesday thrown into disarray following a leadership "coup" that sent its entire board home and elected new officials despite a court order in place barring the Special General Meeting that forced the changes.

The power struggle comes barely a month ahead of scheduled elections to vote in a new board and shy of three months since immediate former chairman, Mwangi Muthee, resigned from the union with two directors.

A Magistrate Court in the lakeside city of Kisumu temporarily halted Stormers RFC and KRU from convening a special general meeting (SGM), pending a hearing case on Feb. 23 where the club's chairman Kennedy Wesonga, KRU acting-chairman Gabriel Ouko and his Secretary General Eddie Omondi were directed to appear after Kisumu RFC Secretary General Fredrick Maube filed an application.

In defiance to the injunction, the group, led by Stormers RFC founder Jack Okoth, went ahead to hold the meeting at the union headquarters in Nairobi where Sasha Mutai, the former KRU vice-chairman, was elected the new boss with Gerald Chege (vice-chairman), Okoth (Secretary General) and Joshua Aromi (treasurer) being ushered in as other top officials.

Former Kenya 7s head coach Benjamin Ayimba, Kennedy Monari, Patrick Kuria, Daniel Kimoro and David Mwangi were "elected" directors.

"We were not convinced that the court order was genuine because it had no seal neither the magistrate's name and therefore after serving them with a 21 day petition of SGM notice we had no option but to follow the KRU constitution and go ahead with the meeting," Okoth told local radio station Capital FM.

"The board members had acted in a manner that put the game into shame so we are already in office until the end of the team."

Stormers had petitioned the KRU secretary general to convene a SGM to discuss alleged financial impropriety by some of the members of the board but the Union through acting chairman Gabriel Ouko termed the meeting illegal.

Under KRU Constitution, only the Union possesses the powers to issue a notice convening a SGM as well as receive and compile a Delegate's list to any General Meeting of the Union.

"In addition, the Petition as received from Stormers RFC was fatally defective as it did not meet the constitutional requirements for calling for a SGM," Ouko said.

At the SGM, the group passed a vote of no confidence on the board where Mwamba RFC and University of Nairobi's Mean Machine were the only teams from the Kenya Cup with 18 other teams coming from the lower division.

The developments come before the Kenya 7s team features at the Las Vegas round of the HSBC World Series this weekend. Endi