Former National Olympics Committee of Kenya official Stephen Arap Soi and Team Kenya Chief de Mission at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
Former senior General Service Unit (GSU) officer Stephen Kiptanui Soi who was on Tuesday arrested for allegedly shooting and seriously injuring his wife at their home in Narok County, is a long-serving sports administrator who wielded immense power at National Olympic Committee of Kenya (Nock).
Soi served as Nock’s deputy treasurer for 26 years, and as chairman of Kenya Judo Federation (KJF) for 22 years. He ran both organisations like a fiefdom.
Soi is a former senior assistant commissioner at GSU, the paramilitary wing of the Kenya Police Service. The 68-year-old was a commander in the Recce Squad, a squadron in GSU.
As the deputy treasurer at Nock, Soi wielded immense power at the Kenyan Olympics body. So powerful was Soi that no major decisions were made either at Nock, or at KJF without his approval.
He courted controversy at both Nock, and at KJF. At one time, delegates pointed an accusing fingers at him for influencing elections in other local sports federations to guarantee himself a block of votes that could tilt the equation in his favour during Nock’s elections.
To seek elective office at the Kenyan Olympics body Nock, one must first be an elected official of a national federation of an Olympic sport.
Elected officials who head Olympic sports federations in turn vote in Nock elections alongside Nock’s president, and woman representative. Currently, Kenya has 28 national federations of Olympic sports.
Despite leaving KJF as chairman in 2013, Soi still pulled the strings through proxies to take care of his interests at Nock.
He first served as KJF’s treasurer under the leadership of Geoffrey Kinoti in the 1980s before taking over as chairman in 1991.
Things went south for Soi at both KJF and at Nock after he served as Team Kenya’s head of delegation to the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games.
In Rio, officials bungled Team Kenya’s participation in the Olympics.
In the run-up to the 2016 Olympics, Soi faced pressure from IJF officials to leave office after it emerged that he had made a controversial proposal to the International Judo Federation, requesting for tractors to assist judokas in farming.
The 2016 Olympics scandal took him down, and he was replaced by Nock ’s current deputy president, Shadrack Maluki, in elections held in 2017.
Soi, who was Team Kenya’s head of delegation at the 2016 Olympic Games, was charged alongside former Sports Cabinet Secretary Hassan Wario, former Sports principal secretary Richard Ekai, director of administration officer Harun Komen, Nock’s secretary Francis Kinyili Paul, among others, over abuse of office and misuse of over Sh88 million.
Misappropriation
Nock officials Pius Ochieng and Ben Ekumbo were also charged with misappropriation of games kit, stealing and failing to report conveyance of monetary instruments.
In September 2021, Wario and Soi were found guilty of three and six offences respectively for siphoning funds meant for Team Kenya at the 2016 Olympics, and were handed varying sentences.
Wario was sentenced to six years in jail with an option of Sh3.5million fine. He paid the fine but later challenged his conviction in court. Soi was sentenced to 17 years in jail, with the option of a fine of Sh115 million.
He failed to pay the fine but in November 2022, he appealed the judgement and the High Court quashed the sentence on the grounds that he had been wrongly convicted. He had spent close to one year in jail.
Soi, 68, now faces charges of attempted murder. He is alleged to have shot his wife, a High Court judge, on Tuesday on the thigh following an altercation.
On Wednesday, police officers arrested him at their Kutete home in Narok County. Investigations are ongoing.
