Senator Abdillahi uses football to protect Likoni youth from vices

Likoni Allstars FC [blue] and Denmark FC [yellow] players at Mwahium stadium on Saturday / BRIAN OTIENO

The Mwahima stadium during the launch if the second edition of the Mama Haki Peace Cup tournament on Saturday / BRIAN OTIENO

Officials inspect the Mwahima stadium ground during halftime on Saturday / BRIAN OTIENO

Senator Miraj Abdillahi with men’s football teams at the Mwahima Stadium in Likoni on Saturday / BRIAN OTIENO

Senator Miraj Abdillahi at the Mwahima Stadium in Likoni on Saturday / BRIAN OTIENO

A total of 42 female football teams are this year participating in the second edition of Mama Haki Peace Cup football tournament in Likoni sub-county.

The tournament’s sponsor, Nominated Senator Miraj Abdillahi, said this is because she wants to keep the more than 750 young girls taking part in the football tournament busy during the long holiday period so as to avoid engaging in vices like drug abuse, teenage sex, and wrong company that could lead them astray.

“Statistics show that in 2024, more than 660 girls were abandoned by their parents or guardians every day in the county, exposing them to risks of early pregnancies or forced marriages.

“The statistics also show that a total of 240,000 school-going girls across the country were impregnated,” Abdillahi said on Tuesday.

She said during the long holidays, learners usually go astray in the absence of strong mentorship and leadership.

The nominated senator said sports is one of the instruments that can be used to keep youth in line and avoid wayward behaviours.

She called on the security apparatus and parents to work together so as to show guidance to the children instead of casting them in bad light whenever insecurity cases, which are rampant in Likoni, are reported.

“I appeal to our security officers, please, do not blanketly condemn our children because in that condemnation the majority who are disciplined suffer because of the few who are wayward,” Senator Abdillahi said.

“We know there are those few bad apples, yes, but do not arrest innocent youth in your security swoops,” she appealed to the security apparatus.

She called for discipline among the 84 teams that are participating in this year’s Mama Haki Peace Cup.

“This tournament is meant to bring youth together and not push them apart. I call for discipline, sportsmanship and, above all, peace in our sub-county,” Abdillahi, who is eying he Likoni MP seat, said.

Likoni, she said, has a lot of talent but it is not nurtured, living most of the talented youth frustrated, which pushes them to drug abuse, crime and other vices.

“It is time we find ways to nurture these talents and help them realize their dreams of becoming professionals and key people in society,” Abdillahi said.

The nominated senator called on religious leaders to take the lead in ensuring parents and guardians to not abandon their children, no matter the circumstances.

“As religious and social leaders, why do we allow our school children to be abandoned? Why do we allow our boys to be sodomized? Have we accepted this as a community?” she posed.