Premium
Former Maseno Head and Kenya Basketball Federation chairman Paul Otula is dead
Maseno School Principal and Kenya Basketball Federation chairman Paul Otula.
Kenya Basketball Federation (KBF) chairman Paul Otula has died.
While confirming the incident, Otula’s family said that the sports administrator collapsed and died at his home in Kitengela, Kajiado County, on Thursday morning.
He was 61 years old.
Family member Edwin Nyakinda Otula, who was at Lee Funeral Home where the body is being kept, said Otula, who was diabetic and occasionally suffered from high blood pressure, collapsed in a room at his Kitengela home.
"He collapsed at home, and by the time he called for hel,p it was too late. The doctors who were called to attend to him pronounced him dead around 11 am," said Nyakinda.
"We are still in shock... we leave everything to God."
Kenya Basketball Federation President Paul Otula arrives at Nyayo National Stadium on January 23, 2021 for the body's elections.
Otula served as principal at different schools over a period of three decades. He served as principal and basketball coach at Mang’u High School in Kiambu County before moving to Maseno School in Kisumu County in the same capacity. He also headed Sunshine School in Nairobi. The body is lying at Lee Funeral Home in Nairobi.
On Thursday, the KBF remembered Otula as a dedicated leader, mentor and towering figure in Kenyan basketball.
“His passion, vision, and service to the game and the nation will never be forgotten,” KBF Secretary General Angela Luchivya said.
“We extend our deepest condolences to his family, friends, and the entire basketball community. The family will issue a statement after meeting today,” Luchivya said.
Luchivya said the family is still coming to terms with the sports administrator’s death.
Apart from being the head of the Kenya Basketball Federation, Otula, who also won several presidential awards, was a member of the executive committee of the National Olympic Committee of Kenya (NOC-K). In the aborted NOC-K elections, he sought the position of deputy treasurer.
In December 2005, Otula was awarded a Head of State Commendation (HSC) by President Mwai Kibaki. Kibaki’s successor, Uhuru Kenyatta, awarded Otula the Order of the Grand Warrior of Kenya 10 years later.
In 2008, Otula was voted Principal of the Year by his peers at the Kenya Secondary School Heads Association's annual conference in the coastal town of Mombasa.
Kenya Basketball Federation President Paul Otula on November 23, 2019.
Otula joined Sunshine Secondary School in Nairobi County as principal in 2018 and served until 2021, when he resigned to contest the Karachuonyo Constituency seat in Homa Bay County in the 2022 General Election.
Otula joined Maseno School in late 2001 and changed the sporting landscape of the school for the better in various sports disciplines. Apart from winning many national titles with the Maseno School basketball team, Otula coached Maseno to win the Engen Africa Youth Basketball Championship in Durban, South Africa, in 2003.
In 2006, the school's rugby sevens team represented Kenya in the secondary schools category of the Dubai Sevens, one of the tournaments in the World Rugby Sevens Series.