A bird’s-eye view of Kirigiti International Stadium in Kiambu County on March 7, 2025. The stadium has remained closed from the time it was built two years ago.
If Kirigiti International Stadium was supposed to be the crown jewel of Kiambu County, the pride of the town and the pièce de résistance of the surrounding neighbourhood, its inaccessibility speaks of the contrary.
If it was meant to be a sports arena for national and international games, it is merely a dream too long deferred.
It is perhaps an astounding irony that one of the most hated infrastructure development in the county is the 16,000-capacity edifice built two years ago at a cost of Sh600m.
Boasting a natural football pitch, two presidential holding rooms, VIP pavilion, changing rooms, stores and swanky floodlights, the public investment held out the promise of creating game-related business and boosting local economic well-being by generating new jobs, income and tax revenue, in addition to being a landmark symbolising the county’s identity and character.
Its official launch had been scheduled for just before the August 9, 2022 General Election, but for inexplicable reasons, that never happened.
Apart from the swearing-in ceremony of the governor Kimani Wamatangi after the election, the Mashujaa Day fete in October 2022 and Jamhuri Day the following year, the stadium has been in disuse and neglect like a village public cemetery.
Two years after it was completed and Frema General Contractors Ltd had left the scene, its gates were closed to the public and now it stands like a monument of shame in the heart of the county headquarters.
Granted, passersby pause to admire the architectural beauty and motorists on the busy Kiambu-Ruiru road always slow down to gaze at the elegant icon.
A channel letters sign above the wall next to the main entrance boldly spelling the Kirigiti International Stadium name on March 7, 2025.
the main entrance to the stadium in these pictures taken on Friday. Wilfred Nyangaresi | Nation
Yet for Kiambu residents, it sits like a high-tech toothbrush with features completely superfluous to basic oral hygiene.
The infrastructure sits like a grave yard with overgrown bushes, rusty gates that no one opens or closes, unpaved and narrow access roads and an eerie sense of abandonment.
In the days before construction began in 2020, the stadium, then a mere unkempt field had a variety of purposes for the neighbourhood.
It was free grounds for driving lessons, open-air hair salons and barbershops, picnic haven for love birds, exercise arena for fitness enthusiasts especially joggers and walkers, bike riders, meeting place for chamas and all manner of groupings, a readers’ paradise and many other uses.
Besides, it used to host local football, volleyball and basketball competitions in makeshift courts.
It was a hive of activity on any single day, reaching a delirium on weekends. People would walk from the neighbouring villages of Ndumberi, Ngegu, Riabai, Ting’ang’a especially on Sundays just to enjoy a cool afternoon on the grass and under the numerous trees.
The main entrance to the stadium in these pictures taken on Friday. Wilfred Nyangaresi | Nation
During the Covid-19 pandemic days in 2020, the grounds attracted crowds like moths to a bulb and the social distance rule was flouted with abandon.
The grounds were immune to all the restrictions associated with the pandemic with the exception of the curfew hours, when police would disperse the crowds with the efficiency of a well-oiled machine.
With the grounds fenced off in a concrete wall and the gates closed to all, the residents were disappointed though remaining hopeful that even with the free grounds now elevated to national or international status, they would gain from trickled down advantages in terms of more business opportunities brought in by visitors.
Project manager, Sanghani Saghar, a contractor with Modern Precast, said the stadium is built using the pre-cast technology which involves making parts of a building using concrete and assembling them later.
The arena was also supposed to host a modern amphitheater, volleyball, basketball, tennis and squash courts together with a swimming pool. Yet all these remain grand plans with no signs of execution.
Eric Kiama, a mechanic said: “If they can’t complete the arena and open it up, they should just knock it down and let us continue using the grounds like we used to.
“This is where my elder brother taught me how to ride a bicycle and it is where I passed on the skill to my children. You would find me here every Saturday afternoon reading a book till sundowner but not anymore,” says George Muriithi, a secondary school teacher.
Former Sports Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen visited the stadium in September last year and said it would be opened by the end of the year, suggesting it be renamed Freedom Stadium.
Constructed by the colonial government as a cricket ground, the founding President Jomo Kenyatta addressed his last rally at the grounds before the declaration of emergency in 1952.
Locals unable to pronounce the word cricket turned it into Kirigiti.
“This is the place where young men and women will achieve their freedom by unlocking their potential and we will ensure that we build more sportsmen and women,’’ said Mr Murkomen.
It was at the stadium that President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga held their last rally to campaign for the new Constitution in 2010 and which was voted for overwhelmingly through a referendum. In the run up to the 2013 elections, President-elect Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto were at Kirigiti where special prayers were held in their honour.
Kiambu County minister for Youth Affairs and Sports Ali Osman Korar says the stadium has remained closed because “the facility has not been officially handed over to us”.
“The contractor is back on site though and as soon as he completes the work and gets paid, we will be ready to start using the stadium,” he said on the telephone.
The county will soon open two pitches outside the main stadium for use by the neighbouring community as well as complete an amphitheatre whose construction stalled years ago, he said.
“Once the stadium is officially handed to us, we will make it useful and available,” said Mr Korar
Kirigiti International Stadium may yet improve the fortunes of the county and especially the neighbourhood. But until it is opened for use, it will remain a pie in the sky or a museum piece — strictly for display.
