Photo: Daniel Case / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0), file photo, cropped. Logo: National Assembly.
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A 94 per cent stadium with roads due in April is a problem for Kibra first.
Opinion. This is the view of Kibra News Network, not a news report. Write to us at news@kibranewsnetwork.co.ke if you disagree; we publish good replies.
Talanta Stadium is 94 per cent complete and on course for the Confederation of African Football deadline of 31 December. That is good news, and the officials who showed MPs around the site off Ngong Road on 1 October deserve credit for it. The cost has risen from Sh35 billion to Sh45.8 billion, which is less good, but the building is there.
What is not there yet is the way in. The roads serving the stadium have only started and are targeted for April 2027. The Africa Cup of Nations kicks off on 19 June 2027. That leaves about two months between the roads being finished, if they are finished on time, and 60,000 people trying to use them.
The questions MPs asked are Kibra's questions
Mwingi West MP Charles Nguna asked how access to the stadium will be managed. Senator Crystal Asige listed transport, traffic management, security and coordination between agencies as the open questions. Those are not Nairobi questions in general. They are questions about Ngong Road and about the Kibera side of the stadium, because that is where the fans will come from and where they will go when the final whistle blows.
Seven drop-off points have been designated for match days. Who will police them, and which roads will close so that they work? A railway terminus is being built next to the stadium, the end of a branch line that runs through Kibera with new stations at Talanta and Laini Saba and footbridges at Kibera, Laini Saba, Gatwekera and Kambi Muru. Kenya Railways has not published the cost, an opening date, fares or how often trains will run. A railway without a fare and a timetable is a drawing.
What we want to see
First, a match-day plan for the stadium, published, with the road closures, the routes and the policing, and a public meeting in Kibra to walk residents through it. The people who will be told to stay off their own roads on a Saturday should hear it from an official, not from a roadblock.
Second, the footbridges and underpasses on the Kibera side finished before the first match, with a named agency responsible for keeping them lit and maintained after the tournament ends.
Third, a railway that is built for Kibra, not just for the tournament. If the branch line carries fans for a month in 2027 and then carries nobody, it was a shuttle, not a service. Fares and frequency should be set so that someone in Laini Saba can use it to get to work.
AFCON will come and go. The roads, the bridges and the station will still be in Kibra. Build them as if that was the point.
Read the reporting this editorial is based on: Talanta Stadium is 94 per cent done and A new railway branch to Talanta stadium will run through Kibera.
That was a Kibra News Network report, read by an A I voice.
Opinion. This is the view of Kibra News Network, not a news report. Write to us at news@kibranewsnetwork.co.ke if you disagree; we publish good replies.
Talanta Stadium is 94 per cent complete and on course for the Confederation of African Football deadline of 31 December. That is good news, and the officials who showed MPs around the site off Ngong Road on 1 October deserve credit for it. The cost has risen from Sh35 billion to Sh45.8 billion, which is less good, but the building is there.
What is not there yet is the way in. The roads serving the stadium have only started and are targeted for April 2027. The Africa Cup of Nations kicks off on 19 June 2027. That leaves about two months between the roads being finished, if they are finished on time, and 60,000 people trying to use them.
The questions MPs asked are Kibra’s questions
Mwingi West MP Charles Nguna asked how access to the stadium will be managed. Senator Crystal Asige listed transport, traffic management, security and coordination between agencies as the open questions. Those are not Nairobi questions in general. They are questions about Ngong Road and about the Kibera side of the stadium, because that is where the fans will come from and where they will go when the final whistle blows.
Seven drop-off points have been designated for match days. Who will police them, and which roads will close so that they work? A railway terminus is being built next to the stadium, the end of a branch line that runs through Kibera with new stations at Talanta and Laini Saba and footbridges at Kibera, Laini Saba, Gatwekera and Kambi Muru. Kenya Railways has not published the cost, an opening date, fares or how often trains will run. A railway without a fare and a timetable is a drawing.
What we want to see
First, a match-day plan for the stadium, published, with the road closures, the routes and the policing, and a public meeting in Kibra to walk residents through it. The people who will be told to stay off their own roads on a Saturday should hear it from an official, not from a roadblock.
Second, the footbridges and underpasses on the Kibera side finished before the first match, with a named agency responsible for keeping them lit and maintained after the tournament ends.
Third, a railway that is built for Kibra, not just for the tournament. If the branch line carries fans for a month in 2027 and then carries nobody, it was a shuttle, not a service. Fares and frequency should be set so that someone in Laini Saba can use it to get to work.
AFCON will come and go. The roads, the bridges and the station will still be in Kibra. Build them as if that was the point.
KNN Newsroom is the staff byline for stories written, rewritten and edited at the Kibra News Network desk. Where a story credits an outside outlet, the original source is linked at the foot of the piece.
