Articles Tagged Sunday Nation

Last Sunday Kenya changed for the worse. As we know, grenades were thrown at a rally held as part of the current constitutional review campaigns. The resulting explosions killed six Kenyans and injured scores of others. The numbers mislead us. They turn the people who died into mere statistics. Note and turn the page. But […]

For the past two weeks I have been beating the drums for Africa, arguing that the continent’s prospects look very good – provided it quickly does the right things. Those things involve big investments in knowledge and connectivity. Let me wrap up the topic with a closer look at the phenomenon of emerging markets. I […]

Last week I argued that if we want Africa to be lit up, we need to worry about knowledge, not electricity. If we generate and exchange enough knowledge, the electricity (and products and services and incomes) will come, as sure as day follows night. In 1958 a gentleman called Leonard Read wrote a short, readable […]

Dr Edward Mungai is Dean of Strathmore Business School. He likes to use a satellite map of the world in his presentations to current and future students of the school. The map shows the earth by night – which parts are most brightly lit up. As you would expect, North America, Europe and Japan have […]

My fellow “Kalasingas” are not renowned for their social activity. In Kenya, the primary image of the Sikh male is of a hard-drinking, cranky, rumbustious, self-absorbed individual. There are indeed enough Sikh males of this ilk around to feed the stereotype, but the stereotype does not define the species. At London’s Heathrow International Airport a […]

The good people of the United Kingdom went to the polls last week, and a very strange outcome ensued. No party managed to garner sufficient votes to command a majority in parliament. David Cameron’s Conservative Party gained the most seats, but fell short of a majority. Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s Labour got hammered in the […]

Whether or not Goldman Sachs is found guilty of the various charges laid against it, its reputation has suffered huge damage. It is being fried at the court of public opinion, and faces an uneasy path back to its previously dominant investment banking position. Many other companies face these ordeals, and they are usually of […]

The problem with being a business commentator is that your subject-matter regularly lets you down. Last year I was interviewed by NTV about the importance of ethics and integrity in business (a clip can be seen on www.sunwords.com). Great firms, I asserted confidently, do not become great by cutting corners or greasing palms. They thrive […]

Paul Hewson was in Nairobi recently. That won’t mean much to you, until I explain that I was referring to Bono, the world-famous lead singer of rock band U2, and campaigner against global poverty. Bono didn’t really make much noise while in Kenya. He attended the Nation Media Group’s Pan-Africa Media Conference, went to a […]

I walked into an Italian restaurant in Mombasa recently, and first impressions were favourable. The ambience was pleasantly rustic, and we were greeted with smiles by a waiter, which makes a change. The Italian proprietor was hovering around benignly. But there was an immediate warning sign. During the middle of lunch hour, a worker was […]

One of the key practices of successful businesses is the ability to follow trends and anticipate market movements. This is extremely difficult: if any of us really knew what next year’s markets would look like, we would be billionaires. Some trends, however, are so predictable that the foolishness lies in ignoring them. And that is […]

The recent spate of competition in Kenya’s telecom sector has been characterised by something ugly: vandalism. Now that fibre-optic connectivity is commonplace, what easier way to disable your competitor than to hire a few goons to cut their cables? That leaves them in disarray for days, while we gain ground. Or do we? Telecommunications is […]

How were your cornflakes this Sunday morning? One of my oldest friends told me something interesting about his consumption of cereals. He asserted that the milk you add to cornflakes has to be very cold, otherwise the taste is ruined. I was about to dismiss this as individual fastidiousness, but my attention was piqued and […]

Last week this column looked at two words: Event and Process. This week I want to engage you in a discussion about two more: PLAN and REALITY. The need to think about these words came to me on a recent flight. Anyone who has flown on a commercial flight will be familiar with the in-flight […]

This Sunday I want to focus your attention on two seemingly simple words: EVENT and PROCESS. The difference between these words, I would like to argue, is that between earth and sky, between success and failure, between dream and reality. Yet we are confusing these words every day in Kenya and retarding our progress. Our […]

The other day I reached for a box of tissues. As I pulled a tissue out, another five came out of the box. I had not encountered this recently, and wondered what the problem was. It turned out my household has been using imported tissues for a while, which are soft and detach easily. Those […]

There’s nothing like a quiet drive to aid the reflection process. Or so I thought. I embarked on a family trip to the great mountain in the heart of our country recently, and was able to think a little about the land we live in. My first set of thoughts were about our drivers. These […]

Here we go again. The headlines say it all: the coalition government is crumbling, the principals have fallen out, the shilling is sliding, investors are nervous, we are facing another meltdown. But I ask you: what exactly has changed since last week? What cyclone has hit Kenya that our prospects look so suddenly bleak? Have […]

Amidst the carnage of Haiti, a quiet little drama is playing itself out. Baptist missionaries from the USA were arrested trying to take 33 “orphans” out of the wrecked country, ostensibly to a better life in an orphanage in the neighbouring Dominican Republic. Except that many of the children were not orphans at all, and […]

Picture the scene. The former leader of a global power is summoned to a commission of inquiry. He spends a full day there, in front of the world’s cameras. He is grilled by the commissioners on every aspect of certain decisions he made: why he did and said certain things; what he knew and did […]

The green city in the sun. That was what our beautiful Nairobi was famously known as. Well, we’re still in the sun (and increasingly so), but the ‘green’ part of the description may soon be hard to justify. Why is no one worried about the pace at which trees are being destroyed in our city? […]

What passes for ‘news’ in this country? I want to put to you that what you are consuming is not news at all: it is pointless and irrelevant trivia. Let me start with an admission: I am spending less and less time consuming Kenyan news, and it is months since I watched a full television […]

For the past two weeks this column has been trying to instil some hope in you, to suggest that maybe, just maybe, things will getter better for Kenya. To end the series, let me move you smoothly to a third reason for hope in 2010: our international position. If you want to understand Kenya’s role […]

Last week I asked Kenyans to harbour some hope in their hearts for what this next decade might bring. I suggested that 2010 might turn out to be recorded in history as the year in which we turned the corner by finally attacking, and fatally wounding, the beast we call impunity. Maybe, just maybe, we […]

2008 and 2009 were years of great gloom in Kenya. We kicked off 2008 with a bloodbath orchestrated by leaders and delivered by angry young men. Since then we have been on a tumultuous ride, facing a faltering economy, a hydra-headed leadership and a plethora of scams and scandals. The words “failed state” and “Kenya” […]

It is time for “A Sunny Day” to announce its annual Sunshine Awards, to honour those individuals and organisations that excelled, and to slate those who brought dismay to the world and disgrace to themselves. Recall two things about these awards: one, that we use the word “sunshine” to evoke both good cheer and the […]

A board member with whom I was discussing his company made me laugh out loud recently. When I asked him how effective his board’s policy formulations were, he told me, with refreshing honesty: “You know, sometimes I wonder whether the steering wheel is really connected to the tyres…” Hilarious imagery: a bunch of important personages […]

This column doesn’t do film reviews. Every so often, however, a film experience comes along that requires you to break your own rules. Michael Jackson’s “This Is It” is one such experience, and one that I am happy to ask you not to miss, if you have any interest in the nature and experience of […]