Articles Tagged Sunday Nation

One thing we seem to sorely lack in this country is linguistic intelligence. We are acutely unaware of the power of words, and how to harness and use that power. As a result, we use the same old cliched phrases every day. These phrases are so overused that they actually cease to have meaning. We […]

Jam today, jam tomorrow. Jam in the morning, jam in the evening. Jam at midday, jam at midnight. Jam in the city, jam in the suburbs. Strawberry jam on your toast, traffic jam on your road. I got out of my house in the morning to go to work earlier this week, and found a […]

News that our public examination papers may be getting leaked to candidates on a systematic basis probably came as no surprise to many. Exam leakage is becoming a chronic problem, and we are now realising that it may be a well-organised activity. What is alarming, however, is how unalarmed we are by this. This one […]

We are in the middle of an oil crisis, in which Kenyans periodically look for petrol like scavengers. This is unprecedented in this country, but we still can’t explain why it is happening. It’s corruption at the Kenya Pipeline Company that has caused the crisis, say some: officials conspired with racketeers to make oil stocks […]

I was supposed to roast our restaurants this week. But the state of the nation demands that our eating-out joints will have to wait a little before they receive their basting. At a time when the air is thick with the stench of burning Kenyans and high-level scams, and when starvation stalks the land, perhaps […]

I remain stunned by the experience offered to customers by our supposedly excellent entrepreneurs. I am particularly appalled by our retail shops, most of which are woefully, bafflingly bad. I am in the market for a couple of computer printers. A relatively straightforward issue, you might think, since we seem to have a large number […]

After watching America’s presidential inauguration this week, I wanted to cry. Not because I was overjoyed, although I was. No, the tears, had they come, would have been of sheer frustration, summarised in one thought: will I ever see such a person take charge in my own country? Barack Obama, I have stated here many […]

Surely it’s impossible for a company listed in three stock exchanges to falsify its accounts for years on end? Surely you cannot put a fictitious $1 billion in cash on your balance sheet, and get it past your auditors? Surely you can’t just keep recording fake profit margins? Actually, you can. Satyam Computer Services, an […]

Nothing in this world creates more wealth than private companies. And that wealth is spread around – to shareholders, employees, governments, suppliers and customers. The interconnected micro-world around the private company is the world’s most powerful economic ecosystem. Those at the top of the corporate world tend to have a halo around their heads. We […]

The New Year is a time for predictions, but not everyone likes them. England’s favourite man-child footballer, Paul Gascoigne, said: “I never make predictions, and I never will.” This paradoxical sentence must have deranged him: he was eventually sectioned by the authorities for drink-related mental problems. So predictions are never to be taken too seriously. […]

This is the time of year that we look back on the days and months that have passed, and reflect on what happened. Another year is recorded in the history books, and it is appropriate to reconsider, to reassess and to revisit. In this spirit, ‘A Sunny Day’ has decided to inaugurate the annual Sunshine […]

I should have the right to write anything I choose to on this page. Provided, of course, I don’t write lies, ask you to attack anyone, or cause other types of harm. And you should have the right to disagree with anything I write, and take me to task for my errors or flawed arguments. […]

They say travel broadens the mind. But often I find it just heats it up. I have just returned from South Africa, a country that receives 8.5 million international visitors every year. I stayed at the V&A Waterfront, which is the country’s biggest tourist attraction, drawing over 20 million foreign and domestic visitors annually. Kenya […]

The Edge, the Business Daily’s quarterly management series, is out today. The Edge is a free pullout in today’s Business Daily, and is produced jointly with Strathmore Business School. I am the Consultant Editor for the series. This issue focuses on the new challenges of people management: recruitment, retention, motivation and reward. It is a […]

We were told in the middle of last week that 9 out of 10 Kenyans think our members of parliament should pay taxes on all their income. I was stunned by this finding; I did not know what to think. Are you trying to tell me that 10 per cent of us actually think MPS […]

I touched on a subject before being interrupted by the US poll. I wrote in early November that we cannot advance as a society until we learn to respect rules, and that most of us only behave well when we are compelled to do so. I termed the phenomenon ‘moral entropy’: if you don’t force […]

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it […]

Last week we all flew high on the Barack Obama victory in the US presidential race. This week, we need to make a hard landing. For the nonsense that is being spouted from all corners about what this win means for Kenya is not only irritating, but is now giving cause to worry. If some […]

I am feeling rather emotional as I write this, on the morning when Barack Obama has been elected president of the United States of America. This is my 300th article for the Sunday Nation, and the milestone could not have come at a better moment. So you will forgive me if I stray from the […]

After spending decades observing myself and my fellow human beings, I am forced to come to a somewhat cynical conclusion: most of us only behave well when we are compelled to do so. When left to his own devices and untrammeled by the demands of morality and legality, the average person will do all the […]

The 2009 intake for my private leadership development programme, Fast Forward, is now open. Fast Forward takes 20 or so current and future leaders every year and puts them through a varied programme of learning and dialogue to develop WISDOM in leadership. What is the measure of leadership? What is the relationship between leader and […]

At first I thought Justice Waki and his team had put the cat amongst the pigeons. Now I’m beginning to wonder whether they merely released some pigeons which are being devoured quickly by the cats. There is no doubt that the Waki team did a commendable job. It went where few officially sanctioned commissions have […]

Positive thinking has been the mantra of the modern world for quite a while now. Spiritualists, life coaches and business leaders all agree: there is nowt to be gained from negativity. We must all think positive, be positive and do positive – and all positive things will happen to us. No-one likes a doomsayer or […]

I recently had the misfortune to witness one of the more cringe-worthy scenes I have encountered on television in the recent past. Asif Ali Zardari is the newly elected president of Pakistan. He has no previous experience of international statesmanship, having been previously famous only for being the husband of a famous wife, Benazir Bhutto […]

If you walk into one of the many government-owned high-rise buildings in Nairobi, or one that houses government bodies, you will notice a strange phenomenon: the VIP Lift. This is, quite simply, an elevator reserved only for Very Important People; or, sometimes, only for one Very Important Person. Presidents, Prime Ministers and Vice-Presidents of course […]

What on earth happened to the world economy? Reading the opinions that are pouring forth from the learned and the experienced, it is clear that very few people have the slightest clue. The scale of the meltdown that is occurring seems barely possible. Could anyone see a situation in which Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, Lehman […]

So, the Kriegler Commission’s verdict is in. The upshot: nobody will ever know who won Kenya’s December 2007 presidential election, because the whole thing was organised and managed worse than a tea-party in the chimpanzee house at the zoo. This verdict is not to everyone’s taste. Some people were waiting avidly to be told who […]

Someone I know recently told me a story about a well-established restaurant in Nairobi’s Westlands. He was there with his family, and ordered a fish dish. Upon tasting it, he found that the fish tasted stale and unpleasant. He complained to a waiter, who immediately replaced the fish, no questions asked. So far, so good, […]