Articles Tagged Sunday Nation

The dramatic KenGen flotation story is far from over. A quarter of a million Kenyans stepped up to partake in the buying frenzy that was the country’s biggest-ever Initial Public Offering (IPO), and became shareholders. For some it was their first venture into stock-market investment; other, more grizzled investors tapped their noses wisely as they […]

The road leading to my office has been full of potholes for years. Negotiating them has always involved remarkable spins of the steering wheel. A few months ago, however, the potholes were filled in and the whole road was given a patching up. We rejoiced. Just one short rainy season later, the potholes are back. […]

The smell of elections is in the air again. Perhaps it’s just the fallout from the Marsabit air crash, and the resultant by-elections. Whatever the cause, the kaleidoscope that is Kenyan politics is rotating again. New parties are being formed, and old ones unceremoniously dumped. Alignments are shifting, and ambitions emerging. Accusations of betrayal assault […]

This country appears to be obsessed with football – as long as it’s not Kenyan. We spend many months engrossed in the ins and outs of the English Premiership, La Liga and Serie A. And now we’re all preparing for the ultimate festival of international football – the World Cup itself. All Kenya, it seems, […]

We’d rather talk about success than failure. The human race gets great succour from tales of greatness. We like to idolise, and we habitually build up our ancestors, our leaders, our managers into mythical figures whose successes become legendary. We would do better to discuss failure, says Paul Ormerod, for failure is a more widespread […]

This Sunday, let’s lift the clouds of gloom that threaten to cover us completely. Just for a day, let’s dare to dream again. What lies ahead for this country? What can we look forward to for our children? Go outdoors and feel the fresh air in your lungs. Find a comfortable patch of grass on […]

There we go again. Another plane fell out of the sky. Only this time it took the lives of many top leaders from a part of Kenya that could ill afford to lose them. May I take you back to January this year? Forgive me for repeating myself, but this is what I wrote then: […]

Remember the seventies? Ah, glory days! The streets were clean, and there was always parking to be found. The town and city councils actually did what we paid them to. Nairobi had mayors who were not drawn from the criminal or professional comedian classes. There were streetlights everywhere, and they actually worked. You could walk […]

We are a nation of creative entrepreneurs, we tell ourselves. Our ability to get something from nothing, to create hot air from thin air is the stuff of legends, we tell visitors. A Working Nation, half a million jobs a year? Ha, we tell our leaders: we have no need for the platitudes that feed […]

Last week this column featured a ‘discussion’ held in the middle of one of Nairobi’s perennial traffic jams. A number of ‘participants’ from various disciplines put forward their points of view regarding the causes of our gridlocked traffic – and offered various solutions. My mailbox is testimony to the fact that this is a subject […]

Greetings, fellow motorists. We appear to be in a traffic jam. Cars ahead, cars behind. Nowhere to go, nothing to do but wait. Perhaps we can have a little discussion as we sit immobile, to help pass the time? We all agree, I’m sure, that the main roads of Nairobi at rush hour are no […]

Family enterprises are the lifeblood of this country. From the humblest kiosk to the most expansive conglomerate: family-owned firms dominate the business landscape. We may imagine that this is a very Kenyan phenomenon, but it is actually true the world over. One-third of the 1,000 largest companies are controlled by families; more than half of […]

Hi youngsters, it’s nice to have your company again. Many of you have just received your examination results, and are busy planning what to do with the rest of your lives. Careers, occupations and flight paths are on your minds. And I’m sure there is no shortage of advisors: parents, teachers, peers and a variety […]

We are a little crazy about wealth in this country. It sometimes feels like every person wakes up every morning with the same wild-eyed obsession: More money! More property! More everything! A labourer can be found dreaming about when he will be able to move into a permanent dwelling; a junior executive might be in […]

Take a drive out of Nairobi, heading towards Naivasha. Note what you see on the sides of the road. Piles and piles of litter: the debris and detritus of a society that does not care about its cleanliness. Don’t drive out of Nairobi at all. Take a look at once-pristine, now-shabby suburbs such as Hurlingham, […]

This is indeed our “moment of truth”. For every nation, every organisation, every individual, there comes a time when the brutal facts must be faced squarely. That time is here for Kenya. We will either deal with this truth bravely and resolutely; or we will acquiesce again and fall into another decade of stagnation. John […]

Peter Drucker, widely acknowledged as the greatest management thinker of the past century, died 3 months ago. His death went largely unremarked here in Kenya; not surprisingly, as we tend to pay little attention to management – either as a concept, or as a way of doing things. Drucker was just a few days short […]

Much confusion is caused in this country by the fact that many words do not possess their common meaning. A great number of people out there have an enduring interest in the affairs and enterprises of this land: from investors to development partners; students to learned professors: tourists to journalists. All of these people face […]

Let me warn you: there will be nothing “sunny” about this column today. It is very difficult to be upbeat and chirpy when confronted with the events surrounding Monday’s collapse of a building under construction at Nairobi’s Nyamakima. I am still lost in a fog of anger and frustration, thinking about the scores of people […]

Over the past two weeks, this column has outlined the elements of a new economic agenda for Kenya. In the first week we looked at the fundamental pillars that we must put up to support the new economy: better, stronger institutions; investments in knowledge that will arm us with skills and ideas; and a sense […]

This column looked at the basic building blocks of a new economic agenda for Kenya last week, and concluded that three fundamental pillars of economic growth must be rebuilt: institutions, knowledge and values. Effective, corruption-free institutions allow us to conduct the affairs of the land in a supportive environment. Knowledge gives us the fundamental weaponry […]

It’s time to get back to what really matters. We’ve had an unruly and all-consuming referendum campaign. We’ve been up to our necks in political intrigues. We’ve brought the cows home while yakking incessantly about leadership, personalities and new political bedfellows. And we’ve had the Christmas break to recover our wits. Now, let’s get back […]

Today is New Year’s Day, 2006. It is therefore very unlikely that you are reading this article early this Sunday morning. If you are like most Kenyans with money to spend, you will be nursing a hangover and treating a stomach-ache this morning, after a night of revelry. If you do manage to pick up […]

Three important religious festivals came together at the close of this year: Eid-ul-Fitr, Diwali and Christmas. Today is Christmas Day; Eid and Diwali fell together a few weeks ago. Most Kenyans, therefore, have been in celebratory mode at year’s end. But what is it we celebrate, and what does it mean for us in our […]

In the light of recent events, we need to revisit the work of Jim Collins. I introduced his “Good to Great” project in this column recently. To recap, Mr. Collins and an army of researchers conducted a five-year project to answer the question: what is it that leads to greatness in companies? What attributes do […]

George Best was laid to rest last week. Arguably the most talented footballer ever produced by the British Isles, he was accorded a hero’s funeral in his native Northern Ireland. Tens of thousands braved the cold and the rain to pay their last respects. Soccer luminaries such as Sir Alex Ferguson and Sven-Goran Eriksson were […]

This country of ours still demonstrates an alarming propensity to shoot itself in the foot, regularly and with great accuracy. Over the past few months, we seem to have decided to mess around with the only group in the economy that keeps us afloat, through good times and bad: our businesspeople. Great shot! Small, medium-sized […]

The Kenyan people recorded a massive protest against the quality of their leaders in 2002. This week they sent another warning shot. Leaders who are not paying attention to this strong and consistent message are heading for political oblivion. We are in a different country now. The average voter is a quite distinct animal from […]