Audio By Vocalize
Good morning, Bwana Rostam Azizi. I must admit I heard your name for the first time this week, which is surprising given the proximity of Tz to Kenya and your remarkable prominence on the continent as one of its wealthiest sons.
Yet, I had no idea at all about you because, to use a common Nairobi phrase, that knowledge would not add the sufurias in my house. But now I know about you because your acquisition of the Twin Towers, which is what we called the National establishment in my youth, where I cut my teeth a generation ago, is too close to home. This is a roundabout way of saying, we have been there…
I was in the newsroom in the 1990s when political tempests hovered with regularity, and the good old Nation stood firm, a watchtower above a troubled sea, peering into the future where freedom and democracy lurked.
This explains, perhaps, the line of questioning that you were subjected to in your inaugural address to journos in town, where you were pressed to justify your investment in the Twin Towers. I guess you get the drift; journos here are very suspicious of politicians, especially business folks who keep political friends. That’s not to say the media house that you have acquired is not without blemish; I’m just saying the entity represents a larger significance in our political and social evolution.
I hope it’s just me, but I thought I detected a slight irritation when you were pressed to explain your friendship with certain politicians in our land. What was interesting was that the friendships that you extolled the most are those that relate to retired and deceased leaders, not those in power!
Here’s the thing: we pay more attention to what’s not said than what’s said! It’s a Kenyan thing. We pay even more attention to how it’s said. One would say there was a particular hauteur as you asked Kenyans to read the sign of the times and reckon they had changed. That was a very interesting comment from a visitor.
If you have friends in Kenya, those in power or out of it, who are likely to pressure you into using your media outlets as platforms for propagating their political crap, that will be the fastest way to drive yourself out of business and out of town.
I kid you not. If you want to support some of those friends of yours, especially those in power, please do so openly, peupe, as Dar people would say. Don’t disguise it. Kenyans don’t take it too kindly to political machinations.
It is not for nothing that Kenya has produced some of the most vibrant media ecosystems on the continent. All of them are privately owned. That says a lot about our society.
Please bear with me; this pontification bears no deference. I did not even offer a greeting fit for a dollar billionaire. I should have supplicated thus: Shikamoo Mzee Azizi… Karibu hapa kwetu!” We’re mannerless as a people, and we make no apologies.
Which is why here I am offering unsolicited advice on how you should run your business; one would think I have a stake in your investment. Perhaps I do. If you succeed, we all do, especially if you keep political takataka away from those hallowed pages.
The same politicians lied that they only use the newspapers to wrap meat, yet they know everything that’s published therein. Don’t take their word too seriously. Or, should I be asking if we should take your word for it? See, we speak like chiriku, asking too many questions here.
When you return to Dar, please give my greetings to Mama Samia. Tell her Kenyan goons are busy disrupting rallies in Kenya, that’s why they’re missing in Tz. And when you meet M7, tell him our activists are busy in Kenya; they’ll be redeployed to Kampala next September, after our polls, inshallah.
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By Peter Kimani