Whose day is it, anyway?

By Igane the Sane

It is a great honour to be a father. Oh, to be a leader of the most basic level of government; a provider, a protector, a source of hope. 

It’s a responsibility I take very seriously.

 So why am I not exuberant whenever I encounter the phrase, Happy Father’s Day? Why does it bother me that it is usually shouted or screamed, or printed in large friendly characters on bubbly golden backgrounds, like a cereal ad?

These questions may never occur to the old workmate who only uses my contact to fill a list of Father’s Day meme recipients once every year. I must, therefore, react to her message, not with a clever monologue but with a carefully selected emoji from the emoji board. 

Just one.

🤩

Positive. Happy. Friendly.

Deep inside though,  I seeth. I want to seek and deploy an emoji with daggers, catapults, and cannonballs. Not to my correspondent but to a few lazy overindulged individuals in their bespoke suits who one day, while lounging in deep comfortable leather armchairs in a dimly lit and smoky room of a gentleman’s club, decided, nay agreed to set aside a random day every year to celebrate all the fathers of the world. All of them, including deadbeats. 

Who died and made them God?

Why can’t fathers, mothers, aunties, cousins, friends, foes, and deadbeats be happy every day of the year if they so choose, without anyone’s permission?

My Millennial daughter interrupts my rant: she sends in a video of her daughter, her over-achieving, hyperactive, hyperintelligent three year old daughter. In the video, she’s painting furiously with a little brush.

“What are you doing?,” asks her awfully young grandmother off screen.

“I’m making a Father’s card,” is the nonchalant response. “You can help.”

“For whom are you making the card?,” asks the mother of my daughter aka Another Mummy.

“I will give it to the father.”

“Who is the father?”

“Lloyd. I’ll give it to Lloyd.”

So you’ll give it to Lloyd?

“Yes, he is the father of my mum. You don’t know?” 

She stops painting and looks up quizzically. “Another Mummy, if you don’t want to do something with me, you must do exercises with me.” She stands up. “Come… “ 

Clip ends as she runs off, pulling her Another Mummy in a bully’s grip. Warm tears of an emotion I can’t put a finger on fill up my eyes. Unable to stop them, I let them roll down my grandfatherly cheeks.

Just why she doesn’t see us as  grandparents, I have no idea. To her, I’m just her mum’s father and one of her favourite persons along with Another Mummy: we are on first-name terms. 

I seek out my emoji board and it doesn’t disappoint. I react:

❤️

Back to my rant I go, determined to make a point, but not so fast. 

In chimes a text from my GenZ daughter.  

“I know you’re a happy father everyday,” it says, stealing my rant, “but happy Father’s Day all the same.

“Thank you for being a great example of a man and human being in my life, Lloyd. You're the most amazing father in existence. I love you to bits.” 

I kid you not. This is an actual text from my real GenZ daughter. 

Teary eyed and confused I react with another emoji.

❤️

Still, I must rant. I rant against the idea, the audacity of a few people picking a day for a father’s happiness for commercial purposes. 

“Buy your father an expensive belt’” reads the headline of a 70s ad featuring a brown leather belt coiled around a bottle of Chivas Regal, a most expensive whisky.

At first, they targeted sons, but realizing the potential of a working woman, they planted a seed and it germinated. It bloomed into the Women’s Lib and the affirmative action movements of the 80s.

“We just wanted women to start paying taxes,” one of the scheming old men would say later. “… and to buy stuff for their husbands and fathers on Fathers Day,” they forgot to add. 

But ever since, they have really hyped up Father’s Day, just to guilt more women and young adults into spending more on their husbands and fathers. 

And seeing how their ruse has succeeded they must laughing all the way to the clubhouse.

I’m convinced that every other “Human’s Day,” be it Mother’s Day, Farmer’s Day, and the latest, Widow’s Day, has a target audience that’s calculated to spend a lot of money on products made by companies owned collectively or individually by the aforementioned little group of old men who meet in dimly lit gentlemen’s club lounges and sip Chivas Regal.

Don’t let them fool you. Resist.

As for me and my republik, we choose to be happy every day, with or without their permission.

BOOK REVIEW. The Third Book of Joe. Wanjui's Life Story Is Also the Story Of Kenya

The 3rd Book of Joe. Published by the University of Nairobi Press

To those who have never met him or read any of his three books, Dr. Joseph Barrage Wanjui, CBS, is this mysterious figure that once ran the mighty East Africa Industries (EAI) and now runs the University of Nairobi. “Mysterious” because few knew what it meant to be chairman of EAI, now Unilever East Africa, or what the job entailed!  Many are those who only know of him as member of a powerful cliché of Kikuyu businessmen who were wildly rumoured as being part of Mwai Kibaki’s Kitchen Cabinet aka “The Kikuyu Mafia” and, more recently, as the first non-president Chancellor of the University of Nairobi. Yet there are those who, believe it or not, will wear blank looks and ask you, “Joe Who?”

Whichever group you fall under, you will quickly realise, once you start reading Joe’s new book of memoirs, that being Chairman at EAI was a most complex and demanding job. In the sixties and well into the nineties, EAI was almost the sole manufacturer of most of the essential commodities around the house. The modern housewife cooked with Kimbo, washed stuff with Sunlight, entertained with Tree Top and bathed with Lux, Rexona, or Cadum, while her husband bathed with Lifebuoy. She spread Blue Band on bread, made tea using Brooke Bond tea leaves, cooked chapattis with Cowbow and went to the office clad in clothes kept bright by “New” Blue Omo with or without power-foam, having left her maid at home to do other things with other equally high quality products from EAI.

Now keeping all these brands on the shelves – not only in Kenya but also in Uganda and Tanzania – and showing a healthy profit, was the ultimate job of the Chairman/ Chief Executive at EAI. A job that was sometimes made extremely complex by dire social-economic circumstances, created by inept political interference and/or restrictions. It was a big, demanding job; and just how big and demanding forms a big part of Joe’s new book, Native Son, Experiences of a Kenyan Entrepreneur.

Dr Wanjui’s earlier books, From Where I Sit (1986), a commentary on African Societies and Economies; and My Native Roots: A Family Story (2009), which narrates the story of his difficult childhood and humble background and traces his lineage. But it is this, his third book that clearly demonstrates what kind of man he really turned out to be: an exceptional Kenyan.

Released last year in paperback and hardcover by the University of Nairobi Press, the book has, not one, but two brilliant Forewords, both by people who have done well in their fields: Roger H. Steadman and Professor George A.O. Magoha.

Before starting a cottage industry that grew into a household name across Africa, and selling it to a Multinational group, Roger – who is Executive Director, Pan Africa Ipsos, worked as Joe’s expatriate Marketing Manager at EAI. Prof. Magoha on the other hand not only has I.O.M., M.B.B.S. (Lagos), F.R.C.S. and F.W.A.C.S after his name, but is also Vice Chancellor & Professor of Surgery, University of Nairobi, and a Consultant Urologist.

Native Son’s 360 pages detail not just the illustrious and fruitful life of one of Kenya’s most eminent sons, but also the thoughts, observations, choices and decisions, that have informed that life. Candid and eloquent, the book details the man’s life from secondary school at Kabaa Mission School and Mangu High School to his appointment as Chancellor of the University of Nairobi, and everything in between. There is the vocational job at Metalbox in colonial-days Nairobi; the frugal but exciting undergraduate life at the Weslyan University in Ohio, United States, and postgraduate at Columbia University; courtship and marriage to a beautiful young fellow Kenyan, Elizabeth Mukami Gethii; his career progression from his first job with Esso in the states – and subsequent posting to Kenya, his stint at running ICDC, his move to EAI and resultant career with Unilever that saw him rise to the esteemed position of Development Member for Africa, with responsibility for Africa & the Middle East and an office in Nairobi; his Chairmanship and membership of various organisations that have, over the years, moved Kenya forward one way or another; his difficult relationship with Daniel arap Moi and his muggy government; his relentless clamour for economic liberalisation; Chancellorship of the University; and his part as a leader in building Kenya as we know it today.

But the book is not all about education, corporate leadership and government. It is also the story of a man; a great man.

Family Man

“My joy and happiness in life,” he writes in the section about his immediate family, “has sprung from the well-being and happiness of my children. Watching them grow and bringing them up mattered more to me than anything else.”  

This section also includes a candid, almost kiss-and-tell story of Courtship, Marriage and eventual Separation and Divorce with first wife; his girls growing up exceedingly well despite the challenges of their parents’ divorce, single parenthood, his second marriage, and the addition of a brother and a sister - Joseph, and Ciiru; and the raising of all into responsible, mature Kenyans who have made their father a proud grandfather – all of which he handled just as efficiently as he handled his CEO duties for Unilever. Many, for instance are the single parents who would find it extremely difficult to broach the subject, let alone break the news of impending remarriage, to their children – especially daughters – but Joe Wanjui seems to have handled that very smoothly, thank you.

 “When I made up my mind,” he recalls. “I called the girls over to communicate my decision. To be quite frank, I did not want it to be a major issue for debate. That has been my style with my children on sensitive matters like these. The main point was that I wanted them to know what I wanted to do so that they would not be taken by surprise. I simply told them I had decided to remarry and asked for their opinion – a kind of family ‘brainstorming’ session!”

But Joe is no sweet potato; before calling that meeting, he had, for four years, observed how his girls had come to love his girlfriend’s son, their little brother Joseph, a great deal, writing from school to request that the boy be brought home to spend time with them over their holidays.

No wonder Professor Magoha picks on Joe’s relationship with his children for special mention in his Foreword: He states:

“We see him grow up with his children, talk to them and with them; we observe that he actually knows the character of each of his children; he respects and appreciates their strengths and encourages them through their weaknesses. This is a lesson for the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) – to know his human resource apart from always looking at the bottom line – money flowing in.”

Patriot at large

Dr. Wanjui, CBS, is a great Kenyan who has more than earned the state commendation he got in 2003. A fountainhead who has done more with his life than several lesser men put together, he is an unabashed, unapologetic defender of Capitalism, who not only understands the ways and workings of Capital, but also how best to optimise its growth for self and country; especially country, I am sure he would argue. Throughout the book, even as he eloquently writes about his duty to his employer, Unilever, Joe’s sharp sense of patriotism is never too far from the surface. Even though the story is subdivided into six unequal parts, the last two parts, are solely dedicated to matters of national interest, his candid views on them and the parts he played in his various capacities to set things right.

Using simple, everyday words, Joe explains how the Moi government killed Investment in Kenya, such that “throughout the 24 years of the ‘Nyayo’ era, no worthwhile investment came Kenya’s way. And not for lack of trying.” He also analyses some of the errors of the “Nyayo Error” that ultimately turned the once promising young nation into a basket case that was almost perpetually on its knees, begging for alms from reluctant donors; the same donors whose advice to liberalise the economy and be a little nicer to the citizens Moi had blatantly ignored. Joe paints an almost comical picture of the poor state of the economy at the time and how it had progressively got that way. He pulls no punches and calls it as he saw it. But like the “‘Professor’ of Practical business and dynamic change management” that he is, as opposed to a politician that he is not, Joe Wanjui also explains how that was turned around and can continue to be turned around further because we are not out of the muck yet.

Using both personal and corporate experiences, Joe shows us how “The Politics of Slavery and Colonialism” led to the killing and/or scaring off of capital investment and rot the economy. He covers the nation’s struggle with liberalisation when it finally came, the Matatu Politics of the early days of Multiparty Democracy, the euphoria of 2002 following the democratic ouster of Moi’s rule; where John Githongo erred; and the battle that lies ahead to catch up on what we lost over 24 years of economic mismanagement and plunder.

 To paraphrase Roger Steadman in his Foreword, Dr Wanjui “is the leading light amongst his peers in building Kenya and this is his testimony. The fact that he labours to write this book is yet another indication of his conviction that the struggles of his time and lessons from his life can profit those Kenyans who will follow in the years ahead.”

Having studied law at Yale, the late Mark H. McCormack the world’s godfather of Sports Marketing, and author of What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School, once wrote that he never went to Harvard himself, but was optimistic that his book would become recommended reading at the esteemed university. Dr Wanjui never studied at any Kenyan university, but Native Son should be compulsory reading at every university in Kenya, nay, Africa.

Lloyd Igane. kreative@publicist.com

A moment of shame, a reason for hope

My dear offspring, siblings, friends and neighbours, following my last attempt at posting something on this my blog (just for the heck of it), I come before you today, head bowed in shame and tail securely tucked between my hind legs, to report that the link I so happily propagated was not kosher.

It was just what it seemed to be: a deal too good to be true. The first thing that should have set off all the bullshit alarm bells was the fact that they offered to pay you $25 as soon as you registered! 

But did it ring any bells? Of course it did not. And of course it did like the 777 in the slot machine when you hit the jackpot, images of unexplained cash in your account flashed through your mind. And why not? It is hard work finding people to make or trick into clicking on the link; and knowing that the more people that click, the more the cash pours into your coffers, you have worked hard at it.  

Anyway, to cut a long story short, lets use scissors and come to the point. When you reached the minimum of $300 for which you are congratulated and asked to click on another link, things start becoming elephant. The link leads to a page that simply tells you THE BLOG HAS BEEN REMOVED!

Uta do? So you decide there must be a mistake and send them an email through the address given. But alas, the mail server informs you ever so politely that "the address "does not exist, you are wasting your time, go away. 

Yet another avenue for crossing the poverty line gone sour. Now comes the hard part. A story is told of a young lady who once went to the priest and confessed to having spread malicious rumours about her best friend. The Father, for he was a kind guy told her she would be forgiven as long as she carries out a single task for him.

"What task would that be father?"

"Bring that pillow and I will show you, my daughter."

So she brought the pillow. And the prieiest instantly slashed it with a razor sharp knife and bid her to hold it up in the wind.

"Is that my penance, Father?"

"No, my dear," replied the Father kindly. "Your penance is to collect all the feathers that blew into the wind and stuff them back into the pillow."

"But that's impossible, Father..."

"Exactly. Just like you can't go back and collect all those feathers, you can not unsay all the nasty things you said or caused to be said by the rumour you started..."

I feel just like that lady, right now.

Fortunately, I have just finished reading a 360 page book published by a most eminent publisher who probably hopes that I'll be so inspired by it I will review it. If that goes well you will soon be reading my views on the life story of a great Kenyan  and why the book is worth all the Ksh 2,500 it is retailing for.

I promise to also look around for interesting stories to tell and I will publish those too - who says one can't pay the bills on writing alone!

Bullet in a maggot – my Easter story

[WARNING. This is not a eulogy but the avoidance of writing one]

Billie Joe Armstrong on the DVD cover

Before it all started going south, I was just going to watch Green Day’s 2005 European tour on DVD and simply go to sleep to the lullaby of Wake me Up When September Ends. Either the trusty old DVD player had gone cranky or the medium itself, an original DVD that my worthy friend Paul Kukubo once gifted me at a rather arty media store, had suffered irreparable damage at the hands of my beautiful brat pack who must have tested its quality label to the outer limits with their hair-raising air guitar parties – that, of course was before they became Smartphone Air Guitarists and left the poor antique cellulite product to go to rot.  

Anyway, instead of the brilliantly timed opening of  American Idiot  that I had expected, all I got was maggoty little images oozing into and out of focus. 

I was about to call one of the Smartphone Air Guitarist brigade when my own Smartphone - inherited from the oldest of them who had left us and gone to Air Guitar Heaven in December (May her lovely soul rest in peace) - beeped.  It was a WhatsApp from Besty, my most favourite brother in the diaspora. 

Betty Caplan has kuffed.

Thanks Besty, I forgot to text in reply.

Journalist & Teacher Betty Caplan - picture curtesy of Standard
Digital

Kuffed, FYI, is an endearing word created by an old friend of mine called Pam to avoid referring to the demise of her dearly departed mum by its real name. My family and I have ever since adopted that meaning as our own, extending it to cover all loved ones, of course.

Even before I could relate to this terrible news, beep! went the phone again. This time, it was my celibate young lawyer friend – let’s call her Judy – texting to ask me to describe a picture.  

By text? Can’t I just send it to you electronically? Isn’t this the age of live now before it changes into something you’d never comprehend?

And that, decidedly, was the moment things must have started going south. Choosing, for some reason the path of least resistance, the mind played tricks with me. Instead of dwelling on all the good things I could remember about my dearly departed friend, it chose to respond to my living friend. I know, right? Escapism. Delay dealing with death and cheat it of its sting, I thought gallantly.

 “It is,” I typed out, “about how Easter Eggs are made.” I hit send.

Beep.

“And how pray, are they made?”

“The picture shows a white wabbit humping a brown chicken.” Send.

Beep.

“Lol! Not far from what I imagined.”

“Now go make.” Send.

Ping!

“Go make?”

“Yes. Eggs.” Send.

Ping!

“Alone?”

“No, get the bunny and the chicken first, stupid!” Send.

Ping!

“The hen is readily available, where’s the bunny?”

“Do today’s lawyers always take things that literally?” Send. 

Wonky Wabbit makes an Easter Egg - Literally

So things were going south; clearly.

And so, in keeping with the mood, I turned to matters of my recently diseased friend. I owed it to myself and to her spirit to at least find out a few things; which I did. So after shedding a few hot tears (where do they all come from!), I went to Facebook and wrote a fitting tribute to my late friend; which quickly gathered a plethora of comments, likes and OMGs. Unfortunately, the post and its comments made the sms chatter from my young legal eagle - the one we earlier agreed to call Judy - even worse, for it now took on a greenish hue.

“Was she your favourite, Lloyd?”

“No, Judy,” I replied. “She was one of my very few good friends.”
Seriously though, my life truly sucked big time right then, I must admit it still does. Out of no choice of my own, my theme song had quickly degenerated to Boulevard of Broken Dreams and I was slowly sliding into  a mood so low that even Tre Cool's drumm riffs wouldn't have helped. 
And contrary to popularly held myths that writers write best when their lives suck the most, I have been reduced to doing almost nothing to make money. 
If you don’t believe me, go here and start making money too - and I surely hope you have the Time of Your Life!

What the WhatsApp! ( When your electronic guide to the Galaxy packs up!)

The IgMy Manyatta before Ekiru the terrible Turk(ana) repaired it.

Like I've said before on this blog, and as the more perceptive of my readers (all ten of them!) may well know, we are now in the multi-dimensional age of intergalactic governments, Big Brother, beyond 1984 and so forth. Anyone with a hand-held pocket-friendly device can instantly insult or be nice to any number of other someones in any number of places in the known world and, ever since space travel went commercial with the launch of Virgin Galactica, space and time myths of years gone by have been smashed to smithereens.

I was sharply reminded of this yesterday when my hand-held guide to the galaxy in the shape of a Nokia Asha packed up in the middle of a conversation with a girl sitting on Nyamurembe hill in M7land and another at a glitzy wine tasting event in  in Stellenbosch, Western Cape.  I was also trying to reason with my teenage daughter about something important and halfway through an article about muses and how they were considered the nine daughters of Zeus which was supposed to help me with stuff I am not supposed to tell you..

Panic!

But panic at times is what we need to be inventive; to think in a tangent, to reinvent our environment. So  I thought of all those things I could do and don’t do now because I’ve got my electronic device: the magazines about disease that I used to read at the reception areas of medical clinics, the personal errands I used to run and the freedom I had of not being available to the world all the time, but most of all, it just occurred to me that I should be writing my new look blog.

So I dropped the phone turned to my word processor, but was sidelined by a few jacaranda seedlings that  needed planting. I stuck them in the ground and added some humus from what formerly used to be my Maasai manyatta before one heavy bout of rain brought it crashing down. This was as a result of an unfortunate encounter with a Turkana moran called Ekiru, who had insisted on piling mud on the manyatta’s roof, saying that the cow dung used by the Maasai was not as good as the mud they (the Turkana) use for their dwellings. 

Besides providing all the humus I ever needed for mock agriculture and landscaping for my republic, the manyatta also has the two dubious distinctions, being not only the shortest-lived of all human dwellings ever built in my neighbourhood, but also the structure after which our area was named (see Manyatta, Athi river on Google Maps). It has ever since been replaced by the hut, which I may or may not attempt to write about next. 

Meanwhile, may I recommend that you check out  http://amolosart.blogspot.com. It may change your mind about a lot of stuff. Buy her pictures even (if you can understand them!).