Meria
Elder Lister
There are a million ways to make mullah in this Jamhuri. But the easiest, it has emerged, is to sell fool’s gold called "mburoti" to us mountain folks.
One, register a cooperative society with a name coined from the combined letters of your name and your wife’s. Acquire fifty acres of barren land dotted with thorny acacia in a scorched outpost on the fringes of central Kenya. Put up a gate grander than that of state house with a signpost screaming ‘gated community’. Subdivide the land into various plots sizes using footsteps or guess work but which you will later market as quarters or eighths.
Open an office in one of the bustling towns in central Kenya. Populate the sales office with specially selected yellow yellow daughters of the mountain-girls clever as the devil and twice as pretty. Make sure everyone knows the smiling belles by their first names-which are almost always Shiko or Shiro.
Next, hire a scandalous Kikuyu benga artiste as your brand ambassadeur. Splash his smiling images showing him receiving titles deeds of land he purchased from your company in billboards all over the region. Have him mention your company twice in every song during his live performances.
Outsource flashy adverts with grinning smart alecks in tight suits, sharp shooters and shiny phones extolling how your company processes title deeds within a day after one completes a payment. Buy prime slots in vernacular radio stations with a broadcaster who laughs raucously and mentions your company’s name every five minutes.
Employ some classic Ponzi tactics and make the land offers either too good to be true-or too good to miss. Or both. Mention an upcoming bypass nearby that will transform the hood into a living nirvana. Talk of an upcoming dual carriageway which will make the land prices in the area triple within a year. Base the investment on something ‘next’-the next middle class estate, the next big thing etc. Sell each plot to at least five people.
Of course the entrepreneurial mountain folks will ask questions about the areas viability. Don’t bother to answer such with concrete answers. Instead, resort to convoluted truisms like ‘Nairobi was divided up by Murang’a men when Kiambu men were asleep’. Appeal to the people’s greed for land and make them want it so badly that they will be ready to be taken advantage of.
At some point, the house of cards that you built will come tumbling. Some DCI sleuths will come sniffing around. Of course you know what to do-oil their palms with crisp brown notes.
A group of disgruntled investors will go to court which will tell them that they can’t sue you since they are members of the cooperative and you all own it. Thus cornered, they will organize a demo against you. The following day, have your ‘royal customers’ organize a demo in your support. Next, appear in a local radio station’s morning show and lament how gava is fighting investors who are doing a lot to uplift wananchi.
When things cool down, rebrand your company and head to a new town-there is always someone willing to buy plots in the moon. Finally, answer to the call of the people and run for political office.
.........In this weeks 'The Nairobian'.
One, register a cooperative society with a name coined from the combined letters of your name and your wife’s. Acquire fifty acres of barren land dotted with thorny acacia in a scorched outpost on the fringes of central Kenya. Put up a gate grander than that of state house with a signpost screaming ‘gated community’. Subdivide the land into various plots sizes using footsteps or guess work but which you will later market as quarters or eighths.
Open an office in one of the bustling towns in central Kenya. Populate the sales office with specially selected yellow yellow daughters of the mountain-girls clever as the devil and twice as pretty. Make sure everyone knows the smiling belles by their first names-which are almost always Shiko or Shiro.
Next, hire a scandalous Kikuyu benga artiste as your brand ambassadeur. Splash his smiling images showing him receiving titles deeds of land he purchased from your company in billboards all over the region. Have him mention your company twice in every song during his live performances.
Outsource flashy adverts with grinning smart alecks in tight suits, sharp shooters and shiny phones extolling how your company processes title deeds within a day after one completes a payment. Buy prime slots in vernacular radio stations with a broadcaster who laughs raucously and mentions your company’s name every five minutes.
Employ some classic Ponzi tactics and make the land offers either too good to be true-or too good to miss. Or both. Mention an upcoming bypass nearby that will transform the hood into a living nirvana. Talk of an upcoming dual carriageway which will make the land prices in the area triple within a year. Base the investment on something ‘next’-the next middle class estate, the next big thing etc. Sell each plot to at least five people.
Of course the entrepreneurial mountain folks will ask questions about the areas viability. Don’t bother to answer such with concrete answers. Instead, resort to convoluted truisms like ‘Nairobi was divided up by Murang’a men when Kiambu men were asleep’. Appeal to the people’s greed for land and make them want it so badly that they will be ready to be taken advantage of.
At some point, the house of cards that you built will come tumbling. Some DCI sleuths will come sniffing around. Of course you know what to do-oil their palms with crisp brown notes.
A group of disgruntled investors will go to court which will tell them that they can’t sue you since they are members of the cooperative and you all own it. Thus cornered, they will organize a demo against you. The following day, have your ‘royal customers’ organize a demo in your support. Next, appear in a local radio station’s morning show and lament how gava is fighting investors who are doing a lot to uplift wananchi.
When things cool down, rebrand your company and head to a new town-there is always someone willing to buy plots in the moon. Finally, answer to the call of the people and run for political office.
.........In this weeks 'The Nairobian'.
flani hapo Mombasa road on the other side ya kifaru, the watering hole.
land.
