Field Marshal
Elder Lister
Today, I decided to have some nyama at Kenyatta Market. From the junction off Mbagathi all the way to the market and inside the market itself, I saw tens and tens of struggling youth selling second hand clothes, underwears, shoes etc. I have seen the same scene almost everywhere in this country - virtually every unemployed young person is turning to selling something, usually a cheap secondhand import. The CBD is now one huge market littered with thousands of stalls selling cheap clothes.
That's when it hit me.
The reason why a good number of Kenyan youth are crying that times are hard - and they are - is that we as a society have moved from CREATING to SELLING. Creating requires innovation, imagination, and a hands-on go-getter mentality that selling doesn't. What's more, creating has many spin-offs - a carpenter will require a timber supplier, a nails supplier, a glues supplier etc etc etc - jobs created! - but a mitumba seller just needs just one importer.
In the 1970s and the 1980s, there were no mitumba or cheap clothing imports to sell. There were no fakes and trinkets from China either. If you didn't get a job you created one by being a cobbler, farmer, carpenter, mason, butcher, tailor etc. YOU CREATED SOMETHING, even if it was food. As a result, the country was food-sufficient, and life was manageable.
Today, as millions of youth cry that there are no jobs, those who have refused to follow the herd to set up roadside or CBD stalls AND INSTEAD opted to be CREATORS are making it big. And creation doesn't need to be physical - Bahati, Churchill, Omondi, a dozen Kikuyu mucisians, top bloggers and other ICT entrepreneurs, small manufacturers, innovative farmers, etc etc - are making it big because they have decided to be creators instead of sellers.
As I was driving up Langata Road, it hit me that this is what African countries like Kenya lack - an army of CREATORS and INNOVATORS who solve local problems using local know-how and resources. Which is why, by the way, we are importing everything from food to match-boxes to tooth-picks. Just why can't a chemistry graduate from UoN start a small matchbox making 'factory' at the back of his parent's house? Across small market centres in the country, I have never found an unemployed food science graduate running a small bakery making bread and cakes for the locals - they are all in Nairobi selling Mitumbas coz they can't find 'work' (in Ndeiya, all birthday cakes for kids have to be imported from Nairobi!).
Funny, but the people who are driving innovation and creation in this country are the poorly educated. Just go to Kariokor and see.
And let no one blame the gavament or the education system. Our culture of complacency, entitlement, copy-catting and laziness seems to be the problem. One guy starts an Mpesa shop, following day there are 10. Ditto mitumba.
One of the most inspirational guys I have met here is that stupid animaliser jaruopithicus, @Introvert . An educated man who, like me, likes to work with his hands. But like me too, he comes from another age. He's a ferking fossil.
Unless Kenya's young collectively decide to be CREATORS like Introvert instead of SELLERS, this country is forever ferked...............
That's when it hit me.
The reason why a good number of Kenyan youth are crying that times are hard - and they are - is that we as a society have moved from CREATING to SELLING. Creating requires innovation, imagination, and a hands-on go-getter mentality that selling doesn't. What's more, creating has many spin-offs - a carpenter will require a timber supplier, a nails supplier, a glues supplier etc etc etc - jobs created! - but a mitumba seller just needs just one importer.
In the 1970s and the 1980s, there were no mitumba or cheap clothing imports to sell. There were no fakes and trinkets from China either. If you didn't get a job you created one by being a cobbler, farmer, carpenter, mason, butcher, tailor etc. YOU CREATED SOMETHING, even if it was food. As a result, the country was food-sufficient, and life was manageable.
Today, as millions of youth cry that there are no jobs, those who have refused to follow the herd to set up roadside or CBD stalls AND INSTEAD opted to be CREATORS are making it big. And creation doesn't need to be physical - Bahati, Churchill, Omondi, a dozen Kikuyu mucisians, top bloggers and other ICT entrepreneurs, small manufacturers, innovative farmers, etc etc - are making it big because they have decided to be creators instead of sellers.
As I was driving up Langata Road, it hit me that this is what African countries like Kenya lack - an army of CREATORS and INNOVATORS who solve local problems using local know-how and resources. Which is why, by the way, we are importing everything from food to match-boxes to tooth-picks. Just why can't a chemistry graduate from UoN start a small matchbox making 'factory' at the back of his parent's house? Across small market centres in the country, I have never found an unemployed food science graduate running a small bakery making bread and cakes for the locals - they are all in Nairobi selling Mitumbas coz they can't find 'work' (in Ndeiya, all birthday cakes for kids have to be imported from Nairobi!).
Funny, but the people who are driving innovation and creation in this country are the poorly educated. Just go to Kariokor and see.
And let no one blame the gavament or the education system. Our culture of complacency, entitlement, copy-catting and laziness seems to be the problem. One guy starts an Mpesa shop, following day there are 10. Ditto mitumba.
One of the most inspirational guys I have met here is that stupid animaliser jaruopithicus, @Introvert . An educated man who, like me, likes to work with his hands. But like me too, he comes from another age. He's a ferking fossil.
Unless Kenya's young collectively decide to be CREATORS like Introvert instead of SELLERS, this country is forever ferked...............
