By George Kopiyo
Preface by Cyprian Nyakundi
Every year, we have various sectoral awards and placements issued. For instance, Business Daily has the Top 40 Under 40 list, where all of the “winners” are chosen based on who bribes the journalists the most. Bloggers Association of Kenya (BAKE) also has awards. And can you imagine a list of “top” bloggers in Kenya without Nyakundi? Who do these assholes think they fool? They think Kenyans are stupid?
That is Nairobi for you. Because women have occupied most if not all top managerial positions in corporates, sexual and emotional cues guide their thinking as opposed to pragmatism and merit. Women need to be placate with gifts, drinks in boujee places, fake accents and the likes to even consider giving you business.
Even when it comes to relationships/marriage, women have been scammed by many men because of their superficial outlook towards life. The Nairobi conman has mastered the weakness of women. They just need good dick and large amounts of lies.
The first thing a lady’s girlfriend’s will ask when she tells them she has a new catch is “what does he do?” Infact in Nairobi, the question “What Do You Do?” is normally used by people so that they can know where to place you. Because what you do is more important than who you are and the values you espouse.
Wilkins Odinga Fadhili is a reflection of our modern day restless “start up” culture. Of “Success,” “Successful” people and the modern rat race that is “entrepreneurship.” Where business is more about NOISE – rabid empty spin, “influencers,” “mentors,” Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin profiles, Youtube channels, complete with hooked “followers.”
Forgetting that social media is a mere enabler and that real businesses are modeled on SUBSTANCE and REVENUE. The foundation of digital spin, or what we call “brand building” cannot be founded on emptiness or falseness.
In many instances, entrepreneurship becomes an adventure in seeking nothing but fame. It is fashionable to idle about in coffee shops around town and brand yourself as an “entrepreneur.” Most often, appearing on morning TV advising young folks to start their own business, yet we are nothing more than mere talking heads and not real entrepreneurs with heads and hearts baking in the hot heat of the oven that is real entrepreneurship.
Nobody talks about the pain, loneliness, hunger, unpaid bills, unanswered calls, rejection, dejection, uncertainty and anxiety. And sometimes homelessness. Most of the time, the talk about entrepreneurship revolves around success or potential success, incubation, the possibility of VC financing, without acknowledging the back-breaking work that happens in the background. We seem busy, press coverage and all, putting up a charade.
We do not talk of empty bank accounts, debt, collapsing deals without number, business models without traction, 17 hour work days 7 days a week and broken relationships. Cars without fuel or unpaid school fees.Or just being unable to fit into the rigors of 8-5 routine having chosen a different and very difficult path of self discovery.
In the meantime, the charade is about, lunches in posh hotels we can barely afford. On these shores, nobody fails. And because nobody fails, we have to keep on telling lies.
Selfies with “influencers” and “public figures” who many times have more problems that yourself. Unnecessary meetups and name dropping – of people, academic institutions and large corporations, to show the world we are going places. And because every “brand” or entrepreneur must have some sort of story, we start weaving phantom tales about the origins of our hustle.
We appropriate experience and credentials we do not have. Our creativity includes faking seed funding announcements from venture capital firms that do not exist.
And our journalists, by commission or omission, write about our “achievements” “credentials” and “businesses” without any fact checking. You see, we are a society that largely believes in EVERYTHING written about ANYTHING in the “mainstream” media.
Because of the fake profiles (nobody cares to check until you ran out of lies), we create for ourselves, we are soon nominated for the many business awards roaming our streets. Awards and accolades dished out depending on how much NOISE one can generate. Unfortunately, editorial control, including fact checking, is no longer a priority. What we refer to as “mainstream” is effectively gutter.
And because we are largely socialized to love, adore, affiliate and seek the company of fellow “successful” people without questioning their credentials or source of their success, we invite them to our universities to speak as mentors, role models and springboards of “inspiration” for the future.
We invite them to conferences and TV shows as headline speakers, appropriated biographies and all.
When we get tired and the music finally stops, the betrayal begins. The very folks who propped you up and welcomed you without question, including the journalists you bribed along the way, veracity of your story notwithstanding, pretend not to know the real you.
Everyone who was awed by your “success” suddenly “wakes up” and starts asking questions. “Celebrities who previously affiliated with you deny your existence in quick succession.
The journalists who knowingly, on financial or other inducement, misrepresented your success to the general public now seek to set the record straight. Bloggers who fed on handouts from you, now join the public feeding frenzy like a pack of vultures.
Standard Media has just deleted an article that sensationally claimed that Wilkins Fadhili sold 3000 chapatis a day to save for his studies abroad!!!!! Yes, ” study abroad” for a man who has never left this country!!
Those who fed from the proceeds of your “success” – including those who blindly gave money – get turned on, by how they have “outed” you. In the meantime, Safaricom’s BLAZE, Forbes Africa 30 under 30, Business Daily’s 40 under 40 cannot explain the veracity of the criteria for your inclusion in their activities.
Wilkins Odinga Fadhili knows us well. In this society we abhor those who genuinely try and fail. If the real Wilkins walked to Safaricom, would they have listen to him for what he can do?
Would Strathmore University’s Marketing Club invite and listen to a financially struggling but highly talented social media strategist?
We facilitated him because we only identify with “success.” We are more in touch with credentialism and not the process that births credentials.
He harnessed our collective obsession with anything that looks or sounds successful. And those fashioning themselves as victims are the very exhibition of this foolishness. We are now so “sad” that we would rather troll the guy into suicide.
By the way, who the heck is 1608 Creatives? What the f*ck is “Coca Cola Beverages Africa Board of Strategists”? How does a guy who has never ran a real business save for spin, serve as a mentor on Safaricom’s Blaze, “Be Your Own Boss” TV show?
To those who are engaged in genuine struggle, largely overlooked, undercut and maligned by the shameless self-promotion who have compromised Nairobi’s productivity by fraudulently buying their way into employment and/or service provision, keep your head high. A new dawn is about to break as such frauds keep getting exposed.
For instance why do a section of Githeri media journalists and staffers at marketing agencies like Scan-Ad, Ogilvy, and the likes keep talking shit about Nyakundi? They go to meetings and they literally make themselves believe that Nyakundi is not influential and/or my brand is “dangerous” to associate with? Simply because I ain’t got time to stroke their bloated egos or entertain them with drinks. If you as a brand manager think that I as Nyakundi will buy you flowers and chocolates as inducements for doing your job, bitch you got me fucked up!
But everyday I’m on the grind, growing my numbers and perfecting my art. Not to appeal and align with the Githeri standards of Nairobi, but to match the very best in the world.
And here is a word of encouragement to those grinding without bribing journalists or marketing agency-staff for validation. “We look beyond the walls of our day-to-day life and hear the noise of spears clashing, feel the smell of sweat and gun-powder, see the great defeats and the faces of warriors thirsty for victory. But we never perceive the joy, the immense joy in the heart of those who are fighting, because for them it does not matter who wins or loses, what matters only is to fight the Good Fight.”
