Last Friday, I watched a – shall we say –
interesting interview on the variety programme ‘The Trend’ on NTV. The subject
was a woman in her mid-twenties who goes by the trade name ‘Vera Sidika’ (we’re
not too sure that is what her parents named her when she was a bouncing baby
girl). And the bouncing imagery is just about right, because Ms. Sidika’s claim
to fame is not a skill or talent, however spurious. She has gained fame purely
on the basis of her enormous posterior. Where, in previous generations, this
would have gained you catcalls from building sites and undue attention at
nightclubs, Ms. Sidika has used hers to – she claims – get paid to be seen at
those nightclubs. If she is to be believed, this has earned her millions of
shillings and a Nigerian boyfriend who is not afraid to bestow on her hundreds
of thousands of dollars.
What does this have to do with anything,
especially an esteemed column such as this one on hallowed pages such as these?
Be patient for a few moments, while I bring it round to something that really
does have to do with you and how you conduct your business.
It is not about morality. True, there are
many signs of a moral crisis in Kenya at present. Two nights before Ms. Sidika’s
interview, the NTV reporter Elvis Raini spoke to a self-proclaimed ‘campus
diva’, who is financing what seems to be a rather expensive lifestyle from a
relationship with a much older man. So indeed, you can choose to fulminate
against the drop off a moral cliff that Kenya seems to be experiencing, but the
real story is elsewhere.
Ms. Sidika, who styles herself a socialite,
is part of a brief tradition that had its beginnings in the mid-nineties. Women
who had the flimsiest of skill sets, or simply had famous last names, parlayed
these into ‘careers’ where they became (in the words of British journalist
Malcolm Muggeridge) famous for being famous. This was helped in no small part
to two revolutions – reality television and the explosion of the Internet.
‘Socialites’ are perfect reality TV stars, because they are willing to live
their lives extremely publicly, and have suppressed their shame instinct to the
level where their antics make for good entertainment.
The Internet, as well, has been a boon to them.
Images and stories in entertainment sites feed into the popular media, which
feed back into the web, in an endless feedback loop that ensures fame and
fortune in complete disproportion to whatever the original claim to fame was.
Ms. Sidika seems to have taken this to its
logical extreme. There is no reality television industry in Kenya of a size
worth speaking of, so that is not an outlet for her ‘talents’. The Internet, as
well, has not reached the critical size that would sustain the socialite industry
at a level to justify the demands placed upon it.
What Vera Sidika has done is engage in the
most pure form of capitalism. She’s taken the most rickety asset and parlayed
it into outsized profit. And this has only happened because there are no rules
to what she engages in. It is not prostitution in the proper sense of the term,
but a new hybrid of being an escort girl, a celebrity and nightclub hostess,
all rolled together in a very expensive (and bleached) package.
Many in the Kenyan economy are doing the
same. Hundreds are trying (and a few succeeding) in building careers out of
proximity to people in positions of authority. Entire (briefcase) businesses
have been constructed out the fact that someone went to school with a person
who is now in a position of influence over tenders and contracts worth
billions.
Speak to most international – and local –
investors. They’ll tell you how potential investments are often not analysed on
the basis of their profitability and social value, but on whether these
hangers-on will be able to carve out some undeserved revenue for themselves.
This free-for-all is not restricted to
corruption. Teenagers who are barely able to handle a bicycle are now boda boda
riders who are participants in the largest unregulated industry in the country.
Tens of thousands of unskilled young men have let themselves loose on the
roads, at the cost of thousands of lives and inconvenience to many. Their
utility is not in doubt, especially in rural and peri-urban communities, but
there are no rules, and no oversight.
The great thing about Kenya is that this
unregulation (it’s not strictly deregulation, as the rules were not there in
the first place) means that one can, in effect, build a successful business out
of an idea without having pesky watchdogs looking over one’s shoulder. Mobile
money is the best example, where companies like Safaricom became global
champions because there was no one to disrupt their ideas and business models.
Whatever asset or idea you have is enough to ensure that you can try and make
the best out of it, and become a paragon of capitalism.
Also published in the Business Daily on June 10, 2014, at http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Opinion-and-Analysis/How-Vera-Sidika-represents-the-new-face-of-capitalism/-/539548/2342232/-/item/0/-/x7xyx7z/-/index.html
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