Jackson Biko

1 week ago | businessdailyafrica.com | Jackson Biko

You could say it was the toss of a coin that changed Joseph Murabula’s life. A 50-cent coin. Faced with dismal chances of furthering his education in his village in Busia, he wrote a letter to the late Dr Griffin of Starehe Boys’ Centre. The letter said, in many words: Save me from the village. He then bought a stamp for 50 cents and mailed his dream. The dream replied. And now, 20 years later, Joseph sits at the head of the table at Kenya Climate Innovation Center (KCIC) as the Chief Executive.

1 week ago | businessdailyafrica.com | Jackson Biko

Last Saturday, I found my brother sitting in his backyard, drinking a cider and listening to some soapy ’90s RnB music. He said it was his wife’s birthday. He couldn’t leave, so I called my friend, who said he was at a place called Rixxos Bar, all the way in Kitengela. I felt adventurous. I found Rixxos empty and sad. It felt like a doomed ship at the bottom of the ocean. “We can’t sit here,” I told him. “I’m too young for this.” So, he took me to a place called Kwa Daddy.

2 weeks ago | businessdailyafrica.com | Jackson Biko

He sat alone at the bar counter at Red Ginger. The lone wolf of Red Ginger. He must have been in his early 50s. His jaw slackened slightly, his face a portrait bearing both the horror and beauty of life. A man marinated in seasons, with his beer and his thoughts. What fascinated me about him—and it’s what drew my attention to him—was his ability to sit very still. He had no temptation to touch his phone, which was lying on its belly on the counter like a colicky baby.

2 weeks ago | businessdailyafrica.com | Jackson Biko

Before Dr Samson Gwer became a titan in neurology, he was a truant, troubled child. His formative student years in boarding school were a study in defiance. He sneaked out. He was a vandal, burning desks and dorm beds, and breaking windows. He went on hunger strikes and stole food from the kitchen. This was until his father sat him down and had a long talk with him. “My important lessons on fatherhood I learned from my father,” he says.

3 weeks ago | businessdailyafrica.com | Jackson Biko

Rebecca Miano, Cabinet Secretary for Tourism and Wildlife doesn’t know how to hurl brickbats. She’s aware that the noisiest wheels in politics get greased, but that just isn’t her style. “It’s just not who I am,” she said recently from her office. And sometimes she wonders if her lack of brusqueness, her aversion to brouhaha, is seen as a lack of commitment to the wider political agenda.