I am one of the staunch supporters of the Kenyans4Kenya initiative. It is such a great idea and it is both an experience and an eye opener, not only for those who participated in it but also to the current government establishment. Ordinary Kenyans have gone out of the usual way and given their all to this initiative.
So the Media Owners, Safaricom, Gina Din Communications, KCB and others did well in initiating and putting wheels onto the Kenyans4Kenya initiative. The corporate and individuals behind the idea have been attacked by other corporate, civic society and even individuals. They have been called opportunists, frauds, scammers and all manner of names. The main beef the individuals and mostly the civic society operatives who believe that they have not been given the chance by the corporates to lead what a civic initiative like they should be doing. Basically the corporates opened our eyes and even snapped the duties of the government, civic society and activists. So you will see those whose roles have been snapped in the intitiative attack the people behind the idea. But we know the real conmen here.
The real conmen have all along pretended that they are with the idea. They have not used the idea well but have managed to use it to either fraud the organisers or the so gullible Kenyans4Kenya. Yes I am talking about REAL cons. Look around, check the tweets, view the TV clips again, any you can spot? No! You wont spot them because they are good at it. I am always straight with points and I believe that I need to tell you who the real cons are. THE REAL CONS are the, entertainment spots, advertising agencies and MEDIA DONORS. Ok! But How? You might ask. Here is how. I have been asked not to name names but I must name some for examples purposes.
If you were at the coporates pledge party on Friday at Serena oryou watched the whole episode, you might have seen something the many media houses present were doing. They were donating some “airtime” or “media time” depending on who you spoke to. Nation donated Ksh 5 Million in cash and 10 Million in “airtime”, standard group donated Ksh 2 Million in cash and some “many more” in “media time”, Citizen donated Ksh 5 million in cash and Ksh 15 Million in “media time”. What if Harun Mwau decided to donate 10 bob in cash and his political mouth worth Ksh 5 billion? What if Google decided to donate Ksh 92 million worth of Adwords exposure or Safaricom decide to donate Ksh 10 million worth of airtime on their telepresence business? Why were the media companies dreaming that through them, we would have got the best exposure?
We have seen past campaigns done by even all the media houses and they couldn’t go past Ksh 20 Million. They have the trust of the population but the trust they have cannot convince the same population to donate well to any major issue. It is like trusting your watchman with his sentry duties at your residence but can you give him Ksh 50 Million in cash to go and bank? No!. I saw Nation do some useless advert on Saturday and that advert they wrote below the page that “page donated by Nation Media”. What is the reach of Saturday Nation? It is a female targeted paper since the magazine is all ladies all the time. Would the pushers of Kenyans4Kenya initiative have chosen Saturday Nation as an edition they wanted to do an advert on? Probably not.
I have also heard of clients who approached some companies in advertising. The client did not want to donate to the Kenyans4Kenya any cash but what they wanted was media awareness. So they pay key presenters, TV and radio personalities and advertising agencies some money to talk about Kenyans4Kenya and what they get in return is awareness through brand exposure when people are talking about the Kenyans4Kenya initiative.
What if Robert Alai decided to contribute Ksh 56 in cash and said he donated Ksh 5 Billion worth of media exposure through Techmtaa? Would you have denied that Techmtaa cant have media time worth that much? What if every tweep decided that their tweet with #Kenyans4Kenya tag is worth Ksh 50,000? Would you deny that? Would it make the campaign successful? Who quantified the media donation? Who is doing the media monitoring? I sincerely think that nobody has conned us out of the Kenyans4Kenya idea as the mainstream media. Social media drove the campaign.
What is needed most in the Kenyans4Kenya initiative is food and medicine and money to buy food and medicine. The same reasons I don’t want any media company to con us that they have donated the media airtime are the same ones which made me say that we want least of the idlers and CEOs who are flying in private choppers to go and have photo opportunities with the frail in Turkana while not even carrying for them food. It is also the same reason which made me say that Safaricom don’t need to wait for Nguruma Ibambe to end to donate Ksh 10 Million for the initiative.
We need money like yesterday. We don’t need conmen who promise us donations if we watch their TV stations or buy their products. We don’t need those. People are dying and conning us into ideas and misusing our goodwill is simply foolish. We don’t contribute money to have convoys of tourists. We want food in the places and nobody should try to force a starving kid, woman or old man to stand up just for them to be photographed while they promise them food is coming. If you can fly 50 fat CEOs then you can fly 50 x 100 Kgs of food.
Others are these entertainment spots which say that if you go buy beer from their joints, then they will donate virtual, real or imagined money for Kenyans4Kenya. It is simply stupid. If K1, Tamasha, Bachus, Psyz, Carnivore and Mercury want to donate to K4K, they should do it now. They don’t have to force us to be alcoholics for a day for them to donate. They have been making money. What I am saying is that no one should promise us some phenomenal donation if we bend-over.
Ok I have said it. You can now hate me