News — kenya

Calestous Juma was a Kenyan scientist and university scholar who primarily focused on sustainable development. He served as a Professor of the Practice of International Development and Director of the Science, Technology, and Globalization Project at the Harvard Kennedy School. Juma also served as the director for the Agricultural Innovation in Africa Project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He was born in Busia village on June 9, 1953 to John Kwada Juma and Clementina Nabwire and grew up in Port Victoria, Kenya. Juma attended Port Victoria Secondary School and later Egoji Teachers’ Training College in Kenya in 1974. After his certification, Juma taught science in Mombasa, Kenya, and wrote for the Daily Nation newspaper. In 1978, he became the first full-time environment and science correspondent for the newspaper.

In 1979, Juma became a researcher and editor for Environment Liaison Centre, an NGO based in Nairobi, Kenya. He then enrolled at the University of Sussex in England with a full scholarship 1982, receiving an MSc in Science, Technology and Industrialization in 1983 and a DPhil in Science and Technology Policy in 1987.

Juma is considered a revolutionary figure in scientific research; he advocated for the use of technology and innovation for development. Juma established Africa’s first science policy think tank African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS) in 1989. ACTS released a study called “Innovation and Sovereignty,” which helped with the creation of the first industrial property legislation in Kenya. At ACTS, he led a study called Economic Reform and Environment in Africa, which researched the connections between economic innovation, conservation management, and technological transformation in developing nations to further understand how socio-economic environments impact the integration of new technologies.

This research was highlighted in some of his first works Long-Run Economics: An Evolutionary Approach to Economic Growth (London: Pinter, 1987) and The Gene Hunters: Biotechnology and the Scramble for Seeds (Princeton: Princeton University Press and Zed Books, 1989).

Juma moved to Montreal, Quebec Canada in 1995 to serve as the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity first executive director. However, he left shortly afterwards because he felt the UN agency placed too many limitations on Africa’s ability to crop genetically modified foods. In 1998, Juma moved to Harvard to continue his work. There he created a UN task force that developed ways in which the developing world can attain Millennium Development Goals through technology and science. In addition, Juma in 2005, served at the US National Academy of Sciences as the Global Challenges and Biotechnology chair, and in 2012 served as co-chair of the African Union High-Level Panel on Modern Biotechnology. One of Juma’s last works, before he passed, was Innovation and Its Enemies: Why People Resist New Technologies, published by Oxford University Press in 2016.

Calestous Juma died on December 15, 2017 in Boston, Massachusetts at the age of 54. He is survived by his wife Alison Field-Juma, and his son Eric Juma.

Mzee Jomo Kenyatta had few close friends while he was president of Kenya. One of them was Ethiopian leader Emperor Haile Selassie. They were such good friends, that Kenyatta made sure that the Emperor was Kenya’s first foreign dignitary invited during the Jamhuri Day celebrations in 1964. Jamhuri Day is a Kenyan holiday, celebrating its independence from Great Britain on December 12, 1963, and the establishment of its republic.

During the celebrations in 1964, Haile Selassie gifted Kenyatta a white pet dog. The Emperor didn’t know that Kenyatta hated pets. Indeed, the gift angered the Kenyan leader, who, according to biographer Jeremy Murray-Brown, would have preferred a cow. But, due to their close friendship, Kenyatta “bought a Mercedes Benz to ferry the dog as a sign of respect to his friend,” a report said.

As Lee Njiru, who served Kenyatta, wrote: “The friendship was so deep that when he was gifted the white little dog during his visit to Ethiopia, he bought it a Mercedes Benz 280S.”

A street in Kenya’s capital Nairobi has since been named in Haile Selassie’s honor.

Kenyatta led Kenya from its independence in 1963, ushering in new change for the nation after years of British rule. Born on an unknown date in the 1890s, Kenyatta’s political ambitions grew when he joined the Kikuyu Central Association (KCA), becoming the group’s general secretary in 1928. Working on behalf of the KCA, Kenyatta traveled to London to lobby over the right to tribal lands.

Kenyatta did not get support from the British regarding the claims, but he remained in London and attended college there. It is documented that while studying in London’s Quaker College in Woodbroke, Kenyatta adored Haile Selassie so much so that he kept a red, green and gold Ethiopian flag in his room in England. During that period, they were already good friends, according to Murray-Brown.

Kenyatta would eventually become Kenya’s first president under independence. His health became poor when he suffered a heart attack. He ruled, however, as a leader open to reconciliation with the British and Asian settlers in the land. Kenyatta embraced a capitalist model of the government, although some experts write that he selfishly promoted those from his own circle and tribal line to positions of power. Still, Kenyatta was beloved by many, despite the rumblings that in his later years he had no control over government affairs due to his failing health.

Kenyatta died of natural causes, later succeeded by his Vice President Daniel Moi. Today, his son, Uhuru Kenyatta, is the current president of Kenya.

Calestous Juma was a Kenyan scientist and university scholar who primarily focused on sustainable development. He served as a Professor of the Practice of International Development and Director of the Science, Technology, and Globalization Project at the Harvard Kennedy School. Juma also served as the director for the Agricultural Innovation in Africa Project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He was born in Busia village on June 9, 1953 to John Kwada Juma and Clementina Nabwire and grew up in Port Victoria, Kenya. Juma attended Port Victoria Secondary School and later Egoji Teachers’ Training College in Kenya in 1974. After his certification, Juma taught science in Mombasa, Kenya, and wrote for the Daily Nation newspaper. In 1978, he became the first full-time environment and science correspondent for the newspaper.

In 1979, Juma became a researcher and editor for Environment Liaison Centre, an NGO based in Nairobi, Kenya. He then enrolled at the University of Sussex in England with a full scholarship 1982, receiving an MSc in Science, Technology and Industrialization in 1983 and a DPhil in Science and Technology Policy in 1987.

Juma is considered a revolutionary figure in scientific research; he advocated for the use of technology and innovation for development. Juma established Africa’s first science policy think tank African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS) in 1989. ACTS released a study called “Innovation and Sovereignty,” which helped with the creation of the first industrial property legislation in Kenya. At ACTS, he led a study called Economic Reform and Environment in Africa, which researched the connections between economic innovation, conservation management, and technological transformation in developing nations to further understand how socio-economic environments impact the integration of new technologies. This research was highlighted in some of his first works Long-Run Economics: An Evolutionary Approach to Economic Growth (London: Pinter, 1987) and The Gene Hunters: Biotechnology and the Scramble for Seeds (Princeton: Princeton University Press and Zed Books, 1989).

Juma moved to Montreal, Quebec Canada in 1995 to serve as the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity first executive director. However, he left shortly afterwards because he felt the UN agency placed too many limitations on Africa’s ability to crop genetically modified foods. In 1998, Juma moved to Harvard to continue his work. There he created a UN task force that developed ways in which the developing world can attain Millennium Development Goals through technology and science. In addition, Juma in 2005, served at the US National Academy of Sciences as the Global Challenges and Biotechnology chair, and in 2012 served as co-chair of the African Union High-Level Panel on Modern Biotechnology. One of Juma’s last works, before he passed, was Innovation and Its Enemies: Why People Resist New Technologies, published by Oxford University Press in 2016.

Calestous Juma died on December 15, 2017 in Boston, Massachusetts at the age of 54. He is survived by his wife Alison Field-Juma, and his son Eric Juma.

Zedekiah Lukoye, the Kenyan fashion designer and CEO of California-based Blkkburd Genes, has rendered an apology to the management of the Lamu Riyadha Mosque after they registered their displeasure over his T-shirt design bearing an image of the scared and historic monument.

The management of the mosque had earlier issued a statement accusing him of committing a sacrilegious act after legendary rapper Jay-Z was recently spotted wearing the T-shirt in question during an outing in California, nation.africa reported. The mosque also referred to another Facebook post in February that reportedly showed another man wearing a Riyadha Mosque T-shirt while performing at a bar and expanded on why Jay-Z even wearing it isn’t something for them to brag about.

“We don’t consider this an honour, nor a privilege, for the historical mosque and its Founder Habib Swaleh for its imagery to be portrayed in such a way,” the statement read. “Bars and clubs are an affront to the spiritual respect and dignity of the mosque, its founder, to the congregation, and the general Muslim community within and outside Lamu.

“We therefore politely request you to show respect for the mosque by removing our Mosque’s portrait on the shirt, to show us that you really do respect the people of Lamu and the Mosque,” the statement added.

Following the rebuke, Lukoye, in a letter to the management of the mosque, issued an apology explaining that he had no knowledge showcasing the mosque on the T-shirts will be deemed as unholy.

“In this respect, we are willing to make this right with you. We will make sure to remove all the inappropriate portrayal of Riyadha Mosque Lamu on our T-shirts,” he wrote, adding that he had also informed those who have the said shirts to respect the sanctity of the mosque as well as Muslims “by not wearing it in bars nor clubs if they happen to decide to wear it,” nation.africa reported.

Lukoye also explained the mosque wasn’t printed on the T-shirts to cause any controversy but was solely for educational purposes. “Since we only produced 20 T-shirts for some of our celebrity friends and family, we will not be reprinting this design,” he said.

Responding to the letter, the Secretary General of the Riyadha Mosque and Islamic Centre, Abubakar Badawy, said they had accepted his apology.

“We received the letter yesterday. The designer and the company have shown remorse and we don’t take that for granted. The apology has been accepted. We are looking forward to partnering with them to promote the good image of Lamu,” Badawy said.

Located on the historic island town of Lamu in Kenya, the Lamu Riyadha Mosque was constructed in 1892 and it is the oldest mosque in the East African nation, according to nation.africa. The sacred mosque was reportedly very instrumental in propagating the teachings of Islam across East and Central Africa. For its historical status, it was declared a national monument by the government of Kenya in 2018.

Easter is a period that people often look forward to with so much joy and planning. For the almost 70 million Christians that live in Africa, Easter symbolizes the resurrection of Jesus Christ after his crucifixion. The oldest Christian-claimed holiday is preceded by the season of Lent, a 40-day period of fasting and repentance, followed by a 50-day Easter season that stretches from Easter to Pentecost. What do Africans make of the season?

In 2013, a Kenyan lawyer sought to get justice for Jesus Christ, arguing that the trial and crucifixion of Jesus more than 2,000 years ago was unlawful. Dola Indidis, a former spokesperson of the Kenyan judiciary, petitioned the International Court of Justice (ICC), based at The Hague, to nullify Jesus’ conviction and death sentence.

He named defendants including Pontius Pilate, King Herod, the former Emperor of Rome, and the states of Israel and Italy in the lawsuit he filed with the ICC, Kenyan media reported. “I filed the case because it’s my duty to uphold the dignity of Jesus and I have gone to the ICJ to seek justice for the man from Nazareth,” Indidis told Standard Media. “His selective and malicious prosecution violated his human rights through judicial misconduct, abuse of office bias and prejudice.”

According to the New Testament, Jewish authorities arrested Jesus Christ on the charges of blasphemy after he had performed miracles and claimed to be the son of God. Jesus was brought to Pontius Pilate, then the Roman Governor of Judea. Pilate told the Jewish authorities that he did not have jurisdiction to hear the case and sent him to King Herod. Herod sent Jesus back to Pilate.

Jesus was found not guilty of any charges. However, crowds of Jews called for him to be executed, compelling Pilate to have him crucified together with two criminals.

Indidis’ case challenged the “mode of questioning used during Jesus’ trial; the punishments meted out to Him while proceedings were still underway; and the substance of the information used to convict him,” the Daily Mail reported.

He hoped the court would declare that “the proceedings before the Roman courts were a nullity in law for they did not conform to the rule of law at the material time and any time thereafter.”

“Some of those present spat in his face, struck him with their fists, slapped him, taunted him, and pronounced him worthy of death,” he said. Indidis further explained that he included modern-day states in the suit because they have previous ties to the Roman Empire. “The government for whom they acted still is answerable for their act,” Indidis told Kenya’s Citizen TV. “Pontius Pilate was acting under the government of Rome, which was headed by Caesar.”

“Evidence today is on record in the Bible, and you cannot discredit the Bible,” Indidis said.

The Kenyan lawyer believed he had a good case, highlighting the trial of Joan of Arc as evidence that there is precedent for his request. Joan of Arc was a peasant girl who was burned at the stake. The verdict in her case was reversed years after her death by a papal commission. “This is the same case with Jesus,” said Indidis. “The judge who sentenced him said that he had no jurisdiction to attend to the matter but he went ahead to convict and pass a capital sentence under duress.”

Legal experts argued that the Kenyan lawyer was fighting a losing battle as the ICJ, created to resolve disputes between states, has no jurisdiction over the matter. And that’s exactly what happened, according to media reports. Indidis had turned to the ICJ after a 2007 petition to a Nairobi court was dismissed.

Kenya’s Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o is the first writer to be nominated for the International Booker Prize as both writer and translator of the same book. He is also the first-ever nominee for a work originally written in an indigenous African language.

In the award’s 16-year history, Thiong’o has made history writing his epic novel, The Perfect Nine: The Epic of Gikuyu and Mumbi, and translating it from the original Bantu language, Gikuyu, into English.

The book, which tells the origin story of the Gikuyu clan, is a blend of folklore and mythology about the first man and woman created according to Kenyan legend.

Judges described the novel-in-verse as “a magisterial and poetic tale about women’s place in a society of gods,” according to The Guardian.

It talks about nine sisters and their quest to find a magical cure for their youngest sibling, who cannot walk.

Thiong’o is known for writing several books and for his unending fight for recognition and use of indigenous languages. His writing career dates to the 1960s. He is the author of many award-winning novels, plays, short stories, and essays including the “Wizard of the Crow”, “Weep Not, Child”, and “The River Between”.

For his work in literature, Thiong’o has been recognized all through his life with awards such as the Lotus Prize for Literature and National Book Critics Award, among others. He has also been conferred honorary degrees by different universities across the world. 

One of his first plays “Ngaahika Ndeenda”, a native Kenyan word for “I Will Marry When I Want”, set in post-independence Kenya in 1977, was banned by the then Kenyan government because of its thought-provoking plot, which authorities saw as a threat to the status quo.

His recognition has come from a repressive past, where he was imprisoned for more than a year at Kamiti Maximum Prison. Thiong’o fled to the United States with his family in 1978 to seek asylum because the then-government considered his writings treasonous.  

13 books were nominated for the Booker Prize this year from 12 countries and the books have been translated from 11 languages. The other African author to make the list is Senegalese-born David Diop, who was picked for his second novel, At Night All Blood is Black.

Diop’s book follows the experiences of two Senegalese soldiers fighting in World War I for the French. The judges described it as “like nothing else in terms of tone and power, it is a blinding revelation, an incantatory work of kinship and terror.”

Leparua, Isiolo County, Kenya – it takes three hours to snake downhill on a motorbike, skirting gingerly around mud puddles, but for Salome, it feels like days.

Riding side-saddle, she exhales sharply over each bump on the track and rubs her heavily pregnant belly protectively.

In the driver’s seat is traditional birth attendant, or TBA, Afro. He squints through the monsoon rainclouds, carefully inching the motorbike forward. His gaze remains fixed on the horizon until, at last, the hospital comes into view.

Deep in Kenya’s interior, health facilities are sparse, with some located up to 100 kilometres from the communities they service. For pregnant women like Salome, reaching it can be perilous, particularly during the rainy season, when dirt roads flood and bridges become submerged.

“I know many women who went into labour and started to walk to the hospital alone,” she says, slumping down on a plastic stool at the hospital entrance. “But it is too far to walk with labour pains, so they had to deliver the baby in a bush.”

Fortunately, Salome is in safe hands, thanks to birth attendant Afro and his motorbike, or piki-piki, as it is known locally.

As she goes in to register, Afro leans heavily on a curved crook outside, exhausted. He explains why traditional birth attendants continue to play a central role within the Masai’s tribal structure.

“It is a great honour for us to deliver the new members of our tribe. This role gives us status within our communities.”

But with the arrival of the motorbike, he says, the role of the traditional birth attendant may be changing.

“In the past, I had to deliver the baby at the woman’s home with no medical knowledge. When there were complications, there was nothing I could do. Now I can bring the mothers here on my piki-piki and take the tiny babies back home when they arrive. So, we still play a significant role.”

Unfortunately, many women in Kenya do not have access to the same level of medical care as Salome. According to the latest figures from the World Health Organisation, more than 6,300 women died in childbirth last year, one of the highest in East Africa. It is estimated that more than 800 of those deaths occurred in Isiolo County.

Traditional birth attendant Afro, Leparua, Isiolo County, Kenya, 2016 Photograph: Nicola Kelly

With long distances, poor infrastructure and no licenced medical professionals nearby, women in this part of the country have relied on TBAs for generations.

In 2005, Kenya’s Ministry of Health banned traditional midwifery practices, saying TBAs had adopted increasingly risky methods of delivery. They focused their investment instead on training and equipment.

Nurse Julia describes how the ban further entrenched high-risk practices in Masai culture. “Many TBAs felt abandoned at that time. They felt they had no choice, so they continue to use these natural remedies. For example, they take a part of a tree commonly found here, boil the root and give the liquid to the pregnant woman to encourage the uterus to contract.

“But many midwives give the mother too much of the liquid. Sometimes, the ladies overdose, start fainting during labour and even lose their babies. It is traditions like this that we must prevent.”

She points to a small plastic bag filled with blood on a tray nearby and explains that this had been extracted from a goat by another TBA to increase the haemoglobin levels of an 18-year-old mother.

“Clearly, she needed a blood transfusion, but the TBA saw no alternative,” she adds. “This is how tetanus, hepatitis B, HIV and many other infections are being spread.” Afro says that, while these traditions will endure, he encourages his fellow TBAs to integrate their practices with skilled medical care.

“We used to deliver the babies with no protective gloves, but a lot of birth attendants contracted HIV. Now we know that it is not safe to do this. We have agreed not to assist women at home anymore.”

International development agencies believe that providing funding for motorbikes as part of the Rural Transport Network scheme, rates of maternal mortality in Isiolo County will improve. “By giving motorbikes to rural communities, we can ensure emergencies are quickly referred for specialised obstetric care,” Samuel Nyutu, Health Programme Officer for Christian Aid in Kenya, says.

“They allow TBAs to reach areas it would be difficult for an ambulance to get to and they are easy and cheap to run.”

Alongside the health benefits for the mother, there are a number of other incentives for the traditional birth attendants. They receive a small stipend, protective clothing and some also undergo midwifery training, working alongside nurses like Julia.

Afro hopes that more vehicles will be supplied to TBAs in the surrounding villages to ensure women in rural areas make the arduous journey to their local health facility.

“I see that my motorbike has helped to save lives. It helps the mother and the baby – and it also helps me!” he says, patting the saddle of his piki-piki fondly.

Access to capital and insurance are some of the factors affecting not only peasant farmers but commercial farmers in Africa. A large majority of farmers in Africa still use hoe and cutlass and farm largely to feed their households and sell the surplus for cash.

This makes private capital injection into the sector unattractive. Aside from that, the sector remains unattractive to a large majority of educated African youths, despite the sector being the second-largest employer, after the services sector, in Africa.

In Ghana, the government launched an agriculture program called Planting for Food and Jobs to increase youth participation in agriculture through the provision of subsidized fertilizers and other incentives but the flow of rural folks to urban areas for jobs suggests the program is not achieving its intended purpose.

For rural farmers, part of the reasons for migrating to urban centers is to work menial jobs so as to accumulate some capital to serve as insurance for crop failure which could be occasioned by flood, poor weather conditions, among others.

The risks African farmers face have widely been documented but steps taken by African governments to assist them remain lackadaisical. An insurtech startup called Pula is providing small-scale farmers with assistance to help them mitigate hard farming conditions.

The company specializes in digital and agricultural insurance to derisk millions of smallholder farmers across Africa. It recently closed a Series A investment of $6 million led by Pan-African early-stage venture capital firm, TLcom Capital, with participation from nonprofit Women’s World Banking.

According to Techcrunch, the raise comes after Pula closed $1 million in seed investment from Rocher Participations with support from Accion Venture Lab, Omidyar Network and several angel investors in 2018.

The new financing will scale up operations in its existing 13 markets across Africa, where it has insured over 4.3 million farmers. They include Senegal, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique, Techcrunch reported.

Founded in 2015 by Rose Goslinga and Thomas Njeru, the Kenyan agricultural insurance company is now looking at expanding to Asia and Latin America. The startup has an average subscription of $4 for farmers in Africa.

“We are able to work in 13 countries not because we have insurance licenses in all these countries but because in every one of those countries there are insurance companies that are willing if enabled by a company like ours,” co-founder Goslinga told.

Pula’s expansion to Asia and Latin America will focus on countries such as Philippines, Thailand, Turkey, and Pakistan. “What we’ve realized is that African solutions are in no way inferior to Asian, European solutions,” said Goslinga.

In Nairobi, Kenya’s capital city, over 500,000 tonnes of plastic waste is recorded in a place with a little over four million inhabitants. The figure for waste produced across the entire country is reportedly in millions, monthly. This is largely so because of the throw-away culture many plastic users have adopted as plastics are not only easy to come by but are cheaper and convenient to use.

Several attempts to get rid of plastics in Kenya have been met by resistance not only by the producers but by consumers who find plastic bags convenient and easy to use compared to paper bags.

Kenya did ban the use of plastic bags and other plastic products in 2017 as its major cities struggled to deal with the debris they were engulfed in. It was a decision that divided public opinion but whose fruits have been undeniable some years on. But it is difficult to completely fall on alternatives when the production of such alternatives cannot meet demand.

The Kenyan government may have challenges in its effort to control plastic waste but some entrepreneurs in the East African nation are providing solutions, albeit on a small scale.

One of such persons is Nzambi Matee, the founder of Gjenge Makers. The firm specializes in converting plastic waste into building materials. The building blocks she makes from plastic wastes are reportedly five times stronger than cement blocks.

She told Reuters that her factory processes waste that facilities “cannot process anymore, they cannot recycle. “That is what we get.” The factory produces about 1,500 blocks daily, in different sizes and colors, which is more than what some cement factories produce in Kenya. These include paving stones, paving slabs, and manhole covers.

The factory’s products are made from plastic that was originally used for milk and shampoo bottles, cereal and sandwich bags, buckets, and ropes. Since opening, Matee tells Reuters her factory has processed over 20 tons of waste.

The plastic waste is mixed with sand, heated and then compressed into bricks, which are sold at varying prices, depending on thickness and colour. Their common grey bricks cost 850 Kenyan shillings ($7.70) per square metre, for example, according to Reuters. 

Matee decided to venture into a sector dominated by men after quitting her job as an engineer in Kenya’s oil industry. “I shut down my social life for a year, and put all my savings into this,” she said. “My friends were worried,” she said.

Her career path was also in protest of the failings of the Kenyan government in dealing with plastic waste. A materials engineer by training, she established her factory after developing a prototype of a machine that turns waste into blocks.

“It is absurd that we still have this problem of providing decent shelter – a basic human need,’ said Matee. ‘Plastic is a material that is misused and misunderstood. The potential is enormous, but it after life can be disastrous.”

The startup, which was founded in 2018, has so far employed some 110 people and hopes to add a much bigger manufacturing line that will triple her production capacity in the near future. She believes there is enormous potential in plastic waste

“It is absurd that we still have this problem of providing decent shelter – a basic human need,” said Matee, according to UNEP. “Plastic is a material that is misused and misunderstood. The potential is enormous, but it’s after life can be disastrous.”

In 2020, she emerged as one of the seven winners of the Young Earth Champions initiative instituted by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The award provides seed funding and mentorship to promising environmentalists as they tackle the world’s most pressing challenges.

Matee wants young Kenyans and others worldwide to tackle environmental challenges in their small ways. The negative effect of plastic on our environment is huge, says Matee. “It’s up to us to make this reality better. Start with whatever local solution you can find and be consistent with it. The results will be amazing.”

A notorious Kenyan poacher who was recently extradited to the United States from his home country pleaded not guilty to illegally trafficking elephant ivory and rhino horn when he appeared before a Manhattan federal court on Monday. The accused, 60-year-old Mansur Mohamed Surur, was arrested by local authorities in the Kenyan coastal city of Mombasa in July 2020.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, in a statement, said Surur was part of a “transnational criminal enterprise” that was based in Uganda and other neighboring countries and was responsible for illegally poaching and killing over 100 elephants and over 30 rhinos for their ivory and horns. Both animals are listed as endangered wildlife species. Surur and his group allegedly made approximately over $7 million from selling the contraband between 2012 and 2019.

During that period, Surur and his ring members conspired to transport, distribute, sell, and smuggle over 150 kilos of rhino horns and roughly 10 tons of elephant ivory to interested buyers in Manhattan as well as other countries in Southeast Asia. The contraband was allegedly obtained and transported from East African countries including Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guinea, Kenya, Mozambique, Senegal, and Tanzania. The syndicate allegedly hid the ivory and horns in art pieces including African masks and statues.

Prosecutors allege Surur and his co-conspirators received and deposited funds obtained from their foreign customers through “international wire transfers, some which were sent through U.S. financial institutions.”

Surur also faces additional charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute more than 10 kilograms of heroin, the statement said. He faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of the money laundering charge, while he is also looking at either a maximum life imprisonment sentence or a mandatory minimum 10-year prison sentence if found guilty of the heroin charge.

“Mansur Mohamed Surur is alleged to be a member of an international conspiracy to traffic in rhino horns, elephant ivory, and heroin.  The enterprise is allegedly responsible for the illegal slaughter of dozens of rhinos and more than 100 elephants, both endangered species,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said.

Two of his co-conspirators, a Liberian by name Moazu Kromah and Amara Cherif – a Guinean, are also in custody in the United States. The department said a third Kenyan suspect, Abdi Hussein Ahmed, remains at large.

Mubarak Muyika grew up with his aunt following the demise of his parents when he was only 11 years old. His dad was a civil servant who died when he was two years old while his mom was a high school teacher who passed away when was 11.

In high school, Muyika developed a passion for technology. While a student at Friends School Kamusinga, he won two awards in Kenya’s national science fair, the annual Kenya Students Congress on Science and Technology.

At age 16, Muyika ventured into entrepreneurship, focusing on technology. His first creation was “enhanced petrol tracker,” a tracking database to monitor mismanagement of oil resources by tracking oil tanker movement, oil flow and demand, according to Africa Middle East. His creation was well received and was duly recognized as the best student in the computer exhibit category at the annual Kenya Students Congress on Science and Technology.

He was spotted by one of Kenya’s richest men, Chris Kirubi, and offered a scholarship to study at Harvard, an offer he surprisingly turned town because he wanted to continue with his entrepreneurship drive.

He also built a functional website for a book publishing and distribution company owned by his guardians. He later taught himself PHP, Java and HTML which helped him to design an interactive website for the business.

In 2011, Muyika founded his own company known as Hype Century Technologies & Investments Ltd. The startup offered services such as web designing and web hosting in East Africa with a market focus on Small to Medium size businesses. In the following year, Muyika received the Anzisha Prize for young entrepreneurs for his work in Hype Century.

The success of his startup began attracting the attention of international investors. One of such investors was Jignesh Patel, who invested in his growing business with a 25% stake. In 2013, Muyika sold his 60 percent stake in the company in a deal that made him a millionaire at only 19. By the time he left the company in May, it had 14 employees handling about 1,800 domains.

“By May after our first financial year, we had about 1,800 domains which represented clients in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, South Sudan and some in the RC (Republic of the Congo). That was something that I can say is the biggest achievement, in terms of where the company is today,” Muyika spoke about Hype Century’s success.

After relinquishing his stake in Hype Century, he launched a new venture called Zagace. It is an online business management toolkit for small and medium-sized companies. It has Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) capabilities, enabling its users to manage their inventory, accounting, human resources, and communications through a series of integrated apps.

In 2015, Muyika was featured on Forbes Africa’s 30 Under 30 as one of the most promising young entrepreneurs from Africa. ‘‘Mr Muyika is enterprising and focused, I recommended him to Havard University but noticed that entrepreneurship came first and he had no obligation to pursue the course,” said Kenyan businessman Kirubi.

Youth Vox Pop Africa! 🇬🇭🇬🇭🇬🇭🇬🇭🇬🇭 We take to the streets of Ghana and ask the general public what the Capital of Kenya is! Presented by Melissa May and Maya.