This was a class with students from 42 countries, pursuing a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree. Of all the people there, one Nelson Amenya was chosen to give the graduation speech on behalf of the class.
Mr Amenya, a famous whistle-blower known for exposing an airport leasing deal last year, stood up to speak as his class applauded.
“My name is Nelson Amenya, a proud Kenyan,” he said, attracting more cheers.
That was on June 14 when he obtained his MBA from École des Hautes Études Commerciales de Paris (HEC Paris), an entrepreneurship university.
In the valedictory speech he gave, he mentioned the Adani deal he exposed and asked listeners to endeavour to be something greater than themselves.
“I never imagined that a decision I made between classes would have such a far-reaching impact not just in Kenya, but globally. I also never imagined the price I would pay: Threats to my life, police intimidation, defamation lawsuits, and not being able to return home,” he told the gathering. “But if I’ve learnt anything, it’s that nothing worthwhile comes risk-free. Courage is never convenient.”
When he spoke with Nation in an online call 16 days after his graduation, Mr Amenya was still feeling flattered to have been the valedictorian of his class.
“That was a big day,” he said. “I had been preparing for it since February.”
What’s more, before he gave the valedictory speech, the university gave him a leadership award.
“On the morning before the commencement ceremony, we received our leadership awards from our dean,” he said. “That was really big because it’s the students who nominate people. Your own classmates nominate you to receive the award. That shows you that even my own classmates were inspired by what I did with the Adani exposé.”
For starters, Mr Amenya was the first to reveal explicit details of how President William Ruto’s government planned to lease the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) to the Adani Group, a firm headed by Indian billionaire Gautam Adani. This led to protests organised under the hashtag #OccupyJKIA and a later cancellation of the Adani deals by the President.
Said Mr Amenya in his valedictory: “Social media buzzed, radio shows, TV panels, and even Parliament were all consumed by the story. The pressure became too loud to ignore and in the end, the President cancelled not only the airport deal, but also the power transmission contract involving the same multinational.”
In his interview with Nation Lifestyle, Mr Amenya reiterated his previous assertion that he will not be returning to Kenya after his graduation.
“I’m planning to stick around in Paris in the meantime because I have received a lot of support from different stakeholders in Paris. And I feel like I am more safe here. You can see what is happening in Kenya. People are being abducted for very small offences like just posting a small tweet that is ‘spoiling’ the name of a police officer. Sometimes some people are just arrested for posting very simple things, and you wonder: ‘What about I who posted about Adani and all these healthcare scandals that have eventually caught up with them?’” he posed.
“My offence is not as small as just a small tweet. So, definitely, I don’t want to risk it and come back. I’ll stay around in Paris and in the meantime, I will create my career around here. I will try to, obviously, be very vocal online because now, with the Internet, you don’t need to be physically there for you to create impact,” added Mr Amenya.
“So, you will continue seeing me in Paris. I will not come back to Kenya for the meantime, but I hope to come back soon. It’s my country and I believe that it’s we who will change it. Nobody else will come to change our country. We have to fight even if we are away.”
Currently, Mr Amenya is handling consultancy assignments with various companies. One of the companies has tasked him with mentoring start-ups while another is a UK-based healthcare company that has engaged him on market research.
While doing that, he is thinking hard on how he can start a fund for companies involved in civic engagements. Innovators like those who created systems that break down the Finance Bill for easy understanding, or who made platforms where names of those killed, injured or abducted are recorded, deserve support in Mr Amenya’s view.
“I feel like there is a big gap because most of the funding is going to fintech, agri-tech, and edu-tech, but nobody is really paying attention to civic-tech. My idea is to raise funds and come up with the funds for civic-tech and then try to nurture these innovations from Kenya because we can all see that the democratic space is shrinking pretty fast, and this is among the ways we can push back,” he said.
Mr Amenya studied communication and advertising at Moi University, graduating in 2017. He believes that his undergraduate specialty plus his MBA are complementary.
“Most business leaders do not have the marketing or advertising strength, but I have it,” he said.
Recognised by the NewAfrican magazine as one of the most influential Africans for 2024, Mr Amenya was introduced at the valedictory as “an award-winning whistle-blower, strategy and innovation consultant, start-up mentor and newspaper columnist”.
After exposing the Adani deal last year, he has had many people reach out to him to expose one thing or another, and he says he has learnt to do due diligence before making a post.
“Everybody has their own motives for the information they’re trying to give you,” he said, noting that there are questions he asks himself before going public with a matter.
“I always ask for a second opinion. I will try and look for someone else who is independent and who knows about the deal or who knows about whatever information has been given, so I can double-check with them to see if whatever I’ve been told is real or it’s been twisted. Sometimes if I don’t have this kind of information, I will not post the information as an exposé. I will just post it as something that I received and I will say, ‘I am not sure about it, but you guys can help to decipher the truth,’” said Mr Amenya.
What usually follows such posts, he said, is feedback that leads to where the truth is.
“Fact-checking is instant. So, if I post something and it’s wrong, I will be fact-checked on the spot,” he said, marvelling at the power of open-source intelligence (Osint).
“I believe that Osint has a big role to play in fact-checking, and sometimes if you just do it by yourself, you will not go anywhere. But if you put it out there for people to outsource intelligence for you, it will be very quick to understand the facts. This is what I’ve learnt in the one year since I exposed Adani,” said Mr Amenya.
As he monitors every major development in Kenya from Paris, determined to expose any fishy dealings, Mr Amenya is banking on the power of the Internet to change his motherland.
“I know that even while I’m in Paris, I can create a much bigger impact than ever, stepping in Kenya, just because of the Internet. And maybe that’s why the government is so scared when people post online,” he said.
