Award winning Kenyan author Binyavanga Wainaina has gone on a no holds barred twitter rant against the country’s biggest mobile service provider Safaricom accusing it of abusing its position as a virtual monopoly. In a tirade sprinkled with some unprintable words of the F-word variety, the celebrated author of the memoir One Day I Will Write About This Place lambasted Safaricom for making billions in profit while caring little for its customers.
Basicaly @SafaricomLtd model works more like cocaine and 10 percent tithe churches. It must have all u have and explain nothing
— Binyavanga Wainaina (@BinyavangaW) April 26, 2015
It jas become impossible for @SafaricomLtd to tell u what value u r buying. Only u r enslaved by a monopoly — Binyavanga Wainaina (@BinyavangaW) April 26, 2015
So @SafaricomLtd busines model has preferred behave sonkoish and take vrything & leave u no room to plan or budget — Binyavanga Wainaina (@BinyavangaW) April 26, 2015
And the safaricom monopoly cannt be xhallenged by fact even. — Binyavanga Wainaina (@BinyavangaW) April 26, 2015
The author seemed particularly aggrieved by how the mobile service provider runs its services suggesting that they could be more transparent.
LOL! @BinyavangaW is setting Safaricom house on fire, even with the heavy rain the Safaricom twin towers is still flammable. — Tony Watima (@Watimz) April 26, 2015
Binyavanga is reading Safaricom for filth! Go ‘head @BinyavangaW — safia aidid (@SafiaA) April 26, 2015
A fair few Kenyans agreed with Binyavanga that Safaricom is shortchanging its customers.
LOL! @BinyavangaW is setting Safaricom house on fire, even with the heavy rain the Safaricom twin towers is still flammable.
— Tony Watima (@Watimz) April 26, 2015
Binyavanga is reading Safaricom for filth! Go ‘head @BinyavangaW
— safia aidid (@SafiaA) April 26, 2015
The author also gave social justice advocates like Boniface Mwangi and Patrick Gathara some grief for apparently being soft on Safaricom.
Valid points by @BinyavangaW on activists going soft on donors or bffs. Compared to MPs, Collymores and WMutungas get soft gloves treatment
— Amos Odero (@OderoGogni) April 26, 2015
Akina @gathara interrogate veything but safcom is like jesus it works 4 social justice and cannot be interrogated
— Binyavanga Wainaina (@BinyavangaW) April 26, 2015
Binyavanga also twitted of his own brush with Safaricom’s influence machine. Tucked in between his twitter rant is a revealing tweet that shows the lengths Safaricom will go to buy influence. Bob Collymore’s predecessor at Safaricom Michael Joseph apparently once offered him half a million shillings to write a puff piece for Safaricom in Kwani magazine.
I got 500k for kwani 1 from safcom to do drum mag style feature after a 5minute meeting with bob collymore predeceder
— Binyavanga Wainaina (@BinyavangaW) April 26, 2015
If you’re still in doubt about how Bunyavanga feels about Safaricom, here’s a video of him setting his Safaricom model aflame.
Convinced yet?
