Ndiho Media

By Paul Ndiho

June 8, 2012

Sir Gordon Wavamunno is one of Uganda’s most prominent entrepreneurs. Born in Rugaaga, a rural village in South Western Uganda, he now has a personal fortune estimated at over fifty million dollars with companies in a wide variety of pursuits, including media, transportation, tourism, farming, trade; manufacturing, real estate – property development, and motor vehicle distribution.  His ability to succeed, despite repeated hardships is remarkable.

Gordon Wavamunno is probably one of Uganda’s best-known and most successful businessman, – and a key player in the country’s economy.

This year, Queen Elizabeth II bestowed a knighthood, the United Kingdom’s highest honor on Sir Gordon, recognizing him for his contributions to society and international relations.

From an early age, Wavamunno knew he wanted to be a businessman. After joining his father’s trade business, he worked as a cashier and traded agricultural produce.

He quickly saved enough money from that enterprise to establish a dry cleaning business, bought a car and started a car rental and driving school business in Mbarara, Western Uganda.

A couple years later, he expanded the business to Kampala. From there, with two partners he opened Uganda Peoples Transport and Taxi Service Limited, and eventually left it to form his own company “Spear Group” and obtained a Daimler Mercedes dealership to sell its products.

Gordon Wavamunno’s story closely mirrors the fortunes of post-independence Uganda – During the turbulent years of General Idi Amin’s regime, and the early 1980s under President Milton Obote, his efforts were almost completely destroyed. He was thrown in jail twice; his business was vandalized and looted beyond repair.  He survived, started over and reclaimed his fortunes.

He persuaded Daimler Mercedes to retain him as Uganda’s sole dealer. And founded and built the now multi-million dollar, Spear Group of enterprises; consisting of Spear Motors Limited, which sells Mercedes Benz, and other brands.

Over the years, he has moved into other businesses including, WAVA textiles and clothing, state of the art WAVA Fancy furniture, WAVA Ostrich and Horse farming, WAVA bottled water, and more.

Wavamunno continues building his rapidly expanding portfolio, Wavamunno Broadcasting services or WBS Television is an affiliate of Voice of America’s to TV- Africa. The station is one of the leading privately owned media operations in the Country.

The self-made businessman has won the Ugandan Businessman of the Year award seven times. And despite leaving school at a young age, he has honorary degrees from Makerere University, the nation’s oldest premier institute of higher learning and Nkumba University, where he serves as the chancellor.

Beside his business skills, Wavamunno has never turned his back on the less fortunate. His company Spear Motors Limited has donated beds to Katalemwa, a home for the disabled children. He has also donated other materials to schools. And worked with St. John’s Ambulance in Uganda and regularly contributes to the building of schools, hospitals and places of worship in Uganda.

As if this were enough, He is also a diplomat in his own right. For example, he represents the interests of the republic of Hungary in Uganda.

As the saying goes, behind every great man is an even greater woman. Wavamunno married Morine in 1974.  The Wavamunno’ s live comfortably in the Munyooyo suburbs of Kampala; in the multi-million dollar home they call Cape Villa, on the shores of Lake Victoria.  They are often photographed attending public outings. Wavamunno attributes his business success largely to his wife.  He says, “Morine is not just my wife, the mother of my children but someone who has become my chief business advisor and confidante. He credits her with challenging him to venture into many now successful businesses including textiles.

Wavamunno Broadcasting Services, the leading indigenous television station in the country has curried live VOA’S Flagship Television Talk show Straight Talk Africa since 2000.

Mr.  Wavamunno does have his critics in Uganda; some say that he has attained his success at the expenses of the smaller businesses that have no access to his kind of capital or political connections.

By Paul Ndiho

June 4, 2012

Nollywood films are growing in popularity in Africa, because they often touch on issues that many people across the continent can identify with.  Now, an online distribution company is sending the movies into the homes of Africans, cutting out a notorious layer of pirates. 

UK based iRoko TV, dubbed the “Netflix of Africa”, and is the continent’s leading online subscription and distribution service for TV and Nigerian movies.  The platform streams content directly to avid consumers in amazing high-definition quality.

31-year old Nigerian-born Jason Njoku, the founder and CEO of i-Roko TV, says the idea came to him when he realized his family and friends in London had an insatiable appetite for Nollywood films, but were always struggling to get the latest releases.

“Being that I lived with mom again, I was going to aunties and uncle’s houses and friends and families in the Nigerian community in London. And they were all watching this similar type of movies. I was just — how have I missed this huge movement, huge phenomenon in Nigerian cinema and i am a media guy? So i task myself which is to find out more about the industry.”

Since January, iRoko TV has recorded about three-thousand titles and signed-up over 100-thousand subscribers.  The films are currently distributed for free because revenue is made from advertising, but, starting in June, subscribers will have to pay for the service.

Nollywood films are often tales of cannibalism, witchcraft and weeping girlfriends who put curses on their errant boyfriends – but Nigeria’s nearly one-billion dollar film industry is Africa’s biggest after India’s Bollywood and America’s Hollywood.

Njoku says iRoko’s wide-ranging viewership spans from Africa– to the diaspora, with the largest markets being in the united states, the U.K., Canada, Germany and Italy, mostly because of the high-broadband penetration.

“Production values are probably not as high as what people would expect in the west, but it’s not really about the production value it’s about the stories. Why people who have access to everything in the west are going on to a computer and watch Nollywood movies? It’s because they connect to it somehow and that’s where the story comes in, that’s where the cost comes in, that’s where the actors and actresses come in.”

Njoku says Nollywood churns out about 50 low-budget films a week.  To find the movies for distribution, he had to move back home and physically find the production houses, many of which did not have offices and were often a setup of one man and his cellphone.

Producers eventually got acquainted with the idea– and now they call him.  But, piracy is rampant, and producers lose out on huge amounts of revenue from the illegal sale of their copyrighted films and music.

Njoku says with better internet penetration in Africa, where millions of fans still rely on DVD’s that are often illegal copies, the market is set to grow tremendously in the next five years.

“In London, we have more viewers in London than we do have in the whole of Nigeria. But when you think, how many Nigerians Africans are even in London compared to the 150 million or so in Nigeria? So once the broadband penetration improves then we expect to see a massive surge in sort of interest in Africa. So my prediction is by five years’ time we’re talking about an African business as opposed to being a western one.

Award-winning filmmaker, Okechukwu Ogunjiofor, often referred to as the “father of Nollywood”, says iRoko TV is creating a new avenue for films to be seen, and in turn, eliminating piracy and making sure film revenues go to the right people.

“What iRoko is doing is going to help our industry but, the only challenge i foresee which i am not praying for it to happen, typical of Nigerian industries, there is always this ingenuity in us Africans, especially Nigerian to circumvent whatever someone has created and he thinks is full proof,” he said.

While some of Africa’s expertly trained filmmakers disdain Nigeria’s commercial approach, others believe it is filling a gap which will bring dividends in the long run.

IRoko TV employs 100 people on three continents and recently 8 million dollars of funding through the U.S.-based investment manager, tiger global.

“… A great thing is that as long as our viewers love what we’re doing, and then we’re going to be okay as a company,”

About one-thousand movies are produced in Nollywood each year – most are in local languages – Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo, while English accounts for more than 40 percent of the films produced.

By Paul Ndiho

June 4, 2012

The slopes of Tanzania’s Mount Kilimanjaro play an important role in the nation’s socio-economics and ecology.  The mountain is a contributor to agriculture, forestry and eco-tourism.  Now, the government is teaming up with the United Nations food and agriculture organization, to access the forest’s carbon pools.

Field workers from Tanzania’s national forestry assessment project or naforma– have arrived to take tree measurements and soil samples near Mount Kilimanjaro in northern Tanzania.  The team is collecting information on the number, size and quality of the trees as well as assessing the forests so-called carbon pools– one of which is soil.  Forest soils are a massive carbon stock.  The deforestation process releases carbon from the soil, significantly increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

“Soil stores two to three times as much as living plants, so it it’s really important.  And the problem is that we don’t know yet how this carbon stored in the soil can be released to the atmosphere if the land use for example changes from forestry to agriculture.   And this is one of the questions that the naforma soil survey tries to address.”

Soil samples are brought to this laboratory where they are analyzed to establish the carbon content.

“Now we know we have some areas which are highly fertile, and those need to have some ways of conserving it so that we can maintain the carbon stocks in those areas.”

Farmers on the slopes of Kilimanjaro have been developing their own form of climate smart agro-forestry for centuries.

The principal crops are coffee and bananas grown under a canopy of trees. While farming is intensive, the farmers conserve water and recycle all organic matter to ensure their methods are sustainable.

Scientists say, if Tanzania can successfully sustain and even increase its carbon stocks it stands to gain from the United Nations initiative to reduce carbon emissions through deforestation and degradation – also known as red – which aims to reward developing countries who can demonstrate a reduction in their carbon emissions.

“The main aim of the red initiative is to try capturing the excessive carbon within the atmosphere to the forest. We will come out with the change of how much carbon has been added from the atmosphere to our forest stores and how much we should then be paid for that storage.  You see red will pay for the additional carbon.”

The soil survey being carried out here is one of the most extensive efforts undertaken in tropical forests to gather more information on the role of soils in climate change.

If that can be understood, it will provide not only Tanzania but also other tropical nations with the information they need to sustainably manage their forest resources, allowing them to better provide for their growing populations and reduce their carbon emissions.