AFRICA REVOLUTION SERIES part 1: What Bricks, Mortar, Yams And Cellphones Have To Do With It

A view of part of Naalya: This was bush a few years ago -the bricks have swallowed up revolutionary zeal (Charles Obbo photo)

THIS is a FOUR-part story about the Arab Spring that toppled dictators Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt in early 2011, and if/when/how it will arrive in the rest of Africa.
I found I could not begin to get my head around that question until I understood the role bricks, mortar, yams and cellphones are playing in shaping revolution and the advance – and often regression – of democracy in this fast-changing Africa.
So let’s begin with now Nairobi, which I used to visit as a young man many years ago. It was a hip city. But when I finally came from Kampala to live here in 2003 and started travelling around, I was shocked by how  errr… backward, the place had become. I was used to seeing cities go to seed because of war. Nairobi was the first one that went to rot through incompetent rule—by an “elected” government of former president Daniel arap Moi.
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