STOP exploiting innovators...Kano Plains Jane Adika's Story...

Today, I revisit some of the seven greatest ills Indian statesman Mahatma Gandhi spoke about; commerce without morality and knowledge without character. Let’s call it core capitalism in a society that is slowly but steadily degenerating into a theatre of the absurd where extreme greed has subjugated national conscience.

In such a scenario, state institutions tasked with safeguarding rights of both the producer and consumer have proved too tepid. To them, words such as alacrity and service to the nation exist only in a dictionary as traders turn into economic piranhas devouring any slightest opportunity to its carcass morally or otherwise while ignoring even the most basic ethics that rule any social set up including corporate social responsibility.

Ignorant producers are subjected to sharp fangs of profiteers who make optimal use of their situations and toil to make mega bucks from gullible consumers. Remember that overnight celebrity, Jane Adika, the sonorous voiced woman whose cries for help while marooned by floods from River Nyando in the bowels of Kano plains in Kisumu tore many hearts?

Yes, the trapped and desperate woman moved the nation to tears with her famous cry Serikali tafadhali, naomba unisaidie. Hata watoto yangu sijaona, hata bwana yangu sijui alilawapi (I plead with the government to come to my rescue. I do not know where my children and husband are or where they slept) - a signature tune that has come to signify helpless cries of Nyando people each time the rains come.

Transmuted by 15 minutes of fame, Adika became an overnight national “sweetheart” dominating discussions in bars, streets, taxis, churches, offices and schools and even social media sites. But, that is where the rain started beating the woman whose misery was marked by serendipity for some scrupulous ringtone vendors, club deejays and mobile telephone service providers who quickly annexed the painful pleas, converted them into ringtone and started milking the cow dry without seeking Adika’s consent or giving her a single bite of the cherry.

This is immoral and cupidity at its worst. It’s unfair. Where is their conscience? How come musicians, comedians or any artist whose voice is used by the phone service providers get financial rewards? Why was Adika’s case different? Was it an iconic case of ignorance being the gift that keeps giving? That being the case, does it mean we are a nation of fraudsters who will even trade a brother or a sister for a bowl of soup?

Today, Adika’s voice is virtually ubiquitous in every ringtone and as you ride in any public transport in major towns, there is every likelihood the phone ringing next to you will have Adika’s anguished plea for help tune—Serikali tafadhali…(government, please…) Interesting is the deafening silence of the ever nosy and noisy consumer rights lobby groups, civil societies or even intellectual property law experts in this broad daylight robbery-with-silence, greater than any fraud in our intellectual property history, I am even thinking this should be a  declared crime against humanity. Are we as a society too timid or just inconsistent and have become winds fanning the flame of impunity?

Do we see evil perpetuated by heartless economic vultures against a voiceless hapless Kenyan and sit back to fatten it by buying the “blood” ringtone? A disturbing food for thought! However, injustice anywhere is an eternal threat to justice everywhere. Even as we pray for these economic saboteurs to compensate Adika, these telcos reminds me of Charles Taylor who sold blood diamonds from Sierra Leone or even the rebels who sell blood minerals from Congo.

Where are those Janus-faced institutions that arrested Kenyans for “illegally” selling TV captions of Westgate? Why can’t they arrest these ringtone hawkers for making a kill out of Adika’s voice, why won’t these intellectual property thieves be made to pay? Or like painting Icon Van Gogh deftly noted; “nobody recognises your genius till you die”, maybe the phone firms will pay sadly after Adika is gone. Shame on Kenyan middle class who saw this injustice but ignored. Adika could be you tomorrow; it could be me as she personifies that lowly person trampled upon by tricksters and capitalist piranhas.

Adapted from www.thepeople.co.ke