₦airaland Forum

I saw this article and surprised by its erroneous assumptions and misrepresentation regarding Nairobi. Nairobi is a City of 4.3 million people. The notion that Kibera is the largest slum in Africa is a media and NGO created fallacy and fundraising strategy. Kibera is a slum that is less than 2 km across with 160,000 inhabitants according to the last population census. No where near slums like Alexandra, Orangefarm and Kyayelitsha, Cape Flats, Inanda, Tembisa etc in South Africa. The other smaller informal settlements in Nairobi e.g. Mathare, Kwamaiko etc have a combined population of less than 100,000. The Eastern part of Nairobi has quite a number of neighborhoods that are densely populated e.g. Huruma, Dandora, Kariobangi, Kayole, Zimmerman, Githurai etc. These are not slums however neither are they informal settlements but largely dwellings of lower income working class with apartments owned by rich local landlords. These neighborhoods are hubs for small businesses and trade and some are literally 24 hours awake. Its quite erroneous hence to claim that majority of the 4.3million Nairobi inhabitants live in slum. I think Mr. anengiyefa should do himself a favor and visit Nairobi and see for himself a genuinely African built economy and city.

The idea that Nairobi was built from scratch by colonialist is completely erroneous. The pre-independence Nairobi was a collection of few government buildings and hotels (Norfolk, the stanley and Ambassador) and hundreds of indian shops a complete contrast to the Nairobi today. Most of Nairobi CBD skyline has been constructed in the last 40 years of independence. Infact by 1969 Nairobi was seen as one of the best planned city in the Southern Hemisphere with city authorities from as far as Singapore visiting Nairobi for learning purposes. Then for your information whites and asians are less than 1% of the population of Kenya. Post independence Nairobi has been built by locally owned and driven initiatives and plans with most of the skyscrappers coming up in the last 30 years. For your information also, majority of buildings in Nairobi are owned by local businesses and individuals mostly prominent politicians and businessmen as well as the state.
The following link has very good photos of Nairobi in the 60s and just before independence: http://www.mccrow.org.uk/EastAfrica/Kenya/Kenya.htm. Post independence Nairobi skyline is well documented and you can easily google. Note that Nairobi is the only African Country in the top 10 most intelligent cities in the world for two years consecutively. Mr. anengiyefa kindly visit Nairobi and show us those large white/rich asian owned parts of Nairobi.

anengiyefa:
whoever posted these pics has conveniently avoided parts of Nairobi where the majority of the native Kenyan population live.
Here is a sample
blog.buildllc.com/2008/02/12/dwelling-scapes/
No doubt Nairobi is beautiful. A naturally beautiful landscape enhances its beauty. But this is not a traditional African settlement in the way that many Nigerian cities are. Nairobi was built from scratch by the colonialists. The nice parts of town were reserved exclusively for whites and rich Asians, and blacks were relegated to shabby dwellings in the slums. Kibera is Africa's largest slum, and it is in Nairobi, Kenya. More than 70% of the African inhabitants of Nairobi live in slum dwellings. Somebody should please post pictures of Abuja which is an entirely Nigerian built city and lets stop this nonsense.