Every night, Madame Zingara, a Belgian tent of mirrors with spellbinding circus acts and dazzling dramatic performances, enthrals audiences with a three-course dinner to seal the night. A creation by Richard Griffin nearly 15 years ago, it has had its fair share of glory, but some rainy days as well.
Having been raised by staunch Christian parents, Griffin ran away from home at 13 and found another home in hospitality.
Although he didn’t know it at the time, this would launch what is today known as Madame Zingara’s Theatre of Dreams, an entertainment tent traveling around the country for months on end showcasing acrobatic talent and singing from acts cast from across the world.
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When he ran away, Griffin worked in a kitchen as a dishwasher, he would watch how chefs prepared their most delectable meals and fell in love with the idea of doing it himself. As he grew up and travelled the world, Griffin started cooking in numerous restaurants. But, after spending years in the hospitality industry, he developed a deep desire to create something unique, a place that could boast excellence and culture, while keeping its staff happy and allowing them to be themselves.
“I fell in love with hospitality, there was something about it. The ability to make people happy was the driving force behind what I did. After 20 years of cooking, I was very lucky to step into a career of entertainment, but I had never left food behind me,” says Griffin.
And that’s where he is today, with Madame Zingara. But the journey was a tumultuous one.
Griffin first founded an 80-seater restaurant &#8211; the original Madame Zingara in Cape Town &#8211; back in 2001. It was an outlet for Griffin’s self-confessed love of excess. The restaurant had 13 themed dining rooms which paid tribute to the character of Madame Zingara.
The restaurant was a hit with local and international guests. While on holiday in Ireland in 2006, Griffin stumbled upon the Spiegeltent, a large traveling tent, at the Cork Festival and fell in love with it. He then began negotiations to bring the tent to South Africa.
Back in Cape Town, Madame Zingara grew to a 350-seater restaurant, then eventually taking over two entire buildings and increasing its staff to 100.
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While this was happening in the background, nothing could have prepared him for what happened following months of renovations and pre-booked reservations to the restaurant. Madame Zingara was gutted by fire, destroying it from one corner to another. Everything was lost. The cause? A suspected electrical fault.
“It was a dark moment in my life. Hospitality is my blood. It’s what drives me,” he says.
He had to find a temporary location to raise his business from the ashes and this is when the Madame Zingara’s Theatre of Dreams, a burlesque dinner show in the Spiegeltent, became a possibility. The 96-year-old mirror tent, called Victoria, is the largest and one of the last remaining antique mirror marquees out of the 17 left in the world.
In 2007, after months of preparation and planning, Griffin launched Madame Zingara’s first production, Aphrodisia, in Cape Town.
It became an instant hit and things were starting to look up. The fire disaster was becoming a distant memory in Griffin’s mind. Aphrodisia spent the next few months touring around the country, before it was invited to take the production to England.
But disaster struck again. The company that had agreed to set up Madame Zingara in London pulled out following the global financial crisis in 2009, leaving Griffin with a $1.6-million bill. It forced the business into liquidation.
Griffin was left out in the cold again.
“We have gone through so much. It was the most traumatic thing on earth losing everything. For me the heart-breaking side is the voice of the people, the public’s perception of what happened and it’s not based on any form of truth. I took three months off. I went home and developed a terrible panic disorder,” says Griffin.
The 41 year old couldn’t pay bills, his staff nor pay back all those who had invested in him. Others might have thrown in the towel, he didn’t.
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Following his experiences, he thought nothing else could get him down. He had to raise Madame Zingara from the ashes.
The brand was the only thing that remained after the liquidation.
Luckily for him, a friend who had worked with him in the kitchen persuaded Griffin to start cooking again. A random act of kindness that got him back on his feet doing what he loved most. He had a strong brand in Madame Zingara and the backing of loyal employees and shareholders.
“I started with Bombay Bicycle Club, a gift from Dr Charles and I gave it away to the people that I worked with and had lost all that money with me,” says Griffin.
The restaurant was under the Madame Zingara Holdings. Following its success, he opened a sister restaurant called Sidewalk Café nearly four months after opening Bombay Bicycle Club.
Once this was up and running, the shareholders told Griffin to start thinking of resurrecting the Theatre of Dreams. He agreed to a three-year contract as managing director where he would build the business back up.
“Pain is the birthplace of creativity. When we live the life of extremes, that is when we push ourselves to new boundaries and experiences, which is really what Madame Zingara is about for me,” says Griffin.
The three years lapsed and Madame Zingara is still standing, selling to sold-out audiences around the country. Griffin managed to repay all the creditors and build a brand synonymous with extravagant and entertaining dining. He has about 400 staff, six restaurants and is entertaining almost 2,000 customers a day.
For now, Griffin is planning Madame Zingara’s 15-year celebrations in 2015 with a bigger tent, astonishing acts and dinner that will keep your mouth watering.

‘It Was The Most Traumatic Thing On Earth Losing Everything’

“Roho Mzungu,” shrieks a group of barefoot children in prayer caps as they run past a mildewed wanted poster, crudely plastered onto an ancient narrow lane on Mombasa Island. Translated from Swahili, the youngsters’ cries simply mean: White Ghost. It has become the latest moniker for perhaps the most unlikely international terrorist of our generation.
I am back in Mombasa after an absence of two years and there is still only one name on the lips of local people. Today, in the schools and playgrounds of coastal Kenya, a region that once welcomed a million tourists every year, a flame-haired British housewife plagues the nightmares of local children. To the local media she is also known as the White Widow and her name is whispered in fear in churches and teeming coastal markets.
<div id="attachment_3029" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-3029" class="size-medium wp-image-3029" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/NM_00001208-1-300x201.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="201" />NAIROBI, KENYA &#8211; SEPTEMBER 23: Heavy smoke is seen from the site of the terrorist attack, Westgate Mall, on September 23, 2013 in Nairobi, Kenya. The attack occurred on Saturday, 10-15 gunmen from the extremist group Al-Shabab entered the mall and opened fire at random on shoppers; 68 deaths have been confirmed. (Photo by Gallo Images / Nation Media / Salaton Njau)</div>
Thirty-one-year-old Samantha Lewthwaite, a white Muslim convert and the fanatical widow of Jermaine Lindsay, the 7/7 bomber who killed 26 people when he blew up a Piccadilly Line Tube train near London’s King’s Cross in 2005, remains at large in East Africa today, known to be in possession of significant quantities of explosives, cash, ammunition and a zeal so deeply entrenched her name is whispered in Al-Shabaab training camps with some reverence.
Kenya has been a primary target for Al-Shabab fighters ever since Nairobi sent thousands of troops to fight in Somalia. The Africa Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) has used troops from various African countries to fight the militants since 2007, but Kenya’s ramped-up involvement since October 2011, has been instrumental in pushing Al-Shabaab out of its most important strongholds, including Mogadishu and the port town of Kismayo.
The enduring role of a British housewife at the core of East Africa’s terror shows how complex the task of combatting the growth of attacks is. As we approach the anniversary of the Westgate Mall attack, global terrorist related deaths have leaped by almost one third as the world enters a deadly new phase in the cycle of violence.
Data compiled by Maplecroft, a British risk consultancy, found that over the last 12 months, global deaths have risen 30% compared to the previous five-year average. Africa, as a continent, has been among the hardest hit. With terrorism incidents in Libya doubling in the last year, violence is having a toxic impact on its economy, especially its oil sector, while attacks in Egypt have hit its tourism industry and of course Kenya, which has been hit by increasing attacks.
For Kenya in particular, there is arguably more to lose from adverse publicity. According to Maplecroft, June represented Kenya’s bloodiest month since the Westgate shopping mall attack, with 69 deaths and at least seven wounded, with a single Al-Shabaab attack on a Mpeketoni village in Lamu County responsible for 48 of the deaths.
In Mombasa, the impact of terrorism on the local economy was stark. Occupancy in most of the major resorts strung out along the coast was as low as 10%. Kenya’s tourism, which has provided 15% of GDP in recent years, is in tatters. Warnings last month by the British and other foreign governments prompted flustered tour companies to evacuate clients from Kenya’s coastal tourist hub, Mombasa. Today, the luxurious resorts on Lamu Island stand empty. Operators admit it could take years to restore confidence.
The reason? Mombasa is a fertile recruiting ground for Al-Shabaab, working through radical mosques and clerics. These leaders portray the conflict across the border as jihad, which has an energizing appeal to many youth. The myth of Lewthwaite has curiously become part of that dynamic.
Lewthwaite’s list of alleged cohorts is as deadly as it is long. United States (US) intelligence sources believe that networks linked to Dawood Ibrahim, one of the world’s most wanted men, are bankrolling the deadly Al Qaeda cell Lewthwaite is part of. Dawood, the head of Indian crime network D-Company, is currently the most wanted man in Asia and the ruthless driving force of 5,000 foot soldiers involved in everything from drugs trafficking to contract killing. Currently on the Interpol wanted list, his association with Al Qaeda in Africa has dramatically grown in the last two years.
What is undeniable is Lewthwaite has funding from somewhere and she is backing it up with action. Lewthwaite was recently identified as the brains behind a bold operation to free her terrorist lover, Jermaine Grant, who was arrested in Mombasa in December 2011 in a raid. Kenyan police believe the audacious attempt to rescue Grant, as he was taken from prison to a Mombasa court to face trial, was coordinated by Lewthwaite after two suspected terrorists were stopped crossing into Kenya from Tanzania with bullet-proof vests and face masks. Both men claimed they were acting under the direction of Lewthwaite.
A source from the Kenyan Anti-Terrorism Police Unit told me that she could still be in Mombasa.
“We believe that for some time she was in fact hiding in plain sight here in Mombasa, working her identities between a now blonde western tourist and burka-clad Muslim. Mombasa is Kenya’s second largest city and she knows the city well. The problem for us is, although not quite a master of disguise, she is afforded the right to wear a hijab or a burka and this simplest of methods allows her to travel. To catch her we must lift the veils of 100,000 women and she knows this is her biggest weapon.”
Lewthwaite’s incredible life on the run is a remarkable twist to an enduring story that is made for Hollywood. Over three years ago, Lewthwaite was forced to flee a terrorist safe-house in Mombasa after Kenyan Police received a tip-off that an Al Qaeda-linked terror cell she was part of was planning to blow up hotels and shopping centers in the city over Christmas.
Instead of the suspects they expected, the police discovered an empty shell. A hastily abandoned bomb-making factory containing batteries, hydrogen peroxide and wires. Crucially they also found a false passport left behind in panic by one of the alleged terrorists, a white woman, later identified as Lewthwaite.
Since then, it has been shadow chasing for the authorities. Relentlessly hunted by the Kenyan Anti-Terrorism Police Unit, and partially supported towards the end of last year by Scotland Yard’s elite SO15 anti-terror squad, the White Widow has remarkably eluded capture.
Frustrated at Lewthwaite’s sophisticated field skills, Kenyan investigators increasingly believe that the Aylesbury mother of three might have played a small, but influential, part in the 2005 London bombings and is now so mired in jihad she has abandoned her three young children to enable her to stay on the run.
The information surrounding Lewthwaite’s current whereabouts is believed to have been sourced under interrogation from known associates of the Briton, including Marianna Issa Mohammed, a female terrorist who was arrested in Kisamayo, Somalia.
Claims that she had boasted of prior knowledge of the London bombings within the terrorist community are particularly remarkable considering that in the wake of the tragedy, Lewthwaite went public on her horror at her dead husband’s act of terror and she was even placed into protective custody by Scotland Yard.
Suspiciously, it wasn’t until a week after the 2005 bombing, that Lewthwaite contacted her local police to register her husband missing. At the time, she claimed they were having relationship troubles. Lewthwaite then later refused to accept Scotland Yard’s insistence that her husband had been the bomber, until investigators produced evidence and she was apparently dragged screaming from her home claiming her husband’s mind was poisoned by radicals.
The White Widow’s journey from suburban Britain to Somalia is all the more astonishing because her father was in fact a British soldier who served in Northern Ireland. Her parents separated when she was 11, which friends claim badly affected her, leading to her being comforted by Muslim neighbors in the town.
After starting A-levels in religious studies, the teenage Samantha decided to convert to Islam, aged 15 and began wearing a hijab and swapped her jeans and T-shirt for a salwar kameez, a traditional Asian tunic and trousers. At 17, she went one step further, changing her name to Asmantara.
As her radicalization continued, Lewthwaite, described by her teachers as precocious and intelligent, enrolled for a degree in religion and politics at the prestigious School of Oriental and African Studies in London. Around this time, she met Jamaican-born Islamic convert Jermaine Lindsay on an internet chatroom for Muslims and they later met face to face at an anti-war rally in London. The couple married in an Islamic ceremony in the front room of a terraced house in Aylesbury in October 2002 before just four witnesses. None of Lewthwaite’s family attended.
“My father Andy didn’t approve and stayed away and my mum just couldn’t make it. I was his youngest daughter. He found it hard enough when I converted to Islam, without marrying a Muslim I had hardly met,” she later recalled.
In 2004, the couple’s first son was born, which is when Lewthwaite claims her husband started to spend time at radical mosques. She has said he was a peaceful man before these visits. Lewthwaite was seven months pregnant with their second child when Lindsay launched his 7/7 attacks. Police believed that she was also a victim of the terrible events and placed her in protective custody after her house was torched in an arson attack.
But her precise movements since the bombings are harder to follow. Within two years of the London attacks, the widow met a new lover, identified by her family only as a Moroccan Muslim from Birmingham, and she later gave birth to her third child in August 2009. It was shortly after this point that Lewthwaite went off the grid.
In late 2010, Lewthwaite is believed to have traveled to South Africa on her own passport but later left with a new identity: that of Natalie Faye Webb, a 26-year-old South African-born nurse based in Essex, England, who was later confirmed as a victim of identity theft. At this point, it is believed Lewthwaite spent time at a training camp in Somalia.
By August 25, 2011, the Briton entered Kenya from Tanzania with her three children, also on false passports, where she is believed to have met with her current lover, Habib Saleh Gani, an Al-Shabaab sleeper, in Mombasa. Lewthwaite is also thought to have made contact with a third British terrorist, Jermaine Grant, 29, from Newham, East London.
By linking herself to Al-Shabaab, Lewthwaite had chosen one of the most ruthless terrorist organizations on the planet. The group, which has imposed a strict version of Sharia law in areas under its control, including the stoning to death of women accused of adultery and amputating the hands of thieves, was responsible for a double suicide bombing in Kampala, which killed 76 people watching the 2010 World Cup final at a local rugby club.
Chillingly, a cache of intelligence, found on the body of Al Qaeda’s African leader and inside the bullet-ridden truck he tried to ram through a Somali government checkpoint, provides a chilling look at the global aspirations of Al-Shabaab. The meticulously prepared documents that detail plots for a kidnapping and attacks on London’s prestigious Eton College, Jewish neighborhoods and the posh Ritz and Dorchester hotels, were uncovered last year when senior Al Qaeda leader Fazul Abdullah Mohammed was shot dead by Somali forces.
According to anti-terrorist police, Lewthwaite seemed the perfect operative. Able to seamlessly mix with tourists on surveillance trips but also able to revert back into strict Muslim society in a burka, her logistical skills proved to be invaluable.
On arrival, it seems Lewthwaite blended quickly into the tourist capital of Mombasa where she operated three safe houses in high-end estates in the north of the city. In the Kisauni area, she lived in a house belonging to a wife of Musa Hussein Abdi, a British-born terrorist who lived in Africa for a long time and who was killed in Somalia last year alongside Fazul Mohammed. The latter was the mastermind of the bombings on the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam.
Lewthwaite then moved to Shanzu, a magnet for British tourists, where she lived in a five-bedroom villa paying four month’s rent upfront. She used her western appearance to mingle with holidaymakers and carry out reconnaissance on security in major hotels. But on December 19, 2011, anti-terrorism police raided the house. How Lewthwaite escaped before the raid is a mystery.
Police recovered 60 bullets, two magazines for AK-47 rifles and bomb-making material including acetone, hydrogen peroxide, ammonium nitrate, sulphur, lead nitrate chemicals, AA-sized batteries, an electric switch and a piece of conductive wire.
Ahmed Hassan, a resident of the Kisauni apartment block, says Lewthwaite would leave the house in both western clothes and in her burka.
“Wearing a burka will not get you into an international hotel but wearing a bikini will and a sarong will. It is obvious now that she was the terrorist’s main spy,” he says.
Following the raid, Lewthwaite fled with a laptop, cash and bomb-making material to another safe house barely 20 kilometers away from where anti-terrorism officers believe she dished out equipment and money to field terrorists under the noses of unsuspecting neighbors and police.
But as the net tightened Lewthwaite’s London associate, Jermaine Grant, was arrested in central Mombasa. Grant’s arrest is significant. Within days the White Widow’s latest hideout was exposed again. But, when officers led a raid on the property in January, Lewthwaite had somehow left shortly before and was last seen driving towards the Tanzanian border crossing, Lunga Lunga.
Lewthwaite didn’t raise her head in Mombasa again until June 24 last year when witnesses claim they saw a white woman throw grenades into a crowded bar, killing three people, including a nine-year-old boy, and horrifically injuring 30. Since that last incident, she has been true to her nickname. A ghostly presence linked to sporadic attacks across Kenya including the Westgate Mall.
In Mombasa, Lewthwaite’s case file remains open at the regional Law Courts, where she has been charged in absentia. Court documents indicate that Lewthwaite and her lover Gani are charged with being in possession of explosive materials and conspiracy to commit a felony. The files also allege that Lewthwaite is bankrolling a Mombasa terror cell whose members include Grant.
Jacob Ondari of Kenya’s directorate of public prosecutions believes Lewthwaite is highly dangerous.
“She is not just a small cog in this terrorist machine; she has links to the top. I will be calling for the death penalty when she is finally caught. That would be our prayer,” he says.
In recent months, The Muslim Youth Centre, a radical Kenyan organization believed to have terrorist links, has used the myth of Lewthwaite as a recruitment tool, boasting of her escape from the world’s most sophisticated intelligence agencies. The group has also posted a recent video of a hooded British Al-Shabaab operative calling for holy war in Somalia in a bid to further boast their international credentials.
Perhaps most tellingly, using Lewthwaite’s image on its website and Twitter feed, the group recently referenced the Hollywood blockbuster, The Thomas Crown Affair, in which Pierce Brosnan plays an art thief who carries off a heist by dressing dozens of accomplices in identical clothing as him, allowing him to escape right under the noses of the police.
According to Phyllis Muema, director of the Kenya Community Support Center, a not-for-profit group in Mombasa that works on rehabilitating Somali fighters, Lewthwaite is a powerful recruitment tool.
“To have a white western woman on their side provides Al-Shabaab with a major weapon. For illiterate and impoverished young Muslim men it is easy to be radicalized, but to follow a white woman with access to money from abroad and with her education and intelligence is a significant allure,” she says.
For Lewthwaite’s family, the uncertainty of her children’s fate remains the hardest pill to swallow. Her grandmother in Northern Ireland, Elizabeth Allen, wears a panic alarm and has been told to contact police immediately if Lewthwaite arrives at her home in Banbridge, where she spent part of her youth. Her mother, Christine Allen, claims she hasn’t heard from her daughter in years.
My source within the Kenyan Anti-Terrorism Police Unit reveals that they have believed for several months that although Lewthwaite is still with her lover, Gani, she is no longer on the run with her children.
“We believe that she is separated from her children at the moment to enable her to remain at large. Even under a burka her footprint is compromised by the children. We have artists’ impressions of them and Lewthwaite knows they are her biggest weakness. She cannot hide them under burkas. We believe they have been smuggled over the Somali border and are being cared for in a training camp.”
The claims are backed up by postings on the widow’s closed down blog which stated: “I advise you to raise your children in the cult of jihad and martyrdom and to instil in them a love for religion and death.”
The source added: “The truth is there was no mention of children from eye witnesses in the final property she was linked to and interrogations since have identified her as operating with Habib only. It wouldn’t be the first time a jihadist has made such a sacrifice. They sacrifice everything they have for this life.”

On The Trail Of The White Widow

Four days after the horrors of the Westgate siege, the mall’s business owners shuffled back to what was left of their businesses. Among them was Joyce Gikunda of Lintons Beauty World, a Nairobi spa and beauty chain. Her Westgate store was the oldest and most profitable of her three branches.
<div id="attachment_3025" style="width: 209px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-3025" class="size-medium wp-image-3025" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Dr.-Joyce-Gikunda-new-199x300.jpg" alt="" width="199" height="300" />Dr. Joyce Gikunda</div>
“I never recovered anything as mould had set in due to flooded water and our insurance cover didn’t include terrorism,” she says.
Scores of business owners in Westgate rued their insurance. Up to then, terrorism came under political risk and many didn’t know about it and therefore didn’t sign up.
This is changing. The head of the Association of Kenya Insurers, Tom Gichuhi, told London-based ‘Africa Insurance Review’ a few weeks after the attack that business owners had been given a wake-up call.
“Especially for firms with no terrorism cover, and those who have terrorism cover, to evaluate their current contract to make sure they are properly covered,” he says.
The concern is the cost. Earlier this year, Kenyan reinsurers pushed up terrorism premiums by 40%. Set against an environment of increasing attacks since Westgate, from Nairobi to the coastal cities, these rates may continue to climb.
“Risk perception is rather high,” says Kenyan analyst Aly-Khan Satchu. He estimates the cost of terrorism cover for businesses to stand at 1% to 3% of annual revenue.
That may be too high for some. Gikunda recently opened a new Lintons outlet at another shopping mall, the Village Market, just a 15-minute drive from Westgate. She is considering terrorism cover options. But, after losing close to KES20 million ($230,000) after the mall attack and being forced to open a new store, Gikunda is not sure whether she can afford it.
“It’s quite expensive insurance,” she says.
Despite grim tidings for small business owners, it seems that the economy, as a whole, is pulling through. While concerns rest on the worsening security crisis, which has already hit shopping and tourism, foreign investment from the North American and European markets is still flowing into Kenya. More investment is also coming in from fellow African countries.
“It’s the resilience of the market,” says Satchu.
Gikunda mixes resilience with a generous dash of hope. She admits fear from Westgate is still hurting her business in other Nairobi malls, but presses on.
“I am still opening new stores because this is my country and we must invest and live in it successfully as citizens,” Gikunda says.
Luckily for Kenya, many other business owners feel the same way.

In The Cold Shadow of Westgate

It was mid-morning on a warm Saturday in Nairobi. Atul Shah, the 53-year-old Managing Director of the family-owned retail chain Nakumatt Holdings, sat at his desk scanning through live feeds from CCTV screens at his head offices and warehouses. Then his phone rang. It was the branch manager at Westgate shopping mall. Shah was overcome with dread.
<div id="attachment_3019" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-3019" class="size-medium wp-image-3019" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/RTR242EP-1-300x178.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="178" />Kenya&#8217;s President Mwai Kibaki (C) and Police Commissioner Hussein Ali walk past the burnt-down Nakumatt supermarket in downtown Nairobi, January 30, 2009. At least 22 people died and more than two dozen more were missing after a fire destroyed a supermarket in downtown Nairobi two days ago. REUTERS/Stringer (KENYA)</div>
“There’s a shootout at Westgate,” said the caller.
It was painfully true. On September 21, masked gunmen stormed the mall, throwing grenades and firing bullets at shoppers.
“We all thought it was a plain robbery and that it will end in a couple of minutes.”
It didn’t. Shah and Kenya were in for a shock.
“After a few minutes we realized it was not just a robbery but more of a terrorist attack as they were shooting anyone on sight,” said Shah.
“This cast a dark spell over business, and generally many sectors have slowed down since, including investment and tourism. The Westgate attack has had a big impact on business. We were all lost. We had never gone through something like that. Yes, a few robberies here and there happen, but a terrorist attack was something very new to us.”
Shah switched into crisis mode and gathered his team. He dashed to Westgate.
“I made my way to Westgate to see if there’s anything I could do to help but unfortunately there was nothing we could do, as we were kept at bay. The police had come by that time and they were doing what they are supposed to do.”
From a safe distance, Shah came face to face with the horror. People filed out in droves, most with gunshot wounds or shrapnel injuries. Some stumbled as they fled. He stood helpless with the relatives and friends of those suffering inside.
“I could see a lot of rescue operations going on and a lot of people moving out of the mall. I was in touch with the manager of the branch and a couple of other tenants to know what was happening but they were all confused. They all said there were dead bodies everywhere and these people were out to kill. The team in the branch did very well, though, by escorting shoppers out through the back door. They had the guts and the will to do what they did to ensure safety for shoppers and staff.”<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-3020" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/5E9V8670-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" />
After four days of battle with the army and police, the siege ended in 67 deaths, hundreds of injuries, the collapse of a section of the mall and several burned shops and cars. It was a scary sight.
“The impact was big. In the first week, we were lost for words. It was one of our flagship branches where everybody frequented. Financially it put a lot of strain on us. But the biggest loss was that of our three colleagues,” he says.
Before the attack, Shah was, like most shop owners, concerned about attracting more customers. The attack, just 10 kilometers away, changed his life.
Like Kenya, he was to live through days of fear, danger and misery.
Westgate was an easy target for terror. It is packed with shoppers, many of them foreigners, and security was lax. Nakumatt, which serves 250,000 shoppers in Kenya a day, was the soft center.
A year on, many shoppers look over their shoulder in Nairobi. A burst tire in the parking lot or a sudden noise can send scores stampeding towards the exits.
“Whenever there is a scare of terrorism, real or imagined, people definitely keep away. We aren’t seeing many scary text messages these days. Some time back, there were lots of SMS alerts warning people to avoid this or that shopping mall and you’d see people evacuate immediately,” says Shah.
The Nakumatt branch in Westgate was a study in ambiance and luxury shopping. It was the middle-class shopper’s paradise in Nairobi; attracting diplomats and senior government officials. At all times, the store had at least 600 shoppers.
The supermarket suffered an estimated loss of $17 million. Only part of the business was insured, he says, so there was no full compensation. Rebuilding Westgate began after a couple of months and could still take many more months to resume operations. Some businesses that operated there have moved elsewhere, while most remain closed, including Nakumatt.
That evening, as Shah watched the live coverage of the siege, he took a hard and long look at his business. It wasn’t that bad, he thought, but one thing was clear: terror needed serious attention. His business was prepared for fire, robbery or a building collapse, nothing had prepared them for what happened at Westgate.
“Internally we were doing a lot in line with the regulatory requirements in terms of safety hazards and disasters.  A lot of staff had been trained for disaster, fire-fighting, medical emergencies, and we have been doing these for many years. Now we have engaged more security organizations, where they are more visible to provide security. We still see shootings in other parts of the country and we aren’t sure how much security they can offer in the event of a terrorist attack.”
It was a hard lesson. Nakumatt had terrorism insurance cover because its large proportion of expatriate and foreign customers made it vulnerable to attack.
“Who would have thought we would one day use the terrorism cover? We are adequately covered now although insurance never pays 100 percent because there are lapses here and there. The most painful part, however, is that no insurance can cover loss of life.”
With no hope of Westgate getting back to business soon, Nakumatt is counting the losses. It was the goose that laid the golden egg. Other branches saw increased business after the terror attack but for the first few weeks, people avoided shopping malls. Shah says people are returning to shopping malls, yet the capacity of its other stores cannot handle the business that Westgate once had.
Nakumatt moves on.
“We are confident about the market, we are confident about East Africa and we will continue expanding.”
Westgate is a million miles from where Nakumatt was born in 1978 in the Rift Valley town of Nakuru. In that year, Shah’s father sat with his two sons to review the small shop that they had just bought. The first decision was to change the name to Nakumatt, short for Nakuru Mattresses. In 1992, the first branch opened in Nairobi, on Uhuru Highway.
“We have carried on opening stores, as opportunities have come our way. We have brought the world shopping experience to East Africa. Whatever you get at Nakumatt is the same experience you get in the developed world,” he says.
The fledgling business took a leaf out of Walmart’s book.
“I had the opportunity to be in the United States for a while and saw how stores were managed and operated and brought home the skills as well. During my free time, I would spend a lot of time at the stores and see how it is done. Although it took many years to adopt and actualize the concept in Kenya, we have succeeded in doing that. We adopted the all-under-one-roof policy from the onset,” he says.
The first branch ushered in 47 others in East Africa.
“Location is the key thing in retail stores,” he says.
Kenya is Nakumatt’s biggest market with 33 branches, Uganda has eight stores; Tanzania, four and Rwanda, two. It’s grown into a conglomerate, with a turnover of $600 million and an army of 7,300 employees, that has fought off the multinationals. This year, it expects turnover to top $750 million.
“We have a huge variety of products on offer under one roof. We sell everything and anything except planes. If we had space we would be selling airplanes. Also, we have focused on changing lifestyles through innovations and new ideas. We keep growing our products portfolio in line with changing trends and improving the shopping experience.”
“Nakumatt was the pioneer of late night shopping, pushing it from the initial 5PM deadline in the early 1990s to 10PM when most people in villages and small town are asleep. At the turn of the millennium it went further to introduce 24-hour shopping.”
Shah has traveled on business in 45 countries. He says 25 years ago South Africa had the most developed retail market on the continent and East Africa is catching up.
“Besides South Africa, East Africa is the most advanced market in formal retail. Economies in West Africa are more financially developed, but not retail,” he says.
Nakumatt’s business model is simple. It focuses on what it does best: selling. The rest is left to specialists. It does not own real estate, but works with partners. The managers locate a prime site, get developers to put up a mall and then go in as an anchor tenant. This has helped it improve its cash-flow by steering clear of the cost of bricks and mortar.
He says East Africa is the place.
“We will look beyond but the [East African] area is still wide open and green. Kenya’s 47 counties are all opportunities for us. County governments will learn how to invest to make counties good for investments. We see a lot of opportunities, despite the problems we have faced.”
Days before the interview with FORBES AFRICA, Shah, who talks fast as if it’s your duty to catch up, had arrived from the World Cup in Brazil.
“I was looking at Spain but it was disaster. Brazil were hosts but did not play well. Argentina was my team finally and did very well to play against Germany, and conceded not seven goals but only one.”
Shah is a sports fanatic. He looks more like a cricket coach than a multimillionaire. He dreams of bringing the Fifa World Cup to East Africa.
“People say sports bring people together. In Kenya we are always talking politics. But I am talking about bringing the World Cup to East Africa in 2030. This falls within Kenya’s Vision 2030 but it’s not a Kenyan drive. It is an East African vision. We will need infrastructure, such as stadiums and everything that goes with it. We have 16 years to prepare for that, which is enough time.”
Vision 2030, Kenya’s long-term economic development blueprint, provides for infrastructure development and other facilities that the World Cup requires. Shah has it all worked out. He says Kenya can provide three stadiums, Uganda and Tanzania two each while Rwanda can take care of one.
“It will bring a lot of exposure to East Africa in terms of tourism investments and so on. Everybody will start investing in hotels and other service sectors. This is the right time to start lobbying the right bodies. The triple bonus is that in 2031 we have the opportunity to host the Cricket World Cup and the Olympics in 2032. We are not just looking at one event, but three subsequent events.”
Shah has started speaking to various leaders in the private and public sectors to build momentum.
“Despite the protests and riots preceding the World Cup in Brazil, when the games began everybody was calm and they are still enjoying the fruits. Rio is hosting the Olympics in 2016, one year later. East Africa won’t have a gap; it will be continuous if we get it right.”
“I have been to three football World Cups, three Olympics and three cricket events and I have seen what sports can do to an economy. I go to enjoy and absorb myself but I see the economic gains. I am vying for it and I see the potential. Nakumatt alone cannot manage. We can be one of the minor sponsors because we are a brand. In Kenya there are many brands; Coke, KQ, Safaricom, which can support sport.”
He says to achieve this goal, sport management must improve. He says Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania have great talent yet don’t qualify for major tournaments like the African Cup of Nations or World Cup because of sports politics.
“Look at our runners; we don’t even need to tell them to run yet they bring us medals. We need something similar in football. At one time, cricket was popular in Kenya but politics or something messes up everything. But if the focus is there and the right people are in place, we will get back to glory not just in football, cricket, volleyball, but also in swimming and rugby where we are a big name. Investment in sports is not taken seriously. If well managed it can bring a lot of revenue to countries.”
For now, Shah will concentrate on market share. His company has had its fair share of setbacks. In 2008, one of its biggest stores was pulled down by the government after it had been built on a road reserve along the Thika-Nairobi highway. A year or so later, one of its lucrative stores in the capital burned down, killing more than 20 people.
“We take every tough moment as a challenge and as a signal of what we need to improve on. There are challenges in every business. We get better by the day, we get better solutions. They are obstacles but we look at them as challenges to move on. We had Westgate and the Nakumatt downtown fire. Now and then, we have issues with departments. We believe in improving ourselves. Wherever we see fault we don’t hide it but improve it.”
For Shah and his family, it is no longer about making money, running Nakumatt has become a lifestyle. The inspiration is always spotting the next big thing in retail.
African governments should give more support to home-grown investors to stimulate growth, he says.
“When a foreigner comes the governments are open arms and offering incentives here and there, but for locals, things become a bit tight. They should treat local investors equally as foreigners,” he says.
To strengthen management, Shah has brought on board his two sons as he plans to list on the regional stock markets in the next three years. Even so, he still misses the Westgate branch.
“It was a sad incident for us and Kenya. Everybody loved Westgate and they want Westgate back.”

The Pain Of The $600-Million-A-Year Supermarket King

It was a nightmare for the African Rocky amid the howls of the hecklers, against a younger and bigger fighter. The once washed-up Zolani Marali had the odds stacked against him in a bloody night in East London, South Africa. Marali was on the ropes so often that they cut his back open. Everyone could see the blood because he was on the run, to the anger of the crowd.
“Get off the bicycle and fight. We paid to watch good boxing, not your running around,” shouted a man in the crowd.
Kaizer Mabuza, known as The Animal, bullied Marali for 12 rounds but he held on to his WBF mini-flyweight title. It was a night of the underdog – Nelson Mandela would have been proud.
This boxing night on July 18, Mandela’s birthday, was dedicated to the man, himself a former pugilist. The boxers wanted to win for Mandela, all night they spat blood and bit the canvas. East London is South Africa’s boxing-mad city; children here learn to punch before they learn to talk. It’s about 230 kilometers from where Mandela was born in Mthatha.
“Although I had boxed a bit at Fort Hare, it was not until I had lived in Johannesburg that I took up the sport in earnest. I was never an outstanding boxer. I was in the heavyweight division, and I had neither power to compensate for my lack of speed nor enough speed to make up for my lack of power,” wrote Nelson Mandela in Long Walk To Freedom.
“Nobody celebrates Madiba as a boxer; the intention is to elevate that aspect of his life. People need to understand that there’s no Berlin Wall between politics and sport,” says Ayanda Matiti of Xaba Boxing Promotions that organized the event.
Surely, Marali would have welcomed the Berlin Wall between himself and Mabuza.
Marali clinched and ran from Mabuza, wearing him down. Mabuza soldiered on. Marali weaved and frustrated his opponent, who missed the head time and time again.
Boxing can be a cruel sport and Marali knows how. The 38-year-old, an All Africa Games bronze medallist, was on the verge of quitting five years ago. His fortunes changed under the eye of a new trainer Alan Toweel. Marali’s man in the corner comes from a boxing family, his father, Alan senior, was an outstanding trainer. His uncle, Vic Toweel, was South Africa’s only undisputed world champion &#8211; taking the bantamweight title from Manuel Ortiz on May 31, 1950 in Johannesburg.
“When Zolani was knocked out by a Korean in 2009, many boxing purists wrote him off; they told him to retire because he was finished. But I knew there’s something left in him,” says Toweel.
Marali made his comeback when he beat Ali Funeka to claim the world title in East London in 2012. On this night, he defended his title for the second time, winning a split decision against Mabuza &#8211; even though he got a bleeding back in the process.
Though fans jeered Marali for avoiding a toe-to-toe fight, Toweel says it was all part of the plan.
“Boxing is not all about fight, it’s about defense also. You run, you clinch and turn a man around. It’s a cat and mouse fight… Kaizer fought top overseas fighters like Zab Judah. There’s no way I was going to let Zolani trade punches with him. From the first round, Kaizer was upset, he was confused and he continuously missed punches. That set the pace of the fight. He landed better punches and didn’t take punishment,” says Toweel.
“At his age, I will continue working on his defense. We will take one fight at a time, he still has some two to three years in his feet.”
Marali’s fight was followed by a much-anticipated bout between Nick Durandt’s former stablemates, Lusanda Komanisi and Macbute Sinyabi. Komanisi showed no respect for his former senior. From the first bell they went at it hammer and tongs.
The younger, quicker Komanisi taunted Sinyabi in the ring. In the fifth round, Komanisi finished it. He caught Sinyabi with a sweeping left hook knocking him to the ropes. The fight could have ended there, but the referee let it go on. Sinyabi took time to get back on his feet. Komanisi battered Sinyabi who tried desperately to clinch. A volley of punches and a big right to the temple polished Sinyabi off.
This brought out the ugly side of boxing. Sinyabi struggled to breathe until paramedics gave him oxygen and walked him to the changing room. Komanisi’s IBO featherweight title brought Durandt’s world championship tally to 38 in 29 years as a manager and trainer.
“I expected the knockout, though I didn’t know which round. Before the beginning of the fifth round I told Lusanda ‘this is your moment,’” says Durandt.
As Marali licked his wounds, he looked forward to wealthier times. Next time he steps into the ring for a defense he can expect to earn up to $40,000 for a night’s work.
Marali is putting the money into his boxing gym in East London for his retirement in the days when he will no longer have to run the ring with blood on his back.

Tag: September 2014

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

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On The Trail Of The White Widow

In The Cold Shadow of Westgate

The Pain Of The $600-Million-A-Year Supermarket King

Hey Rocky! Get Off The Bicycle And Fight!