Former Citizen TV news anchor Janet Mbugua has heaped praise on Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko on the way he dealt with alleged racism at Chandarana supermarket in Nairobi.
Mds. Mbugua posted that more Kenyan leaders should stand up and act like Governor Sonko in addressing race relations in businesses in Kenya.
According to Janet, the apology from the supermarket management was not the issue but how these companies keep treating locals in their premises.
In her post she continued saying, “In as much as I don’t think what Sonko did completely solve the issue, cancelling licenses means affecting businesses, means affecting the employees of this company meaning they don’t have work. This is what I will say, the Governor made a strong statement by saying ‘You will treat our people with respect’ and for me, I feel like that is one of the solutions.
She further added saying, “For leaders to stand up and say ‘Look you are welcome to work in our country, have your own companies and build your own empires but don’t mistreat our citizens.’ I feel like we need more leaders to stand up and say that …because it’s not just the leaked emails or the apology it’s the nature of how a lot of these companies treat Kenyans. It’s the nature of how the way racism is engrained in these companies; sometimes it’s subtle, sometimes is in your face.”
This comes after an email was leaked online where Chandarana management were instructing their managers to focus more on white clients.
.@ChandaranaSuper what kind of BS marketing is this? “You are now focusing on white people to attract your supermarkets” The audacity! #ChandaranasSoRacist pic.twitter.com/ysKHgXaRnK
— Felogene Anumo (@felogene) July 27, 2018
The saga brought uproar on spocial media where Kenyans on Twitter came out strongly and critisized the supermarket chain.
A move caused uproar drawing the attention of the governor who revoked their licences. A decision criticized by Former Chief Justice Willy Mutunga.
The supermarket has since issued an apology while at the same time blaming the wording of the email on a new staff who was not well conversant with English.
Please accept our sincere apology for a recent email sent to you pic.twitter.com/NPch9dboM9
— Chandarana Foodplus (@ChandaranaSuper) July 28, 2018
“Chandarana Foodplus would like to sincerely apologise for the unfortunate and insensitive narrative written on email by one of our very new and recent hires in the marketing department,” the statement read in part.
The supermarket owned up that the language howler by the said new staff doesn’t make the incident excusable adding that the error came as a big embarrassment to them.
However, the move seems to have further infuriated some online users who felt the apology only served to worsen an already bad situation.
“At this rate your right to speak or write in English maybe withdrawn. You cannot be allowed to drag the Queen’s language in mud. From Racism to messing up the English Language,” wrote one Mohamed Hersi.
While Samia Omar said, “ I was first mad, then read the replies from Chandarana Foodplus, The grammar wah!! Now I think this email might just have been written by the same person managing their account and s/he just doesn’t know English. What does “white people to attract our supermarket” mean???”