PALI LEHOHLA | The art of entrepreneurship is to turn a lone swallow into a flock

One day in February 2011, an irate call reached me in Addis from one who will remain anonymous: “Pali, one swallow doth not a summer make.”

We were in the deep throes of preparation for Census 2011 in the aftermath of “Can you feel it?” South Africa hosting the Fifa World Cup. I cut a lonesome figure in a yellow suit. This call was relevant because it occurred to me that almost two decades ago, I had a very unsuspecting encounter with a swallow that blossomed into an incredibly significant summer. Thus one swallow did a summer make. The young Kizito Okechukwu, Nigerian by birth, would have been probably 18 when he first met me. I was checking in to the Holiday Inn Strand in Cape Town when the broad-smiled lad offered to help carry my overnight bag to the counter. I needed none of that, because what I had was light and I was in a rush. But the welcoming smile from the lad was overwhelming. Not only that, the mannerism slowed my rush. A 15-metre trip to the desk became an almost 100m slow pace of serious engagement and exchange. All subsequent trips to Holiday Inn Strand in Cape Town would follow this trend of engagement with Kizito.

He was passionate about his work as a porter. He would do this diligently and a fat tip would be the next obvious thing, yet a second voice said to me this man cannot be tipped. And I followed the second voice because I soon realised I was the recipient of the tips, and handing over R10 in exchange would only serve as an insult. From the word go, Kizito would indulge in ideas of changing circumstances through himself for others. He externalised his virtues. First, he started writing and compiling inputs that he sought to feature in newspapers. Then he registered for correspondence. Each visit, which was almost fortnightly, notched up a new step.

The next step was that he was now in Sandton pursuing some idea I couldn’t grasp, and he needed some data. Then a call came, and Kizito told me he was on the tail of something significant. On a trip from Washington, I bumped into Kizito at the airport, and he told me that what he was pursuing would soon mature. Another call came a year later to book me for a major event that would take place at the IDC, and the passionate plea was I should pencil in the date. I did. Arriving from Mexico, I went straight to the IDC, where I addressed a number of people.

The next big moment was in 2017, when I was retiring. Kizito was launching the Global Enterprise Network (GEN) at 22 On Sloane, Africa’s largest start-up campus. In the midst of leaving office, it was impossible to attend the morning proceedings, but I arrived in the afternoon. Kizito introduced me to the people who were gathered there, the building and the offices. After a three-hour tour and a meal, I had to leave for another engagement. I thanked him and congratulated him on the initiative, which saw GEN president Jonathan Ortmans and Richard Branson at 22 On Sloane. Another surprise. Kizito said:  ‘I want you to help me, and here is your office.’ So digging deep back to the first encounter at the Holiday Inn at the Strand, I decided to arrogate myself to the role of an intern at 22 On Sloane.

GEN Africa 2024 was the culmination of a lonely journey where one swallow did a summer make. A clear vision, a dogged determination to make it work, a mobilisation of like-minded swallows is the role of the initial lone swallow. When I landed back in Cape Town on the evening of March 13 this year, reliving memories of the beginnings of this journey that culminated in 3,000 people converging at the Cape Town Convention Centre, I hardly would believe what Kizito’s broad smile had just achieved and how many lives he had touched for real. In typical style, he called me up three days before the conference and asked me whether I was coming. I asked, where? He said: ‘Oh I have you lined up for two items on the programme. Remember the research report I asked you to evaluate? I would like you to talk on that on the 13th and, on the 14th, please join the ministerial panel’. Sadly, I could not make it on the first day as I had a commitment with the South African Association of Engineers in the late afternoon, but I had to be on the last flight because when a person of such vision calls, you jump.

I was able to engage on the said subject at the ministerial panel. I pointed out a range of information, and a Cinderella whose time had yet to come — the International Comparisons Programme (ICP) data.

This is indeed the story of entrepreneurs. Identifying a challenge and transforming it into an opportunity for addressing pressing societal missions. Kizito is the lone swallow that arrived in Durban at a tender age of 17 from Nigeria to follow a divinity ministry training. But no sooner had he arrived in Durban, he left for Cape Town where he worked as a porter at the Holiday Inn, Strand. There he nurtured a different mission, one he launched successfully in 2017 at 22 On Sloane. He made summer arrive.

The scantily lit Cape Town today, like the rest of SA, invoked fond memories as I landed last week and made me cast my eyes back to October 2011. Eight months on from the February call I received in Addis, on the slopes of Table Mountain on October 9 2011, the eve of the Census Night, we convened all dressed in yellow to launch the count. We were all in yellow and Table Mountain was lit yellow. The one who will remain anonymous, a guardian angel. It certainly ensured that a journey of a lone swallow does lead to a flock that doth a summer make.

Dr Pali Lehohla is a professor of practice at the University of Johannesburg, a Research Associate at Oxford University, a board member of Institute for Economic Justice at Wits and a distinguished Alumni of the University of Ghana. He is the former statistician-general of SA.