Time is Africa's biggest resource

Nairobi; Kenya: Although Africa is richly endowed with immense natural and cultural resources, time is her biggest resource. I learnt the priceless value of time back in 1991 during a business visit to Japan. I had secured a meeting with the chairman of a leading retail chain in the country. We were to discuss a potential investment worth millions. I arrived at the meeting venue looking and feeling confident. Within a minute into the meeting, I received one of my life’s most stinging lessons. The chairman calmly told me that he couldn’t enter into a business partnership with me because I was eight minutes late.
Eight minutes cost me millions and since then, my watch is always eight minutes ahead.

Time is indeed money and wasting it is like robbing yourself and others. CS Lewis, the Christian philosopher, put it perfectly, “the future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of 60 minutes an hour whatever he does, whoever he is.” My teenage daughter Joy recently echoed this powerful truth when she reminded us that not even Barrack Obama can purchase a twenty fifth hour. It is what we do with our time that makes the difference between success and failure.