I have never doubted the ability of Africa to produce individuals who can reason. To be honest, I do not them and what they accomplished. I will be sure to look them up.
That aside, my drunken thoughts were/are, why was their impact on the collective miniscule and short lived? With all due respect to their capabilities, why do we living in the present know so little about them and do not feel their impact today?

Perhaps I was also not clear on what I meant by collective talents and capabilities, and how I guage them. Nisamehe. I measure collective talents and capabilities by a number of unscientific criteria and random guesswork like how early knowledge milestones are crossed, how early did they organise themselves nation states consisting of multiple ethnic societies, because this shows an ability to unite multiple ethnic societies across a wide geographic area into a collective, an ability to develop the structures and identify the administrative talents needed to administer it, and deploy the collective towards achieving shared objectives that cut across narrow ethnic interests, how, once they organised themselves, solved the complex problems a collective people face, how their collective abilities and capabilities impacted surrounding societies and how it impacts us today.
For example, one of the milestones I look at is mastery of reading and writing. Why, because ni kama internet ya 10,000 years ago. Writing helps to create a permanent store of knowledge and forms a foundation for future discoveries by later generations. Reading helps to disseminate this store of knowledge to a wider audience than can be reached by speaking, and also allows for knowledge to live on after the death of the knowledge discoverer/creator. Apart from my sorry ignorance, maybe that is why I do not know about Agajo Trudo et al. If he/she wrote down their thoughts, or hired someone to do so, maybe their words and deeds would have lived on and impacted more.
As to why I myself am not standing up to lead, umenimulika hapo. Truth be told, I just want to live a simple life, provide the basics for my family, and watch my children grow up. I do not think I have the energy/ambition/ruthlessness/ability to lie without blinking/talent required to lead people, especially Kenyans. Besides my wife will kill me if I entertain such thoughts. The most I can do is run a small business, hata MCA I think itaniweza.
Please excuse any ignorance in my responses,and remember hii ni random guesswork. No research, no studies, none of that stuff. Just those things which enter your brain at 2.30am.

@timbosho, I've just woken up from this long dream about my classmates being in a frenzy to go to some foreign land even though few could afford it, and some even thought they could be denied visas courtesy of their 'burdens'.

In all this activity my mathematics teacher wanted a relationship with me, even though she too was going, and my exercise book was neglected and I hadn't bothered to finish my sums. But I was just relaxed. Not inclined to the frenzy.

And frankly, I don't think I'll ever get into a frenzy in this dream called wakefulness. I've learnt of the emptiness of the I, perception, and phenomena and all that's remaining is sleep, sleep, sleep. To be awake to dreams.

Laugh

Why do people wrongly compare Kenya with South Korea and Singapore? A country is only as rich as it's neighbours and trading partners. Kenya is surrounded by war torn countries and unfriendly country to the south. The amount of money we can make from our neighbhours cannot compare with what the tiger nations can make with traing with each other. It is a fallacy

The comparison is at independence - the rest I guess is a debate on what happened, some are claiming that human capital was the major contributing factor that pulled us back, some are claiming its leadership that played a major role, and now you have brought in a different parameter - poor, war ravaged and unfriendly neighbors.

Though south korea boarders a poor, war ravaged unfriendly neighbor, and also the likes of malaysia and singapore despite being mostly island territories are still in the neighborhood of war ravaged, poor countries some with brutal leadership.

This one I post for the Nairobi Gov...Evans Kidero

What's more impressive is how they cleaned up the river. A clean Nairobi river or Athi river can be used as a tourist attraction. River cruises or even as a mode of transport. If only we'd have leaders who would think

While every child popped in Kenya owes some national debt!

Ala!!
Kwani being a Singaporean is an investment in itself!
You earn bonus by virtue of being a citizen.

We were also an autocracy for decades...under Kenyatta and Moi.

In those decades, Singapore enriched the nation while the Mois and Kenyattas enriched themselves.