Billion dollar East African dream cut short in Nairobi

Mr and Mrs Isaack Mruma,parents of the late Jerry Mruma  place a bouquet of flowers at the grave of their departed son in Dar es Salaam at the Konondoni cemetery. Jerry, who died in Nairobi at the weekend, was buried yesterday. PHOTOS | JULIANA MALONDO 

By Selemani Shekonga,The Citizen Reporter

In Summary

• At that tender age Jerry believed that East Africa was an open vast field of opportunities. He was one of the few Tanzanians who knew he would make it in countries like Kenya, where aggressiveness and competitiveness is the order of the day. He had the East African dream and dared put it into action.

Dar es Salaam. Jerry Mruma dreamt big. At 23, and still a university student, he was the founder and CEO of Kilimo Yetu – an agri-business company whose performance set to make him one of East Africa’s fastest growing millionaires.

At that tender age Jerry believed that East Africa was an open vast field of opportunities. He was one of the few Tanzanians who knew he would make it in countries like Kenya, where aggressiveness and competitiveness is the order of the day. He had the East African dream and dared put it into action.

His target, he had vowed, was to make the Forbes’ list of billionaires by the time he celebrated his 28th birthday. But that big dream would now not be for Jerry’s distraught parents and friends bid him farewell yesterday on the last day of his earthly journey.

Jerry’s father Mr Isaack Mruma said he was aware that his son had formed a company and will do everything in his power to ensure that the company was well managed. “I will take over the company and it will be family-led. We will make sure our son’s dream lives on,” Mr Mruma told The Citizen after the burial of his son at the Kinondoni cemetery in the city.

The young and ambitious Jerry was an MBA student at the United States International University (Usiu) in Nairobi. He had taken his undergraduate studies at the same university and graduated with honours. Jerry’s life was cruelly cut short last week in crime-prone Nairobi where he studied and was running his barely one year old company that was making the headlines on Television, radio and newspapers. His killing by unknown people, on Friday, after attending a night function for Tanzanian nationals in Kenya is a subject of police inquiry, but one which has galvanized East Africans to mourn the passing of a brilliant mind