I am really really upset to hear what is happening over at Angani over the last few weeks. I wrote about them enthusiastically last year when their business was getting off the ground and they were out to prove that they could provide world-class hosting and cloud services, right here in Kenya. Founders Riyaz Bachani and Phares Kariuki seemed like one of the most capable teams of actually pulling this off. Heck, these guys knew what they were doing at a very technical level and had the right credentials to make it happen!

However, whatever is going on over at Angani has finally exploded on social media today where basically it appears that Angani may actually be flaming out?! The story goes that the founders have a major misunderstanding which led to Phares Kariuki abruptly exiting from Angani recently as their CEO. At the same time, since then, clients have been compromised as the Angani services have been unreliable and erratic? This came to a head yesterday as a good number of them have been completely offline since then which led to many complaining on social media today.

The really sad part to this story is that the Angani downtime seems(?) to be due to deliberate sabotage and NOT the technical strength of their hosting/cloud set-up. As in, the boardroom debacle is essentially destroying the very core of their business – their customer base – by delivering a sub-par service which was the very premise of what their business meant to address locally in Kenya. This will not end well if it continues any longer. The whole world is watching and if Angani does not buckle up soon and sort out their issues this could very well signal the beginning of the end of their fledgling business. I certainly hope it does not come to that.