investments, but say little about protest suppression, media crackdowns, youth unemployment, or public disillusionment. The social deficit continues to widen- and still, the“ S” remains silent.
Machiavelli, in The Prince, was less poetic but equally clear: it is safer to be feared than loved- but only until fear turns into hatred. Social order cannot hold when pain festers beneath polite governance. When citizens believe they are no longer heard, they do not respond with ballots. They respond with rage.
“ He who ignores the people, drowns in them.”-( Paraphrased from Machiavelli).
So yes- the“ S” is silent. But silence is never empty. It is loaded with unmet expectations, bitter memories, and ticking unrest.
When ESG practitioners, investors, and public institutions overlook these fissures, they are not neutral. They are complicit in the delay of accountability.
ESG must evolve beyond glossy reports and investor decks. It must learn to listen to silence, read the graffiti, and feel the mood of the streets.
Because when the“ S” is ignored long enough, it does not stay silent. It erupts.
A Tale of Strange Borders
I realise this has gone heavy- too much rage, too many hard truths. So, let’ s pause, briefly, and learn something unexpected.
Have you ever noticed the odd, narrow stretch of land that juts out from Namibia to the east? It’ s called the Caprivi Strip( also called the pan handle), and its shape is not just peculiar- it is colonial.
In 1890, during the height of imperial partitioning, Germany sought access to the Zambezi River. Britain agreed to a trade: it handed over the Caprivi Strip- a 450-kilometre corridor- in exchange for Heligoland, a small island in the North Sea. Germany gained its river passage, only to later discover what no one had told them: Victoria Falls lay downstream- a majestic, impassable wall of water.
That is how we ended up with this stretch of land- not born of logic or geography, but of distant negotiations, sealed by men with maps, disconnected from the realities of those who would live with their decisions.
Sometimes I wonder: how many frameworks today- including ESG- are shaped the same way? Drawn far from the people they affect. Designed with noble intent, but blind to the barriers ahead.
A Path Between the Cities
Now, back to our regular programme schedule.
Having detoured through colonial cartography, let us return to today’ s landscape- one where the deepest fault lines are not rivers and borders, but inequalities and broken trust.
If this truly is a tale of two cities- one of exclusion and one of potential- then the challenge is not to choose between them, but to build a bridge. ESG must evolve from a checklist to a living, breathing framework, rooted in local realities.
That means centering contextual materiality- allowing African countries to define for themselves what“ social” and“ governance” should mean. It means integrating youth voices not just into civic movements, but into policy design, ESG committees, and corporate boards.
It means governments offering incentives for justice- linking procurement, taxation, and investment benefits to genuine progress on equity, employment, and civic trust. It means building social impact audits with the same rigour and recognition as climate disclosures.
Because ignoring the“ S” doesn’ t make it silent. It just makes it unheard- until it explodes.
This is not about saving ESG. It is about saving what ESG was meant to protect: dignity, inclusion, stability, and the collective right to dream of something better.
Epilogue: A Tale Still Being Written
And so, Dickens ' words return- not as flourish, but as reality.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way- in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
Yes, it is the worst of times. Police brutality remains unchecked. Corruption resists all reform. Trust in institutions runs dangerously thin.
But it is also, undeniably, the best of times.
Because we are witnessing a generation more alert, more unified, and more courageous than any in recent memory. A generation shedding inherited loyalties, refusing easy narratives, and rising- not for tribe or party- but for principle. For fairness. For futures they can see but are still denied.
This tale of two cities is not yet over.
But if we listen closely- beyond the silence of ESG dashboards, beyond the spreadsheets and the speeches- we just might hear something new rising.
Not a whisper. Not a scream. But a generation, rewriting the ending.
Soyinka Witness spearheads the ESG practice for Ipsos Kenya and leads the Ipsos Strategy3 team across Sub-Saharan Africa, guiding and mentoring colleagues towards impactful work. You can commune via email at: Soyinka. Witness @ ipsos. com.