Nairobi, June 21 -- The things Prof Wyne Mutuma could do with time. He is an arbitrator, an architect, a professor of law, a lawyer and a father. The chairman of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators Kenya hopes, by pursuing professional qualifications, that he is not being elevated by his credentials so much as elevating the credentials themselves. "No one," he says, "can best you at being you."

He grew up plaiting hair, spending his youth around heads. Perhaps the irony is not lost on him. While education has been served up as his main course, art is the appetiser, the drink and the dessert. He reckons he could have been a poet. "Maybe for just one moment in time," he says, Whitney Houston, in her prime, in his ears. He may not yet be...