Features
Questions for Africa
I am tempted to ask my first question in this Nigerian parlance: Africa, how market? This is Nigerians’ way of asking how things are. So, how are things with Africa? Saying Africans are a pathetic lot is the bottom line, not an understatement.
African patriots who spearheaded their countries’ independence from colonial rule were all educated in the West. They saw and witnessed the strengths and weaknesses of those colonialists and their systems. This gave them a solid grounding for their fight for independence.
Those who come readily to mind are Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, Kamuzu Banda of Malawi, Mwalimu Nyerere of then Tanganyika (now Tanzania), Seretse Khama of Botswana, Milton Obote of Uganda and Ghana’s own Dr Kwame Nkrumah. Nnamdi Azikiwe and Tafawa Balewa of Nigeria cannot be left out aside of those from francophone Africa that I mentioned in my last episode.
Let me remind readers that Tanganyika merged with the island of Zanzibar under Sheikh Aboud Jumbe to become one nation now known as Tanzania.
These were selfless leaders who did not amass wealth for themselves, yet dedicated their entire lives to the service of their compatriots and bequeathed free, independent nations to us. These were patriots who foresaw the greatness of this continent and strived to direct Africa towards that goal. Those who opposed them were mostly those from affluent homes and went through no hassles in their upbringing. They were ready to dine with the colonialists.
For some warped logic and reasoning, the West thought Africa was heading in the direction of communism. To be honest, I still don’t know or understand what communism is no matter how hard I try to. Is it a word from the devil’s lexicon only the West understands and fears so much?
Their first target was the Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah. That he even dared to send Ghanaian soldiers to the Congo infuriated them the more and the plot thickened for him to be taken out. So was it for other progressives.
Indeed, the West, spearheaded by America, cultivated and brainwashed the docile political elite on the African continent to undermine their own leaders and get them assassinated. In some cases they got our own national security apparatus involved. Paradoxically, these same Western leaders will condemn military takeovers today. Double standards, if you asked me.
My question: what is so wrong with us Africans that we are ready to turn on our own in order to satisfy imperialist forces and interests? Does it mean Africans have proved to the rest of the world that we have no mind of our own? Have we noticed that corruption is rife in every African country that overthrew its independence leaders?
Since then the cycle of corruption continues from one elected administration to the other. Some revolutionaries who spring up to change this and put Africa back on track are either conspired against and eliminated through counter overtakes or turn around to become corrupt themselves and, at times, entrench themselves in power till that kingdom come. Francophone Africa is notorious for this.
Even elected leaders overthrow their own constitutions to remain entrenched in power. I was sorely embarrassed as an African to see Paul Biya of Cameroon at a forum in Europe unaware of his surroundings, farting into the microphone, perhaps after eating too much cheese and cabbages the previous evening. A leader who is clearly not of a sound mind should have been replaced. Or we cannot identify incapacitation?
Museveni is another. The man falls asleep as soon as he sits down, but is still in charge of Uganda. There is yet one Nguema Mbassogo in Equatorial Guinea (formerly Rio Muni) who has so plundered that country’s wealth that only his family and lackeys are able to have three square meals each day. Meanwhile, this country has the highest per Capita income on the continent. Denis Sassou Nguesso is also firmly entrenched in Brazaville.
Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal seem to be on the horizon to follow the trend. Now, there are those who hand power over to their children as have been done in Gabon, Togo where the current leaders succeeded their fathers. Nguema hopes his son will take over when he dies, just as Museveni wants for Uganda.
But these people hardly know what is going on around them. There are political hyenas that prop these old geezers in power because they benefit from their continued stay in office. Otherwise, how did a drooling Paul Biya get on a flight to that summit in Europe in the first place?
Another phenomenon is that these leaders have their national security apparatus under their thumbs and unleash them to brutalise their own citizens for any attempt to demonstrate their abhorrence to their governance. Why do these leaders think they have a divine right to die in office?
The African’s penchant for electing old people as president baffles me a lot. If civil and public servants are deemed unproductive after they attain the age of 60 and must retire, what sense does it make to elect people above that age to lead their countries? In this technological age, many countries especially in Europe, are electing very young leaders. But what is the African situation like?
Nigeria elected Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu only a couple of months ago. He was a candidate who could barely walk, yet was declared elected as president of that country. As I write, the man has been flown out of the country for medical attention, according to media reports. I don’t want to ask if we are a cursed continent.
The African Union (AU), a well thought out organisation to foster Africa’s development, has become a talk-shop of grandiose proportions and photo-ops. Members hardly agree on anything with one accord. Who among this AU betrayed the likes of Nkrumah, Gaddafi and Sankara? I need answers.
These leaders must blame themselves when the youth of Africa rise up with one voice and ask, “How long shall they kill our progressives while we stand aside and look?” That day of reckoning is already nearing the horizon.
The imperialists have taken undue advantage of the African continent and its people for far too long, thanks to our own greedy, dishonest and palpably myopic leaders we elect who are quick to sell us out. I am looking for just one African country that dealt with the World Bank and the IMF and had a success story to tell. I am yet to find one.
Theirs is to fleece us of the little we have while their politicians come to preach democracy to us.
It is sad that Africa cannot fashion out what governance suits our own peculiar circumstances. Rather, we import systems that work and are best suited to other people.
If Africa speaks with one voice, one goal and focus on unity and harnessing its natural and human resource for the good of all Africans, no America, no Europe, no Russia, no China or any other entity can target a whole continent for elimination.
Writer’s email address:
akofa45@yahoo.com
By Dr. Akofa K. Segbefia
Features
Tears of Ghanaman, home and abroad
The typical native of Sikaman is by nature a hospitable creature, a social animal with a big heart, a soul full of the milk of earthly goodness, and a spirit too loving for its own comfort.
Ghanaman hosts a foreign pal and he spends a fortune to make him very happy and comfortable-good food, clean booze, excellent accommodation and a woman for the night.
Sometimes the pal leaves without saying a “thank you but Ghanaman is not offended. He’d host another idiot even more splendidly. His nature is warm, his spirit benevolent. That is the typical Ghanaian and no wonder that many African-Americans say, “If you haven’t visited Ghana. Then you’ve not come to Africa.
You can even enter the country without a passport and a visa and you’ll be welcomed with a pot of palm wine.
If Ghanaman wants to go abroad, especially to an European country or the United States, it is often after an ordeal.
He has to doze in a queue at dawn at the embassy for days and if he is lucky to get through to being interviewed, he is confronted by someone who claims he or she has the power of discerning truth from lie.
In short Ghanaman must undergo a lie-detector test and has to answer questions that are either nonsensical or have no relevance to the trip at hand. When Joseph Kwame Korkorti wanted a visa to an European country, the attache studied Korkorti’s nose for a while and pronounced judgment.
“The way I see you, you won’t return to Ghana if I allow you to go. Korkorti nearly dislocated her jaw; Kwasiasem akwaakwa. In any case what had Korkorti’s nose got to do with the trip?
If Ghanaman, after several attempts, manages to get the visa and lands in the whiteman’s land, he is seen as another monkey uptown, a new arrival of a degenerate ape coming to invade civilized society. He is sneered at, mocked at and avoided like a plague. Some landlords abroad will not hire their rooms to blacks because they feel their presence in itself is bad business.
When a Sikaman publisher landed overseas and was riding in a public bus, an urchin who had the impudence and notoriety of a dead cockroach told his colleagues he was sure the black man had a tail which he was hiding in his pair of trousers. He didn’t end there. He said he was in fact going to pull out the tail for everyone to see.
True to his word he went and put his hand into the backside of the bewildered publisher, intent on grabbing his imaginary tail and pulling it out. It took a lot of patience on the part of the publisher to avert murder. He practically pinned the white miscreant on the floor by the neck and only let go when others intervene. Next time too…
The way we treat our foreign guests in comparison with the way they treat us is polar contrasting-two disparate extremes, one totally incomparable to the other. They hound us for immigration papers, deport us for overstaying and skinheads either target homes to perpetrate mayhem or attack black immigrants to gratify their racial madness
When these same people come here we accept them even more hospitably than our own kin. They enter without visas, overstay, impregnate our women and run away.
About half of foreigners in this country do not have valid resident permits and was not a bother until recently when fire was put under the buttocks of the Immigration Service
In fact, until recently I never knew Sikaman had an Immigration Service. The problem is that although their staff look resplendent in their green outfit, you never really see them anywhere. You’d think they are hidden from the public eye.
The first time I saw a group of them walking somewhere, I nearly mistook them for some sixth-form going to the library. Their ladies are pretty though.
So after all, Sikaman has an Immigration Service which I hear is now alert 24 hours a day tracking down illegal aliens and making sure they bound the exit via Kotoka International. A pat on their shoulder.
I am glad the Interior Ministry has also realised that the country has been too slack about who goes out or comes into Sikaman.
Now the Ministry has warned foreigners not to take the country’s commitment to its obligations under the various conditions as a sign of weakness or a source for the abuse of her hospitality.
“Ghana will not tolerate any such abuse,” Nii Okaija Adamafio, the Interior Minister said, baring his teeth and twitching his little moustache. He was inaugurating the Ghana Refugee and Immigration Service Boards.
He said some foreigners come in as tourists, investors, consultants, skilled workers or refugees. Others come as ‘charlatans, adventurers or plain criminals. “
Yes, there are many criminals among them. Our courts have tried a good number of them for fraud and misconduct.
It is time we welcome only those who would come and invest or tour and go back peacefully and not those whose criminal intentions are well-hidden but get exposed in due course of time.
This article was first published on Saturday March 14, 1998
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Features
Decisions have consequences
In this world, it is always important to recognise that every action or decision taken, has consequences.
It can result in something good or bad, depending on the quality of the decision, that is, the factors that were taken into account in the decision making.
The problem with a bad decision is that, in some instances, there is no opportunity to correct the result even though you have regretted the decision, which resulted in the unpleasant outcome.
This is what a friend of mine refers to as having regretted an unregretable regret. After church last Sunday, I was watching a programme on TV and a young lady was sharing with the host, how a bad decision she took, had affected her life immensely and adversely.
She narrated how she met a Caucasian and she got married to him. The white man arranged for her to join him after the marriage and processes were initiated for her to join her husband in UK. It took a while for the requisite documentation to be procured and during this period, she took a decision that has haunted her till date.
According to her narration, she met a man, a Ghanaian, who she started dating, even though she was a married woman.
After a while her documents were ready and so she left to join her husband abroad without breaking off the unholy relationship with the man from Ghana.
After she got to UK, this man from Ghana, kept pressuring her to leave the white man and return to him in Ghana. The white man at some point became a bit suspicious and asked about who she has been talking on the phone with for long spells, and she lied to him that it was her cousin.
Then comes the shocker. After the man from Ghana had sweet talked her continuously for a while, she decided to leave her husband and return to Ghana after only three weeks abroad.
She said, she asked the guy to swear to her that he would take care of both her and her mother and the guy swore to take good care of her and her mother as well as rent a 3-bedroom flat for her. She then took the decision to leave her husband and return to Ghana.
She told her mum that she was returning to Ghana to marry the guy in Ghana. According to her, her mother vigorously disagreed with her decision and wept.
She further added that her mum told her brother and they told her that they were going to tell her husband about her intentions.
According to her, she threatened that if they called her husband to inform him, then she would commit suicide, an idea given to her by the boyfriend in Ghana.
Her mum and brother afraid of what she might do, agreed not to tell her husband. She then told her husband that she was returning to Ghana to attend her Grandmother’s funeral.
The husband could not understand why she wanted to go back to Ghana after only three weeks stay so she had to lie that in their tradition, grandchildren are required to be present when the grandmother dies and is to be buried.
She returned to Ghana; the flat turns into a chamber and hall accommodation, the promise to take care of her mother does not materialise and generally she ends up furnishing the accommodation herself. All the promises given her by her boyfriend, turned out to be just mere words.
A phone the husband gave her, she left behind in UK out of guilty conscience knowing she was never coming back to UK.
Through that phone and social media, the husband found out about his boyfriend and that was the end of her marriage.
Meanwhile, things have gone awry here in Ghana and she had regretted and at a point in her narration, was trying desperately to hold back tears. Decisions indeed have consequences.
NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT’
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