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
Political punches and the Blackman
A live boxing showdown between an Arab champion, Saddam Hussein, and the Western ‘Bazooka,’ George Bush, should be the most spectacular event in boxing and political history.
Most probably, Saddam Hussein will rely more on his thick moustache than his ‘chemical’ upper-cuts. Naturally, the dancing kenkeyweight titlist, George Bush, will turn into a southpaw, floating in the ring, jabbing, ducking and targeting Saddam’s moustache to rip it off once and for all.
Such a boxing show would be one of near equals. But consider for a moment a similar show between the Pride of Pretoria, F. W.de Klerk, and the Hope of South Africa, Oliver Tambo.
Although Tambo is not in the very best of health, he is sure to be a diligent pugilist with all the qualities of a BLACK BOMBER. F. W.de Klerk, the stronger of the two is likely to be cautioned several times for hitting below the belt. Fact is that, de Klerk’s punches are never direct. Perhaps his fists need a binoculars to help target Tambo’s nose.
Oliver Tambo had never been a good friend to South African leaders, especially
Pieter Botha. And for quite some time, Botha has had more than a fair share of Tambo’s political punches till his corner men threw in the towel. Still Botha wanted to fight on although they told him that he needed to be replaced by a clerk-de Klerk.
Today, Oliver Tambo is still fighting on behalf of his people. And gradually, the satanic apartheid regime is crumbling, but piecemeal. I bet, de Klerk’s formula for dismantling apartheid that can be likened to a small ant commissioned to eat a mountain of LOAF. Certainly, it would take a thousand years to complete.
This fact is further underscored when we consider that just recently, leaders of the European Community have agreed to scrap the ban on new investments in South Africa. With this decision, South Africa is going to get some breathing space and the process of disentangling its dreaded stranglehold on the black majority is going to be dead-slow.
The German Foreign Minister, Hans Dietrich Genscher, rationalising the community’s decision, said the lifting of the ban would reward de Klerk for legalising the African National Congress (ANC), freeing its deputy leader, Nelson Mandela, and permitting Oliver Tambo to return to South Africa after thirty years in exile.
In reaction to this, the ANC adopted a resolution calling for sanctions to be maintained, with the stand that the EC’s decision which was against ANC interests. Earlier, during an ANC congress, Oliver Tambo had stated that it was time the ANC reviewed its stand on sanctions against South Africa.
“It is no longer enough to repeat the trite slogans …… we should carefully re-evaluate the advisability of insisting on sanctions given the situation domestically and abroad.”
Apparently, the optimism of the black majority of attaining a wish is gradually becoming tantalising if not illusionary.
As it is now, the European Community’s decision is a pointer to the fact that members of the Community regard the South African whites as their first cousins. And obviously, many Europeans directly or indirectly have commercial interests in South Africa. And how can one punish a brother for so long no matter how recalcitrant he proves to be?
Fact is, covertly or overtly, the apartheid regime is being made to perpetuate till doomsday. No one cares for the black man. The whites will come out openly to condemn the racist regime and go indoors to have plans about how best to strengthen this regime.
Worse atrocities have been visited upon the black man. Since history began chronicling world events, the black man has been at the receiving end of all unpleasantries. He is even cited to have descended from a cursed man called Ham, who according to the Bible derided his father’s nakedness. Quite fallaciously, one child of Ham was said to be black (because of the curse), and became the progenitor of the African race.
It is quite uncertain whether orientals like the Chinese also had some share of the curse to make some of them yellow-skinned.
Anyhow, blacks of the world have suffered a lot, having been made slaves, tortured and abused. In the United States where many blacks became domiciled after the slave trade, they were regarded as second rate citizens. To this very day, they are discriminated against when it comes to job opportunities and prospects for promotion.
AMUSING CONCLUSIONS
They are considered brainless and only fun-loving. In a seemingly very crooked research conducted not far back, the following amusing conclusions were arrived at. Chinese students were said to be studious, European children very ambitious and bright and Negro children were said to like partying and music. Adult Negroes were said to be physically strong with large sexual organs but no brains in their heads.
The Blackman’s culture is described as uncivilised and extremely backward. But let’s come to face it. The white man’s culture teaches him to hate others who are not of his colour. You go to Europe and you would be shocked that some whites would not like to sit in the same bus with you.
When they (Europeans) come to Africa, we are not hostile to them although they’ve once enslaved and brutalised us and continue to discriminate against us. We bear them no grudge. Our culture does not breed hatred for other races. It preaches hospitality and respect for all. Which of these two cultures should be placed higher on the scale of civilisation?
In the US, a white supremacist group named the Ku Klux Klan, have a morbid hatred for blacks and have policies geared towards the elimination of the black race. The neo-Nazis do not like blacks either.
History has it that when Jesse Owens won four Olympic gold medals in Berlin, the Nazi warlord, Adolf Hitler, was gravely embittered.
We are discriminated against in sports, the latest being two dubious penalties awarded against the Indomitable Lions of Cameroun in the match against England in the 1990 World Cup in Italy. Cameroun, as a result, failed to reach the semi-final stage. Africans do not deserve a World Cup.
And quite sadly we allow Caucasians and Anglo Saxons to dictate to us which of our women are beautiful and which are not. We accept their criteria for beauty and allow our women to parade semi naked before them, only to be ridiculed as hairless monkeys, and undeserving of beauty awards.
Year after year, we send our women there to experience the same ordeal and we would never learn to stop that nonsense. Are we not encouraging the whites to go on ridiculing our race?
Caucasians, Orientals and Africans have their own considerations when appraising beauty. Why allow Caucasians to superimpose their idea of beauty on ours.
Shall we always be slaves who never stop to think for a while of their independence?
This article was first published on Saturday, December 22, 1990
Features
Is God a Liar?
I believe the first thought that will occur to anyone who reads the topic of this write-up will be what is going on here? Is this author not committing blasphemy? Recent developments on our political front has made this question relevant because of the impact these developments can have on Christianity.
In fact, a respected Christian leader in the country has commented that, Charismatic Christians seem to have decided to embark on a one way journey to self destruction.
He further commented that Charismatics have desecrated noble titles like Apostle, Bishop etc. to the extent that now if you call yourself a Prophet it is synonymous to a con man. Prophets are supposed to speak the mind of God to his people or his church and therefore when a statement is made by a Prophet claiming “thus saith the Lord” people take it whole heartedly as if God was uttering it directly to them.
Again we believe as Christians that God does not lie according to Numbers 23:19 and other references in the bible, and therefore, when a so called Prophet makes an emphatic statement that it is coming from God and a few years later this same God makes another statement contradicting the first one, then it is legitimate to ask the question “Is God a liar”?
People are beginning to lose trust in men of God because of their utterances and actions. You hear of stories of so called men of God committing adultery, stealing, cheating and all kinds of unpleasant behaviour. Unspeakable things that even unbelievers shy away from are being associated with men in white collar.
When elections are approaching, you hear of all manner of prophesies as to which presidential candidate is going to win the elections. Previously, it used to be prophetic declarations on 31st December Night until a certain Dr Dampare issued an order and suddenly God decided to take a holiday each 31st night in my beloved country, Ghana.
The respected Christian leader I mentioned earlier said, he does not believe that God elects leaders especially in our continent and that if he does, given some of the leaders we have had, then we need to have a conversation with him. I fully agree. How can a God of order and discipline, elect lawless people to be leaders who refuse to hand over power contrary to what their constitution states, when their term of office expires?
If I were a member of the fake prophet’s church, I definitely would quit the church because he has proven to be a charlatan. The Bible makes it clear in Mathew 7:20 that the criteria for determining a person’s status as a Christian is by their fruits. Instead of focusing on spreading the Gospel and showing the unsaved the way of salvation, they have turned themselves into favour seekers.
The current places of church auditoriums of some of these pastors were places of businesses as those of us who are privileged to be old enough, vividly recollect. They sing the praises of leaders and their governments, so they would be favoured with prime locations for their church auditoriums among others. These are what the Bible talks about according to Philippians 3:19 that their God is their belly among others.
Instead of seeking Godly wisdom for the revival of these distressed companies, what they were interested in was the place being given to them and they hypocritically turn around and say let us pray for jobs for the youth.
Some of these so called men of God, demand consultation fees before you can see them and I pity the poor souls who visit such places.
God is not a liar. It is against his nature to lie. He is a spirit of truth. It is rather the Devil who is a liar and the father of lies so if you lead a life of lies, as some of these pastors obviously are doing, then according to the Bible, they are fake.
By Lord Kissi-Mensah