- Africa - It shall be well

By Femi Akomolafe

Femi Akomolafe,a passionate Pan-Africanist,columnist for the Accra-based Daily Dispatch newspaper and Correspondent for the New African magazine, chronicles the ills of his beloved continent, and offers some suggestions on what he thinks could be done to improve the abject situation.

His other books are: Africa: Destroyed by the gods & 25 African Fables and Moonlight Stories.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jan 31, 2017
• ISBN: 9781365722509

Book preview

- Africa - It shall be well

Africa: It Shall be Well

Femi Akomolafe

Copyright

© 2014 by Femi Akomolafe

All rights reserved

ISBN:

Page Layout: Daniel Abbey & Femi Akomolafe

Cover Design: Remi Akomolafe

All Rights Reserved

This book is the intellectual property of the copyright owner. It is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated (by whatever means) without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which this is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Transmission in any form, including electronic, requires the publisher’s prior consent and permission.

Published by:

Alaye Dot Biz Limited P. O. Box KS 382, Kasoa Central Region – Ghana

For bulk purchase, contact: Alaye Dot Biz Ltd.: 

Tel: [phone]

Follow Femi Akomolafe: Twitter: twitter.com/Femi Akomolafe; Gmail: gmail+/Femi Akomolafe; email: [e-mail]; Blog: www.alaye.biz/blog

Available on Amazon: Femi’s.Amazon.com

Blessed is he that readeth. Revelation 1:3

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I thank my editors at the Daily Dispatch newspaper, the New African magazine, and the veritable online e-zine www.swan.com for their help and encouragement.

I also thank the numerous readers who write to tell me what they think of my articles. To both supporters and critics, I say a big thank you.

My friend and fellow columnist, Alba Kunadu, and Uncle Kweku Bediako of the Daily Dispatch, helped me with proof-reading; I remain grateful.

Many thanks to Mr. Nii Aryee Ankrah, CEO of the Triple A Press, for all his invaluable assistance.

Thank you, Mr. Daniel Abbey, for your help with the cover design and the page layout.

Thanks to you, my special friend, Gre Westerveld, for your love, kindness and, above all, strong moral support.

Finally, great thanks to my son, Remi Akomolafe, for his insightful criticisms and also for helping to design the book covers.

Remi, you are good people!

INTRODUCTION

It is said that it is the sad duty of a writer to chronicle the ills of his society.

In the following pages, I set out to write about some of the things I see as wrong in Africa and, where possible, I try to offer suggestions about the things I believe we could do to correct these apparent ills.

The book is a collection of my published literary output spanning almost three decades.

They have appeared as contributions in my columns in the Accra-based Daily Dispatch, the London-based Pan-African New African magazine, and on the internet-based e-magazines - www.swans.com, www.modernghana.com,www.nigerianworld.com and many other places. They are also on my website: www.alaye.biz/blog.

As I try to show on the following pages, Africa’s tragedy, in my opinion, stems largely from the fact that we [Africans] continue to look for solutions to our challenges/problems from the same people who, in large measure, created the problems in the first place.

While it is true that many African problems are compounded by ineffectual leaders who are largely clueless about what they face, the truth that Africa operates in a very hostile global environment cannot be denied. This environment, to begin with, is also largely controlled by people that do not wish Africans well.

The inhuman trade regime imposed on Africa by institutions and agencies the West set up to further its interests, the flagrant and persistent interference in Africa’s domestic affairs, the covert and overt control of Africa’s mineral resources are factors that are as responsible for Africa’s woes, as is the much touted corruption.

As amply demonstrated in many of the articles, I did not set out to excuse or absolve African leaders from the unfortunate situation that our dear continent today finds itself in.  These leaders have chosen to align themselves with external foes to sentence Africans to a life of war and misery amidst the vast mineral resources the gods bestowed on our dear continent.

The rapacious domination of Africa’s natural resources by Western multi-nationals; the gross and very blatant interference in Africa’s domestic affairs; the launching of proxy wars; the inhuman trade regime imposed on the continent from outside; the cultural, financial, economic, political and military (examples: Somali, Nigeria, DR Congo, CAR, Mali etc.) assaults that the West continues to launch against Africa, cannot and should not be taken out of the equation in analyzing the problems of Africa.

I claim no oracular knowledge about Africa. I also do not pretend to have the solutions to all of Africa’s problems.

However, my firm belief as an African patriot is that Africa does not have a problem that Africans cannot solve.

That explains the optimistic title I chose for the book.

I hope that you enjoy reading this collection of my articles; I thoroughly enjoyed myself writing them.

Femi Akomolafe 

Kasoa, Ghana

January 1, 2014

GHANA: A MILLION DOLLARS’ DESIRE AND OTHER MATTERS ARISING

Management works in the system; leadership works on the system. -Stephen R. Covey

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know. - Donald Rumsfeld (George Bush Jr.’s Minister for Defense)

Femi, what happened?

What do you mean what happened?

Oh, cool your heels, Femi. There is no need to bellow like an irate Imam. It was just a question I asked you; don’t chop my head off.

And I asked what type of question is that?

I just asked you what happened. I don’t know why you try to make a capital case of it?

And I asked you what you meant by your question of what happened. What did you take me for, an oracle who should know what happens everywhere?

You are surely in a nasty funk this blessed morning.

Do you mean that I should know everything?

Ah, look at where you turned my innocuous question to? You are the one who is always writing those ponderous, hard to understand polemics, and rave and rant against one and all. You are the one who condemns the government, the president, the Parliament, the Judiciary, the World Bank, the World Health Organisation, the European Union, the United Nations and everything and everyone in between. Yet, when the president took a very decisive action of sacking a minister, you were conspicuous by your loud silence. When will you learn to give honour when and where it is due?

What do you mean; that I should salute the president for sacking a loudmouthed, wide-assed, incompetent minister of state?

Don’t you think that the president deserved some praise; at least for showing some nerve. Some backbone. Some balls, if you pardon the French. It is not easy to fire people, Femi.

Hmmmm.

Hmmmm. Is that all you can say? Be charitable, Femi. Be charitable, the President did well, if only with the alacrity at which the woman was dispatched.

We have biggo biggo problems in this beautiful republic of ours.

What do you mean by that? We all know that we have big problems in the land. But we should learn to give credit where it is due. Mr. President deserves our praise.

That exactly is the number one biggo biggo problem we have in the country. We are too impressed by empty gestures and mundane things.

Do you mean that the sacking of a minister is an empty gesture?

You can turn my words whichever way you choose, but please do not insult my intelligence by suggesting that I should go to town and trumpet a president who sacks a minister, who never should have been appointed in the first place.

Do you mean that the minister, pardon me, ex minister, was not qualified?

Please, please, rather than inundate me with questions, kindly tell me what single qualification recommended her to a ministerial position? If we discount good looks and that fanciful African ass that cannot but make a man pant with lust.

You!

Me, what? You apparently have not been reading what I write. The woman was a walking disaster and an embarrassment of the highest proportions. Her demeanour alone suggest serious immaturity. She does not belong at the decision-making level in any organisation, much less in government. Since her appointment about ten months ago, she has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. Didn’t you see her imbecilic display at a public function, where she tried to read the wrong speech? You certainly have not been reading my articles.

I try to keep pace, but you must know that some of us have better things to do than read all that ponderous stuff you churn out. But do you blame the poor woman, she said she was sabotaged?

Sabotaged? Really! So, we have a minister of state who took a prepared speech from her office, rode all the way to the occasion, only to discover that she had the wrong notes, c’mon now. We are talking of a minister, here, for crying out loud. I have written times without number that the governance of a nation is far too important to be given to anyone less than the best the nation can offer. When we lament that the Asians are racing ahead of us, no one remembers to tell us that the Asians put the highest premium on the quality of people they attract to their civil service. Only the best of the best get appointed to top positions in their public service.

And you don’t believe that we do the same here?

Ah, on the contrary. We do not and the result is glaring. While the Asians are at the cutting edge of every technological breakthrough, we in Africa are still mired in ignorance, superstitions and poverty. While the Indians launch a probe to Planet Mars, no Africa country has managed to successfully build a factory to manufacture bicycle spokes. Rather than lament our low life, we celebrate totally unimportant and irrelevant events. Why not the best, why not the best?

You are impossible. You accuse the leadership of not doing enough, and when they appear to be doing something, you still go ahead with your condemnation.

Honestly, it appears that you didn’t listen to what I was saying. I have said many times that the presidency of nation is not a place to attract anything but the best the nation has to offer. Instead of celebrating the sacking by praising Mr. President, we should rather ask pungent questions like why the woman was appointed in the first place. That a totally incompetent person like that gets to be appointed a minister, shows a very serious systemic and institutional failure of the highest degree. Who recommended her? Which institutions recommended and vetted her before she got to the presidency? How did she manage to get through the so-called parliamentary vetting? These are serious questions we ought to be asking, instead of rolling out drums to congratulate the president. Not that I do not sympathise with the man.

You do? You certainly have a strange way of showing it!

Sarcasm will get you everywhere. I truly sympathise with the president, and I believe he is being badly served. But then he must share in the blame.

You certainly have a way of praising someone. In one breadth you laud, and in the next you qualify your praise.

Which goes to show that I’m not your run-of-the mill praise singer or court jester. As I have said several times, the presidency of a nation is far too important to attract unserious people. Mr. President has no business surrounding himself with anything less than the best brains and brawns the country has to offer. The presidency is a hallowed institution that ought not be besmirched by the types of scandals we have witnessed in the recent past. It is far too important to be stuck in gear one.

You! The man was speaking figuratively!

Figuratively, metaphorically, allegorically or whatever, the destiny of twenty-four million people is far too important to be left to chance, and to be stuck in anything but the best gear.

I thought you were praising him.

Whatever gave you that wrong idea? I am not a praise-singer. I am pained and sad that we as a people appear not to know how far behind the other races we truly are. While other people are racing as though there is no tomorrow, we are stuck in a time-warp, taking one step forward and twenty steps backwards. And our president tells us he is in gear one. We have people in government whose ambitions do not soar beyond milking the nation’s purse. Despite all we give our officials as freebies, they still think nothing of looting the treasury. This is pretty sad, and it is pretty sad that these are the types of people that sit in cabinet to decide the fate of our dear republic. And rather than lament this monumental systemic failure, you say I should praise the man under whose watch the mess happened. Methinks it is praise-singers like you that are the biggest problem in the land.

So you now blame the president?

You! You can twist my words any which way you want, but we run an executive type of government, and the only person we have in charge is Mr. President. The buck stops at his desk. It is he we should ask what informed his decision to appoint such a walking disaster as a minister in his cabinet. But we should go further; we should question the very system we run. Rather than blame the individuals, we should look at the whole system. Our elders say that the house built with spittle will be felled by dew.

Femi, there you go again with your proverbs. So, you now argue that we should blame the system; what happened to individual responsibilities?

Good question, but why do we always forget that individuals function inside a system? And if that system is rotten, there is little any individual can do but become compromised by the rot. We cannot erect and operate a defective system and complain when it consistently fails us.

What is wrong with the system?

Everything! Everything you can think of is wrong with the system we currently operate. Our first president, the Osagyefo of blessed memory,  defined western-styled democracy as competition between oligachists. Why then do we complain when we take to this system like dogs take to juicy bones, only to complain when it fails us? We cannot operate a system that requires vast amounts of money to win elections, and turn around to complain when the operators want to make money by Machiavellian tactics. It is time we remove the blinkers from our eyes, and realize that politics is business; pure and simple. When people put up vast amounts of money to support candidates, they are investing and, like every investor, they expect good returns on their investment. Why then do we all pretend that some people will spend their money, only to go into government and represent our interests? Why then do we pretend and appeared shock when a loose-mouth braggart, with an impossibly vast backside, was caught saying what every politician knows and does?

Really, Femi, it is difficult to follow you. And you seemed mesmerized by the poor woman’s ass.

Ok, ok, I admit to the fact that the considerable wallop she packs at the rear side is enough to drive a man insane. But, it is simple, really. As I often said, our astounding hypocrisy will be our undoing. Which child born yesterday does not know that politics costs money? Printing T-shirts, banners and the renting of crowds all cost money. And which child born today does not know that politicians are not Father Christmas; that they are serious-minded business people. We ought to know that for the type of political system that we choose, money is everything. We should stop pretending and accept that we operate a charade of a political system, dressed up with fanciful names, and that we deserve the rubbish we get.

GHANA: Where is the justice?

Freedom and Justice. – Ghana’s motto

Justice: Among the definitions of justice I got from my dictionary is: fairness or reasonableness, especially in the way people are treated or decisions are made.

My advice is that if you are a citizen of this great republic, and you believe that the justice in the national motto (Freedom and Justice), is more than mere decoration, I say it is time you re-arrange your thoughts, or re-arrange your brain cells; whichever you