Ghana's New Middle Class

Believing the Python in Cameroon

Recently, a story which has been circulating in Cameroon for over twenty years broke out anew in the town of Buea, in the Southwest Region of Cameroon. That old story is the story of pythons that swallow young ladies, especially young ladies in university towns. This story first became popular when I was still a student at the University of Yaoundé, Cameroon, in the early 1990s. At the time, it was announced over the radio in Yaoundé that a young lady who was a student at the University of Yaoundé, had been swallowed by a python in a hotel. The story went abroad that a wealthy, older man who wanted to have an affair with the young lady had promised to give her much money upon the consummation of the affair. Enticed by the money, the young lady followed the man into a hotel room and while there the man transformed into a python and swallowed the girl. No girl was ever reported missing but many people believed the story.

Recently, however, the same story broke out in the university town of Buea. The story went that a senior police or military officer or a business person (these things are hardly clear) went into a hotel with a girl who lived in Buea. The man proceeded to transform into a python and swallowed the girl. When this story was reported a couple of weeks ago, over ten thousand people poured into the streets in Buea and marched to the said hotel to rescue the girl from the python. No girl was reported missing, something that would need to be the case if a girl had been swallowed by a python. In spite of the fact that no girl was reported missing, people still insisted that a girl had be devoured by a python in a hotel room.

One enterprising young man who heard the story went on the internet and printed out an unrelated picture of a python swallowing a girl and started selling the pictures in the streets, as if they were pictures of the actual even. (Superstition has now gone hi-tech!)The police intervened and stopped the sale of the pictures. In all this, however, it was only the owner of the hotel who clearly denied that he knew of no incident dealing with a python swallowing a girl in his hotel. Public officials only used teargas and gunshots to disperse the gathered crowd. They did not confirm or deny the claims of the story. And so to this day, there are many in Buea and Cameroon as a whole who believe that a python swallowed a young lady at a hotel in Buea. Before that, it was in Yaoundé.

The fact that no public official either denied or confirmed this story leads me to believe that our ruling elites have a vested interest in keeping people in the dark. Disabusing the people from believing such incredulous stories would make them begin to wonder about other untruthful stories they may be tenaciously holding. Where public officials benefit from telling lies, they would hardly want to run the risk of clarifying untruthful stories.

All this brings me to what is my personal interest in this story. The imagination that grants credibility to human beings turning into pythons and swallowing other human beings is a religious imagination. Those who have vested interests in presenting Africans as deeply religious people will not want to disabuse the populace of this ruinous imagination. As a scholar of religion this concerns me because in attempt to encourage the religious imagination in Africa, free reign is given to incredulous beliefs that sometimes lead to unsound outcomes. The hotel in this story was partly destroyed by the gathered crowd.

Two groups, however, have vested interests in keeping the people in the dark about these kinds of stories and both of these groups belong to the elite of the Cameroonian society - the ruling elites and the preachers and scholars of African religion. In this matter, the interests of corrupt ruling elites and those of the religious leaders in society coincide. For both of these groups, the calculation is that the people better remain in ignorance than lose their ignorance and start asking uncomfortable questions. Better the people remain ignorant and religious than knowledgeable, argumentative, and irreligious. That is not the African way. Those things are for corrupt, Westerners; not for good African people. Africans need to be different, you know. Africans need to be different. They are better people. Anthropologists and scholars of religion will have a field day with this. I wait to read about it in scholarly journals about how religion is waxing strong in Africa.

Meet Dr. Dambisa Moyo

Having talked about Prof. Ayittey yesterday, I thought of bringing you another warrior for a flourishing Africa today. She is Dr. Dambisa Moyo, the economist from Zambia and author of the popular work, Dead Aid. Even though both Moyo and Ayittey are warriors for a flourishing Africa and are both economists, they approach the matter a little differently. Ayittey focuses on moralizing about African economic and political leadership while Moyo stays with the economic facts, seeing economics as somehow separate from politics. For her, if you put your economic ducks in order, the politics will follow. Also, while Ayittey tends to be very suspicious of the role of China in Africa, Moyo tends to see China as a kind of savior who treats Africa as equal partners in the struggle for economic development. Further, Moyo places Africa within global dynamics while Ayittey discusses African issues mainly with reference to what is going on in Africa. Meet Dr. Moyo.

 

Prof. George Ayittey on Contemporary African Economies

Prof. George Ayittey, renown economist from Ghana, has made it his life's work to see a flourishing Africa. He was recently on the BBC to talk about how African economies should be engineered. You need to listen to him here.

Out of media player. Press

African Teams and the 2014 World Cup in Brazil

The following African nations have qualified for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil:
1. Algeria
2. Cameroon
3. Nigeria
4. Ghana
5. Ivory Coast
Africa has five slots to fill at the competition and those are the countries that have filled the slots.

However, this post is not about African teams that have qualified for the World Cup. Rather, it intends to ask a troubling question about African football. At the World Cup level, the best an African country has performed is to reach the quarterfinals and this was first done by Cameroon in the heydays of the football magician, Roger Milla, the best African footballer who ever lived. Now, some are wondering whether any of the current slate of teams would even make it to the quarterfinals. If this is done, it seems, it would be counted as a good achievement for African football. With African football, it seems that few ever nurse the hope of actually winning the World Cup. This is a strange place to be for two significant reasons. First, African countries have defeated countries that have eventually won the World Cup. Second, at the junior levels of the World Cup, African countries have won the trophy several times.

This brings me to the troubling question that led to this post: how is it that African countries can win the World Cup at the junior levels but fail to do so even once at the senior level? At what point do things go wrong for African teams as they move from the junior to the senior levels of the competition? If African countries have won the junior levels World Cup, one would imagine that it is possible for them to win the trophy at the senior level. Why is it that this has not happened and no one seems to be thinking that this should happen soon?
 

The Happiest and Saddest Countries in the World

"Happiness is subjective, not objective, and what defines it can be debated ad infinitum. Does prosperity equal happiness? Not always, but it sure helps." See where African countries fall in the list of 142 countries.

Nigeria are World Under 17 Football Champions!

See video highlights here.

Mr. Dos Santos of Angola Should Be Ashamed of Himself

Angola's dictator, Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who has ruled the country since 1975, should be ashamed of himself for jailing a teenager. A teenager prints a T-Shirt protesting the dictatorship in Angola and is thrown in jail? What respectable person would jail a teenager for expressing political views?Need we an further demonstration that Angola is a dictatorship? Mr. dos Santos should be ashamed of himself.

Mr. Dos Santos should be ashamed of himself

Cardinal Christian Tumi, Paul Biya, and the Popes

Cameroon is a country beloved by the popes. Since John Paul II, whenever Roman Catholic Popes visit Africa, their first stop is in Cameroon. Pope Francis has not visited Africa yet and so we wait to see whether he would maintain this tradition or not. Why do the Popes do this? The reason is not clear to me. However, I continue to be surprised by the prominence of Cameroon on the map of the Roman Catholic hierarchy given that the country does not appear to have the most Catholics in Africa. Perhaps Cameroon has this prominence because the dictator of the country is a Roman Catholic! Thus the relations between the Popes and the Cameroonian hierarchy has served to bless Paul Biya's dictatorship as each Pope who visits the country shakes his hand and gives him communion. To most Cameroonians and even the international community, this alignment of the Popes with the dictatorship of Paul Biya gives his unholy regime the cover of legitimacy. Even Pope Francis who is noted for his comments about providing for the least of these has also blessed Biya's dictatorship even if he is yet to go to Cameroon.

However, one of the leading critics of this monstrous regime is also a Roman Catholic - Cardinal Christian Tumi. He has seized every opportunity to condemn the machinations of this monstrosity but one wonders if his voice is making any difference given that the hierarchy in the Vatican is in cahoots with the junta.

700 Days of Protesting Paul Biya's Thirty-year Dictatorship in Cameroon

On November 6, 2013, Paul Biya, Cameroon's dictator, will be thirty-one years since France placed him at the helm of power in Cameroon. He came to power when Cameroon had a one-party system, resisted the idea of multi-party democracy until he could do so no more. Then he set up a sham multi-party system in which he has been rigging one election after the other since 1992. His latest exploits were the brazen rigging of the senatorial and municipal elections in Cameroon. Paul Biya has taught Cameroonians massive corruption, jailed his opponents on trumped up charges, ruined the economy of the country, and contributed to the early death of many young people of the country. Young people are fleeing the country in droves because Paul Biya has demonstrated that he cannot create a better future for the people of Cameroon. We here at FlourshingAfrica will continue to highlight Paul Biya's unholy grip on power in Cameroon until that monstrous regime is no more. We need people with fresh ideas to chart a better future for the people. Cameroon deserves much better.

Egyptian Military Can't Take a Joke?

The suspension of the Egyptian Satirist Bassem Youssef's show by the Egyptian military seems to show that the military has more to hide than reveal. We at FlourishingAfrica still think they did a good thing by removing Morsi from power but this act makes us to begin to be skeptical about their intentions.