Ordinary People Decry Corruption in Cameroon

This is a five-minute video link to a new song that castigates corruption in Cameroon made by a group to which my baby sister, Regina, belongs. The video was made in Cameroon. Listen to the cry of ordinary people by clicking here. Regina is the short lady in the video. For a pastor's take on corruption in Cameroon click here.

Are the Dead Loved More than the Living in Africa

A Ghanaian journalist, Elizabeth Ohene, has written a very provovative piece that suggests that Ghanaian attitude toward the dead seems to indicate that they value the dead more than the living. In many African societies, funerals or "death celebrations" are seen as occasions for lavish expenses that do very little to stimulate the economy. Has the time come for this practice to be critically evaluated?

Empty Spaces in Africa

Some scholars have observed that some African countries are mainly places that are shown on the map without any effective governments. They have referred to these countries as weak or failed states. This is especially the case with countries that are unable to protect their people or do things that will benefit their people. The cases of Sudan, Uganda, DRC, Nigeria, Somalia, where rebel groups roam free are classic. The Lord's Resistance Army of from Uganda has exploited this weakness to wreck havoc on much of Central Africa or the Great Lakes region. They roam so free in this region that one begins to wonder whether the governments in this region are even aware of them. After all, they do not go to the capitals where the big people live. They roam only the rural areas. And everyone knows that people in the rural areas of Africa do not matter. Let the massacre continue.

Only One African Coach at the 2010 Soccer World Cup in South Africa

In spite of the fact that African coaches have won the soccer world cup at the Under-17 and Under-20 levels, very few of them have been allowed by the powers that be to lead their countries to the major world cup tournament. African countries have tended to rely on European coaches. And for the world cup in South Africa this year, there will be only one African coach - the coach of the Algerian team. This is a classic case of African dependence and lack of confidence. Read more on this troubling story here.

A Case for the United States of Africa

Kwame Nkruma of Ghana
In the popular imagination, especially outside the continent, many see Africa as a single country. In fact, the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, is reputed to have thought that Africa is a country. Part of the task of those who teach Africa, especially outside the continent, has been to insist not only on the fact that the continent has fifty-three (fifty-four, if one adds Western Sahara) countries but also to point out the diversity of cultures in the continent. However, this emphasis on the difference of African peoples, even though laudable, is troubling because it sometimes makes calls for a united Africa sound like a vain dream.

The dream for a united Africa is one that has a very long history, beginning with the Pan-African vision of people the W. E. B. Du Bois and Marcus Garvey, Africans in the diaspora who saw the matter in racial terms. However, it was Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana who dreamed that the flourishing of the continent was inextricably linked to its geographical unity. That is why he insisted that African independence from colonial rule should be closely followed by African unity, so that the continent could make one country.

Political machinations from both in- and outside the continent, however, torpedoed this vision and gave Africa the Organization of African Unity (later converted into African Union), which had the respect of the territorial integrity of each country as its central plank. Thus, African countries became independent as separate states with some, such as Equatorial Guinea, having a population of only 700,000 people today. However, in a world where size matters in international politics and trade, African countries can hardly flourish if they do not band together to have a single strategy and vision. A country like Equatorial Guinea, for example, can hardly strike a good bargain with countries such as China, India, or the United States. The Oxford economist, Paul Collier, has noted that the small size of some African countries is problematic.

It of course does not follow that smaller countries do not flourish: there are many examples in Europe to prove that small countries can flourish economically. But smaller countries have come to see the importance of forming economic blocks - thus, the European Union. African countries have been forming economic blocks but this is not enough because major countries such as China, India, the United States, etc., have been striking bargains with individual countries rather than with blocks. Thus, for Africa to flourish in our contemporary world, the continent must unite to form one country. This would have the dual advantage of not confusing those who already think that Africa is a single country and uniting the people under a single vision.

This idea is being discussed in the African Union but the mutual suspicion among countries seem to make its realization an uphill task. Apart from the fact that Africans have been made to imbibe their fictitious identities as Nigerians, Egyptians, Cameroonians, Gabonese, Sudanese, Moroccans, South Africans, Zimbabweans, etc., the various presidents of these countries see the move toward unity as an attempt to deprive them of their ability to lord it over their own small portion of the continent at the expense of their people. But Africa cannot flourish in our contemporary world without a single, unified vision. Africans must come to see that such unity is in their own interest and so force their leaders to pursue the vision of a united Africa.

Listen to this inspirational song by Bob Marley: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L07lXY7hZQw

African Leaders and Foreign Medical Care

President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt


That the state of medical care in many African countries is abysmal can hardly be denied. This state of affairs has been compounded by the spread of malaria and HIV and AIDS. Rather than struggling to improve the situation of medical care in their countries, African leaders have learned to rely on foreign entities to do this for them. Even more remarkable is the fact that many of these leaders have no properly equipped medical facility that may cater for their health in their own countries . That is why the late Omar Bongo who was President of  Gabon, one of the oil-rich countries in Africa, died in a hospital in Spain. When Umaru Yar'Adua, the president of Nigeria got seriously ill last November, he was taken to Saudi Arabia for treatment. Presently, government-run mosques in Egypt are praying for the health of President Hosni Mubarak, who is is in Germany for treatment.

Some African leaders apparently see no need to improve the state of healthcare in their own countries since they can simply fly to foreign countries when they get ill. In order to make them improve the state of healthcare in their countries, perhaps it would be wise for some national constitutions to make it illegal for presidents to receive medical care in a foreign country. If an African president falls ill even while on an official visit to a foreign country, they will only need to be stabilized and flown back home for full treatment. This may be a radical idea but if it is stipulated in the law of a country, it may make a president to focus on improving the state of healthcare in their own country. At the very least, it may force a president to improve the system that takes care of their own health, rather than relying on foreign healthcare facilities. Who knows, this step may be what is needed for African countries to begin to come to themselves.

Ushahidi = Bearing Witness: Kenya's Gift to the World

Read this inspirational New York Times story of how a communications innovation in Kenya is changing the way humanitarian work is done around the world, especially during the recent earthquakes in Haiti and Chile. This technology is also being used in the United States, India and the Middle East - and it is cheap.

The Return of the Soldiers

Coup in Guinea Conakry, 2008

One of the most prominent features of postcolonial African politics has been the rule of soldiers (military rule). One of the ways in which military rule manifests itself is that soldiers simply take over the helm of state by force. Most African leaders, past and present, were/are soldiers who came to power by force and later regularized their stay by sometimes becoming civilian rulers. In fact, current African leaders such as Yuweri Museveni of Uganda, Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Omar el Bashir of Sudan, Muamar Gadafi of Libya, Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso, Denis Sassou Nguesso of the Republic of Congo, Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo, etc., came to power by force and later took off their military outfits for civilian ones. Nigeria was the most notorious case which recently appears to have turned the corner.

The second way in which military rule manifests itself is more subtle. In this case, rulers come to power as civilians but secure power using the military and the police to crush any opposition and subjugate the people. This is the case especially with Paul Biya of Cameroon and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.

With the clamor for democracy and multi-partyism in the 1990s, it was thought that rulers would begin to come to power through democratic means. But this has not been the case. By and large, military rule has continued in Africa, sometimes in its more blatant form, other times in its more subtle form. The most recent blatant cases have been those of Guinea Conakry, were soldiers took power by force after the death of President Lansana Conte (who came to power in 1984 through a military coup), and the recent overthrow of President Mamadou Tanja who had controversially amended the constitution to run for president again.

As usual, the international community condemned the coups but as usual nothing has changed. The BBC even whispered that France or the CIA may have had a hand in the overthrow of Mamadou Tanja. In the case of Niger, many even seem to have welcomed the coup. Some seem to suffer from the illusion that the military takeover may be good for democracy. But it must be seen for what it is: the mad grab for power which is characteristic of much African politics. Only this time, we are reverting to our former dark days. We should rather be looking for ways to end the militarization of politics in Africa.

For more on the coup in Niger, see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8537043.stm

Genocide in Nigeria

Various reasons have been given for the intermittent violence in Nigeria. Some say it is based on Christian-Muslim antagonism; others trace it to the colonial construction of the Nigerian state that forced distinct peoples into a nation-state; some say unscrupulous politicians instigate hatred between Christians and Muslims for political gain; others yet say that in some regions in Nigeria, like in the most recent violence in Jos, people are motivated by insider/outsider classification - in a particular region, some are classified as "indigenes" while others are called "settlers": for more on the last reason, see this BBC report: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8564884.stm

If these reasons are correct, it points to the disturbing fact that people are targeted for elimination in Nigeria based on their religion or ethnicity. The underlying issue that sometimes lead to violence may be the struggle to appropriate scarce resources but when particular groups of people are killed for this purpose, it becomes an act of genocide. Although genocide is sometimes seen as a situation where people are killed mainly because of their race or ethnicity, the underlying reason for such acts usually have to do with the quest for resources or political power. This is what happened in Burundi, Rwanda, Darfur, Bosnia, Nazi Germany, etc. People are not simply killed because of their ethnicity or race unless ethnicity or race is connected to the quest for power. And that is what is happening in Nigeria. People are being killed based on ethnicity (insider/outsider) or religion (the new racial marker).

What is going on in Nigeria must therefore be called genocide although it is happening on a lower scale. We are told that in some regions, "settlers" find it difficult to obtain jobs in local government or apply for educational scholarships. These are mostly given to the so-called "indigenes" even though both the "settlers" and "indigenes" are Nigerians. Violence, in some cases, is intended to wipe out one group or another. As a person from Cameroon, I am quite familiar with the language of "indigenes' and "settler" because it is also used to describe Cameroonians who are believed to be autochthonous to a particular region and Cameroonians who are believed to have recently settled in that region respectively. In Cameroon, like in Nigeria, this division is instigated by politicians for political gain. However, the situation in Cameroon has not resulted in the kind of mass killing that we see in Nigeria. I bring Cameroon into the discussion to show the similarity between these two African countries. Perhaps this "indigenous" and "settler" distinction is also used in many other African countries to refer to people who are citizens of the same country but have different ethnicity. It is the kind of distinction that leads to genocide. And Nigeria's government, by virtue of its inability to address the situation, is complicit in promoting this dangerous slippery slope.

For this situation to be addressed, at least two important things need to be done:

1. The weakness of the Nigerian state must be addressed

2. Current understandings of identity will have to be challenged.

These are both very tall orders for the fragile Nigerian state but if they are not addressed, what police commissioner Ikechukwu Aduba remarked may very well turn out to be a prophecy: "it is not over."

For more on the killings in Nigeria as genocide, see: http://allafrica.com/stories/201003100475.html

For videos of the recent violence in Plateau State see the following links:

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/08/violence-is-not-religiously-motivated-nigerian-archbishop-says/

http://news.yahoo.com/video/world-15749633/women-protest-religious-violence-in-nigeria-18579363

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VECcgIjRuj0

Robbers in Paradise: Paul Biya of Cameroon

Paul Biya is the little known kleptocratic president of the central African country of Cameroon. He came to power in 1982 after what is believed to be a deal orchestrated by France, Cameroon's colonial and neo-colonial master. This deal led to the resignation of the then president of the country, Amadou Ahidjo. Paul Biya is one of the most secretive presidents of Africa, fearing that any international attention may call attention to the violence that he metes on his people. He is however one of the most dictatorial presidents of the continent having violently suppressed peaceful opposition to his reign on many occasions. Just as the president of Niger who was recently overthrown, Paul Biya also amended the constitution that called for presidential term limits so that he could run again for the presidency in 2011. During his reign, the standard of living of the people has declined and the country has become increasingly corrupt. Like many African leaders, he is noted for his extravagance and theft of public wealth. Cameroon is a minor exporter of oil but much of the money generated goes straight to Biya. He spends much of his time in Europe, especially in France, which is his power base. Biya is a devout Roman Catholic. In the above picture, he welcomes Pope Benedict XVI to Cameroon in 2009. The lady in the picture is Biya's second wife, Chantal.

Most of the helpful videos regarding Paul Biya are in French, like this one which contains one of the many interviews he sometimes gives to French (not Cameroonian) journalists: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMzGPmtrd7Q

For his thieving activities, see http://en.afrik.com/article15837.html and http://www.ko.org.za/bl101/?p=211

Robbers in Paradise or Africa's Robbers and their Supporters

Obiang Nguema came to power in Equatorial Guinea in 1979 after killing his uncle who was president. Some stories of his brutality sometimes compare to the masochism of Idi Amin of Uganda but the recent discovery of oil in the country has made him the darling (and target) of powerful foreign interests. With a population of about 700,000 people it is estimated that the per capita income of the country could be at least $30,000. But most of the people in the country are desperately poor.

For more on this rogue president and his supporters, see the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhYQ_VGrVJ8&feature=related

Also see this Washington Post report: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1101-2004Sep6.html

For more on the country as a whole, see: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ek.html

Beginning with a Positive Note

In order not to start the mission of this blog on a negative note, I want to begin with the most respected African leader today, Nelson Mandela. He is probably the only contemporary African leader who has shown remarkable independence from foreign manipulations and who also seems to have the best interest of his people at heart in both his life as an anti-apartheid activist and a politician.

Before he was sent to prison in 1964, he had this to say: “During my lifetime, I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the idea of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

While he struggled to live up to this claim even as the president of South Africa, most contemporary African leaders have, with the help of their foreign partners, actively fought against this noble vision.

For important discussions on contemporary African political and economic life, take a moment to watch the following videos:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8543712.stm This is based on a discussion with important African leaders recently organized by the BBC

http://www.criticalafricanstudies.ed.ac.uk/index.php/cas/article/view/11/13 This is based on a very important book by the noted Africanist, Patrick Chabal. His book Africa Works: Disorder as Political Instrument (1999) is followed by Africa: The Politics of Suffering and Smiling (2009). In the video, he introduces the second book.