Ivory Coast Soldiers Shoot Protesting Women: Videos

See this video and this one.

Now That Gaddafi Falleth . . .

Now that Gaddafi is falling, we are seeing sanctimonious indignation against him from even those who had been doing business with him under cover of night. The recent issue of Foreign Policy magazine paints him as the "Harvard for Tyrants." While the current rage against Gaddafi is justified, it must not be forgotten that he also did a huge service to African liberation struggle. While the West was strongly in support of apartheid in South Africa, for example, Gaddafi was helping train anti-apartheid fighters. When Bill Clinton visited South Africa during the reign of Nelson Mandela, that was one of the points which Mr. Mandela stressed. Clinton had been urging Mandela to cut ties with Gaddafi but Mandela told Clinton in public that he (Mandela) would not cut ties with Gaddafi. He stressed that Gaddafi was a friend during the darkest hours South Africa experienced. In fact, it was the CIA which blew Mandela's cover when he was arrested in the 1960s and jailed for life. This is not to defend Gaddafi; it s merely to point out that the article cited above leaves much. The fact that Gaddafi has to go does not mean that all he did was evil, as the article seems to suggest.

The Cowards Who Pass For Soldiers And Police In Ivory Coast And Cameroon

Yesterday, Ivorian soldiers in Abidjan fired on protesting women, killing many of them, including a woman who was pregnant. This shameful display of cowardice is despicable. It reminded me of Egypt where women and little girls and boys were sitting on tanks as soldiers looked on. What a contrast of honor, courage, and responsibility! The soldiers of Ivory Coast must be ashamed of themselves for defending the interest of a dictator rather than their own women and children.

A similar shameful incident took place in Cameroon just over a week ago when the police turned the water hoses on an unarmed and defenseless woman even as she stood in a posture of surrender. Such thoughtless display of cowardice in the service of dictators should be appalling to all. It should be appalling to the soldiers and police who sell their souls for the defense of rapacity. 

No Condition Is Permanent: The Irony Of The Revolt In Libya

If Gaddafi may be credited with one thing, it will be his foresight. How is this so, you might ask. If we go way back to be beginnings of this revolution in Tunisia, we would see that Gaddafi was one of the first to make a proposal aimed at ending the demonstrations in Tunisia. When the demonstrations began in Tunisia, it was largely about the small matter of unemployment. People had not started calling for the ouster of the corrupt Ben Ali and the world was still largely ignorant of what was going on in that country. During that early period, Gaddafi called for the Libyan border to be opened so that Tunisians may come and work in Libya. Perhaps he did this because he thought that that would be magnanimous of him. But again, if the border had been opened and had many unemployed Tunisians gone to work in Libya, Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak might still have been in power today. Gaddafi would more likely have been experiencing more peace than he currently enjoys, given that he appears to be hold up in Tripoly, the capital of Libya. The irony of it all is that instead of Tunisians coming to work in Libya as Gaddafi had hoped, it is now Libyans who are more likely to cross the border into Tunisia either as refugees or job seekers. There is a saying which I have often heard among Cameroonians and Nigerians which goes: "no condition is permanent." This saying may conjure optimism or pessimism depending on how you interpret it. I wonder what Gaddafi would make of the saying.

Nigeria Goes To Space

Read about how Nigeria's space projects may affect Nigeria and Africa here.

Fela Goes To Lagos

An icon remembered more outside of his country than in it - such is the fate of African heroes as inexplicable interests insist on erasing their names from history. Jay-Z, Will Smith, and Jada Pinket-Smith produced a musical about Fela, the popular Nigerian musician who passed away over a decade ago. The musical was staged on Broadway in NY City and London. It now goes to Lagos.

The Death Of Members of Parliament In Cameroon: A Worrying Trend

It is being reported in Cameroon that since 2007, 9 (nine) members of Cameroon's parliament, which consists of 180 members, have died. The United States Congress has 535 members but I am not sure that that many members of congress have died since 2007. The fact that so many members of parliament in Cameroon have died since 2007 should be a cause for deep concern for all Cameroonians. Such concern may only be averted if it is clear that members of parliament are elected when they are so old that they have less time left to do their work. In this case, the question that needs to be asked is why many people who are that old continue to run for office. This is not to say that older people should not run for office; the question is: "why so many?" If these people are not older people at time of death, the question that has to be asked is: "why do so many parliamentarians in Cameroon die when they are still young?" The point is not to point finger at witchcraft as some Cameroonians would do; it is rather to find out whether these people receive good medical care. If the problem is lack of good medical care, then all Cameroonians should be very worried. They should be very worried because of the simple fact that if parliamentarians, who are among the elite in Cameroon, can die because of lack of adequate medical care, then ordinary people should not expect any better.

As a matter of fact, the death of so many parliamentarians in Cameroon in such a very short time is just a reflection of the rampant death that is sweeping many in Cameroon. Life has become so cruel to so many that lifespans have been cut drastically short. In fact, according to CIA Factbook, in 2010, the average life expectancy for a Cameroon male was 53 years while it was just about 55 years for females. In the last twenty years, the life expectancy in Cameroon has fallen. All of this, under the authoritarian gaze of Paul Biya who is now 78 years old. If Paul Biya can live to be 78 years old, it means that Cameroonians are not doomed to die when they are in their 40s, 50s, or 60s. Where so many people die in such a very short time span, people must question what is going on. And the question should not only be a supernaturalistic one, as often the case. People must also hold the government responsible for dooming them into early death.