In many respects, you
share the attributes of Eva Peron in your unbridled lust for power and
your unpatriotic refusal to let go, even when the hand writing is so
obvious on the wall. However, unlike Eva Peron, you have made such a
pejorative use of power characterised by voracious lust and
insensitivity. Your matriarchy has nothing for posterity to remember
other than nepotism, arrogance and corruption.
Before I answer this question, it should categorically be stated that at no time did the people of Nigeria elect Mrs. Turai Yar'Adua, the wife of President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua as President of Nigeria. In fact, she was nowhere near when the campaign to ratify the selection of her husband and Goodluck Jonathan by former President Olusegun Obasanjo was taking place. But in the last three months, since her husband's medical condition worsened, Turai Yar'Adua has been behaving as the de facto President of the country.
HIV/AIDS originated and initially spread outside of Africa, but has wrecked more havoc on the continent; similarly, Africa has historically contributed little or nothing to green house gas emissions, but is the worst hit by the effects of global warming.
At the end of 2008, total foreign exchange reserves of Africa stood at $460bn. A country like Nigeria presently has sufficient foreign reserves to cover her imports for the next twenty four months. One requires more than a lay understanding of macro- economics, to decipher what Africa stands to gain in her continuous pile up of savings in a currency that is loosing its value and awe by the day, while the continent’s hundreds of million of inhabitants suffer extreme deprivation.
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGS) were declared and made “compulsory” social policy option for third world countries. About the same time the United Nations adopted these goals as a palliative “arrest” option for the third world, the World Bank came up with a huge document on African, entitled “Can Africa Reclaim the Twenty first Century?”
Africa is unique in our principal respect, of the five continents of the world, it is the only continent where poverty is soaring instead of reducing. There is malgovernance, failed projects, social strife and a beggar-thy-neighbor attitude to the countries of the North. What is the problem with Africa ? Many said that Africa ’s problem is not lack of manpower, ideology or policy. Most people have blamed the African crisis on poor leadership. The leadership question has five dimensions.
As soon as the struggle for decolonization was over, and the new nationalists took over the helms of leadership, a new set of problems arose in Africa-dictatorship , ethnicity, corruption and mal-governance. On the economic side, there was underdevelopment. The people started complaining. Some even went to the extreme by urging the colonial masters to return and take over the reins of power.
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are the palliative initiative of the United Nations endorsed in 2000 in New York. The goal had a special focus on and target set for Africa to reduce by half maternal and infant mortality, illiteracy etc. This is in recognition of the fact that Africa is the only continent in the world where poverty, ignorance and disease are soaring. There was need to arrest the trend through planning and strategic intervention. What does the real story on the continent tell us about the MDGs? Is 2015 a realistic or feasible date? These are the two questions I set out to answer.
India has operated and maintained a consistent democratic practice since the past sixty years. This is in spite of the fact that India shares all key indicators and characteristics of any typical third world country-namely underdevelopment, poverty, ethnic and religious conflicts/violence. Last week, after an election and counting of votes that lasted over five weeks, India again made it. Some 714 million people were registered as eligible voters and there were 828,804 polling centres across the country. The culture of snatching of ballot boxes and rigging are anathema to the political culture of India .
Many African countries had been consumed in war in one form or the other in the past forty years- from ANC and apartheid South Africa to the Sudanese Liberation group, to the National Liberation Movement of Eritrea. Then there was the FRELIMO in Mozambique and UNITA in Angola, both engaged in proxy wars sponsored by the West and DR Congo where all kinds of interests and groups emerged since the killing of Patrice Emery Lumumba. The groups had been engaged in guerrilla struggles, beginning with Pierre Mulele and then Joseph Kabila.
The vast majority of Sub-Saharan Africans who live outside of the continent are in exile. For these Africans, their condition may either be self-imposed or forced by the prevailing conditions in the continent. And the general conditions in the continent are not healthy or enriching, or conducive to personal growth and happiness. Although conditions differ from one country to another but, by and large, what we have is a continent where a sizeable number of the people -- especially those between the ages of 18 and 45 -- cannot wait to go into exile.
What is therefore reasonably expected of Helen Ukpabio is sincere contrition and atonements for her misguided teachings and the untold hardship same has induced. Helen would have done better by apologising to Nigerians in general and the people of Akwa Ibom and Cross River states in particular. She would have won the hearts of many by showing sincere commitments to efforts at restitution. Helen could have done better by encouraging and supporting charities committed to wiping out the evils implanted by her teachings.
I came across Judith in the aftermath of the publication of “A Child Witch in London”, the story of boy Adam who faced the vicissitudes of life borne out of ignorance, Pentecostal mischief and unscrupulous superstition in his native Nigeria. Someone who read the story felt that the tale of Judith should not escape my attention as her situation is critical. Judith came across as a young woman who in other circumstances would have exhibited a zest for life that would have bothered on infectious and amazing.
In a land filled with milk and honey, is it any wonder that Africans are suffering? Is it any wonder that the continent remains underdeveloped? When it matters, our leaders are found wanting. They can afford to sleep when important decisions are made at important international summits.
Helen has produced numerous programmes, home movies and books, all warning parents about the participation of children in witchcraft and the importance of child exorcism. In her book, Unveiling the Mysteries of Witchcraft, Helen and others, write that “a child under two years of age that cries at night and deteriorates in health is an agent of Satan”. Helen remains indifferent to the social consequences of her actions, deceiving the masses and lining her pocket. Society is left to bear the scars of her misguided actions.
Without mincing words, the monster in question is Evangelist Helen Ukpabio, the founder of Liberty Foundation Gospel Ministries, Nigeria. Helen has remained defiant even in the face of national and international condemnation of her tainted and psychotic teachings. Her “almajiris” are nothing more than her abundant religious thugs who would readily use the name of Jesus Christ to disrupt organised conferences. The paranoid and almost schizophrenic-like antics and behaviour of Helen Ukpabio defies decency and calls for immediate reaction on the part of the government of Nigeria.
There is no medication that cannot be openly obtained in the open market in Nigeria. Drugs that ordinarily should not be sold over the counter are common place. Try any Nigerian market and you can openly buy drugs for treating malaria, for inducing ovulation, for treating psychosis, migraine, epilepsy and so on. Insulin, the dangerous hormonal preparation for treating diabetes is so common place with different preparations, types and strengths. No drug is deemed too sacred to be sold in Nigeria.
Iranians went to the polls on June 12, 2009 to vote during that country's presidential election. They were however outraged when the results of the election gave incumbent president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a landslide victory over their preferred candidate Mir Hossain Moussavi in what they perceived as an election fraud...........
The G8 or group of 8 world richest nations (America, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, Canada, Japan and Russia) at their 2005 summit in Gleneagles pledged to increase financial aid to Africa and other poor countries. The G8 leaders in 2005 pledged to raise up to $50 billion dollars in aid by 2010. At the just concluded G8 summit (July 7th to July 10th 2009) which took place in L’Aquila Italy, Gordon Brown (the United Kingdom Prime Minister) and other G8 leaders called on the group to honour the promise they made in 2005 to help Africa and other poor countries.
If karmic influences (as distinct from fate) play a role in where a child is born, type of parents born to and so on, it thus makes a lot of sense to say that karma determines even the country where we are born. Stretching this further, it becomes obvious that being born into a particular country is not an accident of fate, but a need to work out mutual karma amongst multitudes. Being born a Nigerian is thus not an accident, no matter how forthright, pure or uncompromising we might be.
Before I proceed any further, may I state that as much as every effort has been made to create anonymity around the identity of the victim involved in the tale you are about to read, I still took the pains to obtain his full consent before writing this article. May I also stress that you are about to read a true account of what happened to a fellow Nigerian. The aim is not to pre-empt your opinion, please allow your conscience to be the judge here. Something is however certain; the concept of child witchcraft is a phenomenon that must not be allowed to continue to flourish in our continent.
While Africa is struggling to emerge from the debris of slave trade, colonization, military dictatorship and massive underdevelopment, many warped-minded people has vowed to grasp the opportunity to scavenge whatever they dimmed of private, corporate of national interest. After all, TIA (This is Africa) which is so porous to all forms of unchecked exploitation.
The pontiff in his address reinstated the historical fact
that Africa had produced historical figures like St.
Augustine of Hippo, St. Athanasius, St. Cyprian and St. Cyril of Alexandria.
Consequently, Africa was the stronghold of Christianity for
so many centuries before the invasion of Islam especially in the north.
Africa is unique in our principal respect, of the five continents of the world, it is the only continent where poverty is soaring instead of reducing. There is malgovernance, failed projects, social strife and a beggar-thy-neighbor attitude to the countries of the North.What is the problem with Africa? Many said that Africa's problem is not lack of manpower, ideology or policy. Most people have blamed the African crisis on poor leadership. The leadership question has five dimensions.
The caption of my article derives from the influential book of Judith. E. Glaser titled The DNA of Leadership. There is little contention that leadership crisis is key to understanding the African crises. Why is leadership at the heart of the crises and what are the conditio sine qua non and credentials necessary for defining and nurturing a new leadership in Africa?
African Affairs
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