Blog
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25 April 2020 at 08 : 53 AM
If Only African Misrulers will read Fanon
When I search for Man in the technique and the style of Europe, I see only a succession of negations of man, and an avalanche of murders.
The human condition, plans for mankind and collaboration between men in those tasks which increase the sum total of humanity are new problems, which demand true inventions.
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24 April 2020 at 11 : 16 AM
The truth we refused to tell ourselves
Did Fanon not warn us that no one treats his imitator or inferior like an equal?
Against very sound advice and angry polemics from some of us, Ghana Telecom, including its fiber optics facilities and its university, was sold for a pittance to British Vodafone. Of course, within a few years, Vodafone has recouped its “investment” and it is today busy with fleecing poor Ghanaians by charging premium rates for crappy services it would never be allowed to get away with in Europe. Just take a look at the scam they sell as Data bundles in Ghana!
Why can’t we get it into our heads that the Chinese are not in Africa because they are sold on our “Black is Beautiful” sloganeering?
We would be supremely naive to think that they are in Africa for any other thing but to further their personal and national interests. It will be the height of folly to think or even imagine that any of them, coming from a communist country, will not be beholden to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of People’s Republic of China.
About two years ago, at the height of another bout of Chinese-bashing hysteria in Ghana, I wrote a piece which caused quite a consternation.
My piece was titled, “Not In Defence of Chinese Galamsey.” Here are some excerpts:
“Are the Chinese or the foreigners really to be blamed for degradation of our environment and the pollution of our rivers?
Who else is to be blamed? Have you not seen pictures of them and their equipment?
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4 April 2020 at 06 : 48 AM
Battling Epidemic of Presidential Plagiarism
I cannot believe that any aide would have had the audacity to present Kwame Nkrumah with a plagiarized text.
The reason is simple: the aide would have had enough respect for his boss’s intelligence not to do any dimwit piece of work and hand it over.
Of course, there would also have been a system in place to ensure that presidential time was not wasted on shoddy jobs. And, of course, the president would read and check texts, especially National broadcasts, before he delivered them.
What boggles my mind is that we currently have people working at the presidency, with all the perks, refusing to put in quality work to help their principal.
This is most troubling. Are they just lazy, or do they have scant regard for their boss?
But then, our elders say that goods are priced the way they are presented. No subordinate of mine would dare to insult me with any shoddy job; the reason is that s/he knows that there will be all hell to pay for such reckless effrontery!
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24 March 2020 at 18 : 36 PM
On Seeking Equivalences
This is the stark reality that some among us refuse to acknowledge or accept.
Rather for us to face reality and acknowledge that we have woefully failed ourselves and our progenitors, we look for ways to escape our culpability by blaming foreigners or seek equivalence. Rather than challenge our misfits of misrulers, we cast aspersions on other people!
Like the Ostrich that buried its head in the sand, we continue to delude ourselves that all is well, and that the whole world cannot see our naked butts in the form of dilapidated schools and antediluvian health facilities that litter our landscape.
We continue to refuse to face the reality that after over sixty (yes 60+) years of self governing ourselves, we have not been able to build enough capacities to feed, house and clothe ourselves without foreign help. Instead of admitting our failings and working hard to rectify our deficiencies, we continue to dance ourselves silly with self-generated lullabies!
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5 March 2020 at 07 : 08 AM
Dissecting SONA 2020
I can only answer you with a quote by the late Professor Adebayo Adedeji: “Any economy that marginalizes people is doomed to failure. It is time that we stop applauding our leaders for reeling out meaningless statistics, most of them self-generated, and force them to address the absence of basic amenities for our people. Instead of telling us what Bloomberg is saying about our economy, our president should tell us why some Ghanaians still share drinking waterholes with cattle. Instead of reeling out fanciful figures about inflation and whatnots, our presidents should be asked to stop his mile-long motorcade, wind down his car’s windows and tell us why, if our economy is booming, so many of our people are eking out a miserable existence as hawkers and beggars in the hot sun on the streets of our major cities and towns. Those are the type of things we should ask those that lead us to address. Do you know something, Mr. Frimpong?
And what should I know?
I no longer blame those who are misruling us…
Whom do you blame, then?
I blame us, the citizens. Do you know about Stockholm Syndrome?
No. What’s that?
Let me quote from Wikipedia: “Stockholm syndrome is a condition in which hostages develop a psychological alliance with their captors during captivity. Emotional bonds may be formed, between captor and captives, during intimate time together, but these are generally considered irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims.” I think that psychologists need to come up with a new term to describe us as Stockholm Syndrome did not do adequate justice to what is afflicting us. Just look at us, it appears that the more our misrulers in Africa debase us, the more tenacious we become in defending them. How do we explain the situation where we have a highly educated and well-traveled and well-exposed man like yourself waxing lyrical over a useless address by a president? Just look at the amount of time and energy and resources we expend daily in discussing issues relating to our elite who are but a tiny minority? We do not engage in meaningful discussions about social or economic development, all we do is engage in endless debates over political nonsensical.
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21 February 2020 at 19 : 13 PM
On Germany
We urged Europeans to recover from their amnesia and wake up from their moral slumber. They should remember that just fifty years, the same type of harassment of minorities, started in the same Germany which later engulfed them in a war, in which many Africans paid the supreme sacrifice to end. If they do not wake up to their responsibility and condemn it now, they should remember that there would be no colonial subjects to serve as cannon fodder to bail them out this time around.
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5 February 2020 at 07 : 10 AM
Ghana Ambulance Dancers
There you go again with your sweeping generalisations. Is it every Ghanaian that drinks water with cows, and is it every house in this country that lacks electricity…
You are getting it wrong, my friend. The very fact that a single citizen of our blessed republic drink water from the same stream with cows, that a single citizen sleep in darkness should be something that causes us great shame in this age and time! We live close to the Equator and we should be able to get enough electricity form all the energy that is being wasted around us. I don’t consider it a generalization to question why, after sixty years of independence, we cannot supply our people with potable water…
Do you argue that you will find a society, a country without its own challenges? Even today, mighty China is struggling with the Coronavirus?
Wow! You certainly know how to compare Apple with pepper! Of course, every country faces its own peculiar problem. I do not argue that there is a country without a problem. What I say is that few countries struggle with providing their people with water and electricity, not to mention food and shelter. I argue that we spend more time in celebration than in production…
Says who?
Says you, yourself. Today is January the 28th 2020, a Tuesday, and dancing away with your fellow party colleagues to celebrate with the president who is in faraway Accra to commission imported ambulance. I am sure that many party diehards like you in other parts of the country will also be dancing and drinking away in solidarity with the president. Says the fact that we declared a public holiday for Farmers when a good chunk of our budget goes into food import. By the way, I thought you were a hardcore CPP stalwart, when did you join the NPP?
You! Get out of there! Na CPP man go chop?
Wow! What happened to join ideological convictions…
I beg leave me alone. Ideology dey put garri for table? Man must eat, oooo.
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29 July 2019 at 10 : 33 AM
Trump Versus Fanon
#TrumpVersusFanon: To the Africans fuming against POTUS Trump, I say: Go and get and READ Frantz Fanon books. I recommend especially these two: The Wretched of the Earth Black Skin, White Mask In many of my writings, I lamented that we are not champions when it comes to learning useful lessons from history. […]
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29 July 2019 at 10 : 10 AM
Our Hypocrisy
#OurHypocrisy Unfortunately for our children and future generations, we lack the capacity to take thoughts for tomorrow! About the only thing we think about is ME, the rest of the society can go to blazes! We do not appear to appreciate the fact we can never be bigger than the society in which we […]
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29 July 2019 at 10 : 24 AM
18 African Fables & Moonlight Stories Launch
Coming out in September 2019 Book: 18 African Fables & Moonlight Stories Author: Femi Akomolafe Publisher: Larajah Limited Introduction: In times past, it was through the telling of stories, that Africans learned the customs and traditions of their societies. Older members of households would gather younger ones, and stories would be told. […]
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