Nigeria: The Curse of Reluctant Leaders

Before declaring his presidential ambitions, Nigeria’s leading Human Rights activist, Gani Fawehinmi, lambasted President Obasanjo for his frequent foreign trips. In his meticulous records, Gani tallied 86 trips the Nigerian leader has made abroad since his second coming to power.

Worried about the effects of the President's frequent junkets on governance Fawehinmi cried: “An absentee president is irresponsible to his duties and to his people. The press must take the lead in calling on this unserious president to perform his constitutional duties or resign.”

Obasanjo has spent 321 days out of the three years he has been in power outside the country on foreign trips. While some presidential trips might be necessary, it is unconscionable for a leader to spend almost one out of every three days outside his domain! This is especially so in a country like Nigeria where abysmal social services are crying for attention and where citizens, out of sheer frustration, are murdering one another with ferocity that would shame a nation of savages! Obasanjo excuse was that he was making the trips to drum up investment for the country. Only a moron would buy that argument.

The BBC World service recently held a call-in programme, Talking Point, for the Nigerian leader. My question to the Nigerian leader was: “Your Excellency have sought to justify your numerous foreign trips by claiming that you are seeking foreign investors. My question is which investor (foreign or local) would like to invest in a country that lacks the most basic of facilities? Nigeria's power supply is erratic at the best of times. While some progresses have been made in the telecommunication sector, telephone services are still woefully inadequate.

I would have thought that your government should have used the first few years to improve these services and also the security situation in the country before canvassing for investors.

I am saying this because almost all the countries you have visited have embassies in Nigeria and they are well informed about the situation in the country; they are not going to rush advising their citizens that Nigeria is an investor's paradise.”

Nigeria, in her troubled 41 years of independence, has produced eleven rulers, counting the second coming of the man popularly called Uncle Sege.

1. Tafawa Balewa (1960‑1966) C

2. General Aguiyi‑Ironsi (1966‑1967) M

3. General Yakubu Gowon (1967‑1975) M

4. General Murtala Mohammed (1975‑1976) M

5. General Olusegun Obasanjo (1976‑1979) M

6. President Shehu Shagari (1979‑1984) C

7. General Buhari (1984‑1985) M

8. General Ibrahim Babangida (1985‑1993) M

9. Chief Shonekan (1993‑1993) D

10. General Sanni Abacha (1993‑1999) M

11. President Olusegun Obasanjo (1999-)C

( M = Military; C = Civilian and D = Diarchy )

What all these leaders have in common was that in assuming the mantle of leadership, they all claimed to be reluctant. Their reluctances are made manifest by their gargantuan corruption and the colossal failure they have collectively registered. Not even the current regime which came into power singing the mantra of ‘anti corruption,’ and ‘transparency,’ has been immune from the cancerous infection of corruption and gross ineptitude. The government of Obasanjo was recently caught out in a clumsy attempt to bribe foreign journalists invited to improve Nigeria’s battered external image.

A Nigerian writer once wrote a book he called ‘The gods are not to blame.’ With abundant petroleum, gold, tin and other precious metals among her endowed resources plus an aggressively enterprising populace, Nigeria has all the ingredients to become a superpower in a very short time. One only has to browse internet newsgroups to see the incredible amount of human talents Nigerian leaders are failing to harness to improve the lives of their people. Biafra clearly proved what is possible given the right type of leadership. In the spate of three short years the encircled Igbos refined their fuel and built rockets and other gadgets that took many countries half a century to master. Alas, the technologies developed by the Igbos are rotting away at a museum at Umuahia in Eastern Nigeria!

The gods are certainly not to blame for Nigeria woes. Obasanjo recently opined that only God can solve Nigeria’s problem. This is a very silly statement and it all but characterized the attitude of African leaders to seek divine intervention in the affairs of man. This writer has lived in societies where mere mortals, using their intellect, have proven that we can adequately feed, clothe and house ourselves without the intervention of the almighty.

I also refused to subscribe to the idea that there are some defective genes in the Blackman that made it impossible for him to improve his lot on earth. Many of the Caribbean Islands have quality of lives that are far better than those obtainable in the richest part of Europe. They live longer than many people in the so-called advanced countries. They are all led by black leaders and the populations are overwhelmingly black. Nearer home, Botswana proved that it is possible to build success stories in Africa. Ex-President Ketumile Masire turned his tiny country into a debt-less country with $6 billion reserves.

Beginning with Lord Lugard, the man that amalgamated the Southern and Northern provinces, Nigeria has been ruled by ‘second‑rate’ men obviously promoted beyond their abilities. Aside from his notorious ‘pacification’ of natives in the service of British Imperial army, Lugard had no other experience to recommend him. He was a captain in British Imperial army before he swindled his way into the Royal Niger Company, and ended up becoming Nigeria's first Governor‑General. Captaincy is not a superior officer's rank in any army. Before then Lugard was in the employment of Cecil Rhodes, the man who stole a country and named it after himself. Lugard’s sole experience before then was his infamous extermination of Indians during the British conquest of India. He was so ‘successful’ in that ignoble endeavor that when Cecil Rhodes and Dr. Leander Starr Jamesson and the other pirates decided to ‘pacify’ the people of Monomotapa (South Africa), they brought Lugard to do the dirty job. It was on the neck dripping with Africans and Indians blood that the job of administering Nigeria was first entrusted. Lugard was succeeded by a succession of brutal colonial administrators whose sole purpose was to make the conquered territory safe for British exploitation.

Tafawa Balewa, the first indigenous leader was a ‘lieutenant’ of Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto, in the latter's own word. Balewa never dreamt of leading Nigeria and the mantle of leadership was thrust upon his head by the unwillingness of the Sardauna to leave his Northern fiefdom. Aguiyi‑Ironsi was the next unprepared leader cursed to rule the country. Ironsi became leader because he was the most senior military man after the first coup of January 1966 failed. Ironsi was clearly a mediocre ruler who seemed not to know anything about public administration. It was a good riddance to bad rubbish when his ineffectual rule was terminated in the counter-coup of July 1966. Gowon was a low‑level officer who helped organized the coup to excise the North from the Nigerian federation. There is no reason to suggest that he planned to rule Nigeria. Only Murtala who came after Gowon could be said to have possessed any idea what he wanted to do when he gained the rein of government. And his rule energized the whole country. Obasanjo, Murtala's deputy, who became Head of state when the latter was killed, was a lackluster leader who didn’t possess the dynamism of his predecessor. Shagari was a disaster as far as public‑administration was concern. He also was another unprepared leader whose ambition was no bigger than representing his senatorial district in Sokoto state. Shagari became Nigerian leader only because the two contenders in his party were unable to compromise. Shagari and his ministers ruled Nigeria like a conquered territory and treated the Nigerian treasury like war booty. He was later to blame foreign residents for Nigerian woes and sent many West Africans packing. Many Nigerians danced when Shagari’s kleptomaniac rule was terminated by the army in 1993. General Buhari who came after Shagari was a purely fascist ruler, who knew not which direction he wanted to take the country except that he wanted to build a hell on earth for Nigerians. Babangida who took over from Buhari was the epitome of corruption, inept leadership. He brought Nigeria to the brink of dis‑integration to satisfy his personal ambitions. Abacha, that dark-goggled ogre, bastardized the rulership of the nation so badly that his death while panting atop his Indian ashewos was believed by many to be God’s intervention to save the country.

The second coming of Obasanjo was also not due to any effort on his part. He was drafted in to pacify the wounded egos of the Yorubas after the death in custody of Chief Abiola.

I know that ‘ifs’ are useless tools in analyses, but I will continue to lament the signal inability of Nigeria to produce a single leader with vision in all her forty-one years of existence. Given her high population, the course of Nigeria’s and Africa’s destiny would certainly have been more positive if Nigeria had, just had, been blessed with a visionary like Kwame Nkrumah!

Nigeria has not had the good fortune to have a leader that was prepared intellectually, emotionally as well as mentally to lead her and that has being her tragedy and, by extension, the tragedy of the continent. If the nation with a quarter of the population of Africa can succeed in building a viable entity, it would provide the impetus to lift the whole continent and enable the black race to join the rest of humanity.

While his people are feverishly organizing for a second-term for him, Obasanjo recently said that he is seeking the guidance of the almighty in making his decision. We can only guess what leaders like him are going to tell their creator when asked why they so badly mismanaged the affairs of their nations and, in the process, sentenced their fellow beings into lives of penury amidst plenty.

The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality - a book review

If there is any purpose behind my reviewing books and writing polemics, it is to urge Africans to say a big NO to SELF-HATE, SELF-PITY and SELF- CONTEMPT. African cosmogony thrives on optimism, it is sad when Africans start referring to their race as 'CURSED.' That is exactly what Euro-Americans want to hear.

I do not write out of an atavistic nature. I am not romantic about Africa's glorious past. What is important is that we try and connect our past - pre- colonial to our present and see how we can start RECONSTRUCTING our lives which was devastated by Europeans. We have to reclaim our history and our culture. The Asians have successfully done this; I believe that Africans can do the same. The struggle is bound to be long and bitter, the righteous must remain undaunted.

Racism used to be a tri-polar thing. Europeans put themselves at the top, from where they look down on the Asians and the Africans. The Asians have rescued themselves, so much so that the French government in 1979 set up a committee whose sole purpose was to make France catch up with JAPAN!

Racism has all but become a bi-polar affair. We remain the only race being humiliated by Euro-Americans.

The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality - a book review

"In all history, nothing is so surprising or so difficult to account for as the sudden rise of civilization in Greece. Much of what makes civilization had already existed for thousands of years in Egypt and Mesopotamia, and had spread thence to neighboring countries. But certain elements had been lacking until the Greeks supplied them. What they achieved in art and literature is familiar to everybody, but what they did in the purely intellectual realm is even more exceptional. They invented mathematics and science and philosophy; they first wrote history as opposed to mere annals; they speculated freely about the nature of the World and the ends of life, without being bound in the fetters of any inherited orthodoxy. What occurred was so astonishing that, until very recent times, men were content to gape and talk mystically about the Greek genius. It is possible, however, to understand the development of Greece in scientific terms, and it is well worth while to do so."

Thus began Bertrand Russell his book, 'A History of Western Civilization,' published by Counterpoint.

By such clever semantic acrobatics, Bertrand Russell, like many Western scholars think they have succeeded in ascribing an ingenuity to the ancient Greek, which the Greeks neither claimed nor deserved. Only buffoons, who have not study history, could gape at the so-called genius of the Greeks. Greek civilization, however impressive and astonishing, could, and should, never be situated outside the civilizations (Egypt and Phoenician) that preceded it. It didn't sprang up, suddenly, mystically, as Bertrand Russell and western scholars would like us to believe. The Greeks borrowed, stole, plagiarized ideas from those ancient civilizations.

"They invented mathematics and science." Surely, Bertrand Russell could not have expected to be taken seriously. The Egyptian invented mathematics, which he decided to denigrated as, 'form of rule of thumbs.' Pythagoras, whom the White people like to credit with the mathematical theorem that bore his name was a student in Egypt. So much for the so-called 'Father of mathematics!' This fact alone, which could not have escaped Bertrand Russell, demolished the argument that the Greek invented mathematics. Aristotle and Plato borrowed their ideas from the Egyptian - although without giving any credit. Not less a personage than Herodotus affirmed that Greece borrowed from Egypt all the elements of her civilization, even the cults of her gods. We have to ask Bertrand Russell how a people could build something as imposing as the pyramids without a working knowledge of trigonometry and geometry! The Papyrus of Moscow and the Rhind Papyrus greatly enrich our knowledge of these facts.

When it is not sufficient to ascribed any notion of ingenuity on the ancient Greeks, Western scholars fall back on an old-trick, looking for a mythical White origin of the Egyptian civilization - the most impressive of all ancient civilizations. To the prejudiced minds of the western intellectuals, nothing so beautiful, so marvelous, could be the hand-work of Negroes who, as one of them put it, are incapable of thinking thoughts that have nothing to do with food and sex!

The western intellectuals found the overwhelming evidence of an advanced civilization, unknown in their part of the world, they simply allowed their racial prejudice to cloud their scholarly objectivity, and they, with all seriousness, started looking for an imaginary White origin of the Egyptian civilization. This, however, is a new phenomenon. The ancients were more truthful. It was eighteen century Europe, looking to justify its colonialism and its attendant racism, that started the historical distortions and falsification which continue until today. Anthropology was the 'scientific' discipline they spawned to spread their falsehoods.

To admit that Egypt was built by Black people would have annihilated all their racial theories that put the Black man at the lowest rung of the human ladder. Unprepared to re-write their own history, they took the easiest way out, and declare Egyptian civilization White. That there was no shred of evidence to support their theory doesn't seem to bother these 'scientists,' neither does the pertinent question of how a White people, could leave their barbaric abode, crossed rivers and deserts, to found a thriving civilization on the continent of Africa, such that was unknown in their own land, and then just disappear as mysteriously as they came?

The study of history is a serious business, and so seriously did the white scholars took themselves that a new discipline sprang up, dedicated solely to the study of Egypt of Antiquity - Egyptology. Another European way of dividing Africa

If the Africans can claim Nubia, Ethiopia, and Egypt as their contribution to human civilization, and if the Asians can point to, Mesopotamia, what can the White people point to? Where in the Western world do we find civilization that dates back to antiquity? That is why the White people are devoting so much ink to Greco-Roman civilization which, is relatively new by the standards of Nubian, Ethiopia and Egypt. Unable to point to anything their ancestors contributed to civilization, they tried to steal that which belongs to other people. Egypt has to be painted White. There are even White anthropologists who are, with straight faces, claiming the Great Zimbabwean ruins for the White Race! Foundations and Institutes are contributing money to allow the white people drown in their own lies.

So low is the Black race today that Black people are generally believed to have contributed nothing to human progress. Through the system of colonial education, many Africans even believe this absurd, and patent lie. Since the White man today controls the world's mass-media, he can make Black becomes white. And since most of these Egyptologists are white people, they are busily selling themselves the same old lies.

That was until Cheikh Anta Diop, an African born in Senegal, appeared on the scene.

So jaundiced is the West that this man, who almost single-handedly rewrote the history of the World (at least the Black world) remain relatively unknown to the world. Regrettably not many Africans know anything about this brilliant scholar, who did so much to debunk the lies of a White Egypt and re-trace the antiquity of Black history, distorted by colonialists and imperialist ideologists masquerading as scholars.

Born on December 29, 1923, at Diourbel, Senegal, Anta Diop was a scholar's scholar. He was a nuclear physicist, anthropologist, historian and, until his death, Director of the Radio-carbon laboratory he founded. The world of history, anthropology and Egyptology has never been the same again since Anta Diop published his great work, 'The African Origin of Civilization, Myth or Reality?'

"Ancient Egypt was a Negro Civilization. The history of Black Africa will remain suspended in air and cannot be written correctly until African historians dare to connect it with the history of Egypt."

The world was astounded when Cheikh Anta Diop made those bold declaration. The whole world has been fed on the fallacy of an Egyptian civilization, built by a White race. Anta Diop was called all sorts of names, not at all pleasant ones. He was accused of being a romantic African - the usual staple.

When European construct monstrous lies, they are not guilty of romanticism, it is only when Africans aspire to put the records straight that they are accused of being romantic. An eminent professor even goes as far as to advised him to leave the whole enterprise of historical research to the learned and the qualified - (i.e. the European liars).

"Our investigations have convinced us that the West has not been calm enough and objective enough to teach us our history correctly, without crude falsifications. Today, what interests me most is to see the formation of teams, not of passive readers, but of honest, bold research workers, allergic to complacency and busy substantiating and exploring ideas expressed in our work, such as:

In particular, the study of languages, institutions, and so forth, cannot be treated properly; in a word, it will be impossible to build Africa humanities, a body of African human sciences, so long as that relationship does not appear legitimate. The African historian who evades the problems of Egypt is neither modest nor objective, nor unruffled; he is ignorant, cowardly, and neurotic. Imagine, if you can, the uncomfortable position of a western historian who wants to write the history of Europe without referring to Greco-Latin Antiquity and try to pass that off as a scientific approach.

"The ancient Egyptians were Negroes. The moral fruit of their civilization is to be counted among the assets of the Black world. Instead of presenting itself to history as an insolvent debtor, that Black world is the very initiator of 'western' civilization flaunted before our eyes today. Pythagorean mathematics, the theory of the four elements of Thales of Miletus, Epicurean materialism, Platonic idealism, Judaism, Islam, and modern science are rooted in Egyptian cosmogony and science. One needs only to mediate on Osiris, the redeemer- god, who sacrifice himself, dies, and is resurrected to save mankind, a figure essentially identifiable with Christ.

A visitor to Thebes in the Valley of the Kings can view the Moslem inferno in detail (in the tomb of Seti I, of the Nineteenth Dynasty), 1700 years before the Koran. Osiris at the tribunal of the dead is indeed the 'lord' of revealed religions, sitting enthroned on Judgement Day, and we know that certain Biblical passages are practically copies of Egyptian moral texts. Far be it from me to confuse this brief reminder with a demonstration. It is simply a matter of providing a few landmarks to persuade the incredulous Black African reader to bring himself to verify this. To his great surprise and satisfaction, he will discover that most of the ideas used today to domesticate, atrophy, dissolve, or steal his "soul," were conceived by his own ancestors. To become conscious of that fact is perhaps the first step toward a genuine retrieval of himself; without it, intellectual sterility is the general rule, or else the creations bear I know not what imprint of the subhuman.

In a word, we must restore the historical consciousness of the African people and reconquer a Promethean consciousness.

2. Anthropologically and culturally speaking, the Semitic world was born during protohistoric times from the mixture of white-skinned and black- skinned people in Western Asia. This is why an understanding of the Mesopotamian Semitic world, Judaic or Arabic, requires constant reference to the underlying Black reality. If certain Biblical passages, especially in the Old Testament, seem absurd, this is because specialists puffed up with prejudices, are unable to accept documentary evidence.

3. The triumph of the monogenetic thesis of humanity (Leakey), even at the stages of "Homo sapiens-sapiens," compels one to admit that all races descended from the Black race, according to a filiation process that science will one day explain."(pp.xiv-xv)

'What were the Egyptians?' was the first chapter in this excellently researched work. To answer this mother of all questions, Anta Diop didn't rely on conjectures. He went straight to quote ancient sources, he quoted Herodotus, the Greek historian whom Western scholars love to call the 'father of history.' It was Herodotus who informed us that: "It is certain that the natives of the country are black with the heat."

Why would Herodotus, whom the Western scholars like to roll out like an oracle, whenever it suits them, affirmed the Egyptians Blacks if they weren't? So jaundiced were these scholars that they refused to believe what they read, many of them simply declared, without justification, Herodotus to be in error.

Western scholars also like to use the Bible to support their arguments, again whenever it serves their purposes. And Anta Diop reminded us that, according to the Bible, Egypt was peopled by the offspring of Ham, ancestors of the Blacks! The Egyptian called their country Kemit, which means 'black' in their language." The Hebrew rendered this Ham, also meaning black or burned. That was the origin of the word, Ham.

If Old Egypt was indeed established by the Whites, there should be, at least, some surviving elements to connect them to the Western world. Is this the case? In contrast to the Western scholars who had searched in vain for a shred of evidence to support a white origin of the Egyptian civilization, Anta Diop presented eight cogent argument to support his thesis of a Black origin:

1. Totemism (totem - 'an object that has a ritual association'): No part of the Western world, as far as we know, used totem. Ancient Egypt was a totemic society, as is most of Africa, up until today.

2. Circumcision: "The Egyptians practiced circumcision as early as prehistoric times; they transmitted this practice to the Semitic world in general (Jews and Arabs)" p.135. To counter the argument of a Semitic origin of circumcision, Anta Diop reminded us that, according to the Bible, Abraham was circumcised when he was already ninety years old; and that was after he married a Black woman, Hagar, the mother of Ishmael, the Biblical ancestor of the second Semitic branch, the Arabs. Moses was not circumcised until he wed his Madianite wife. So much for the Semitic origin of circumcision. "Only among Blacks does circumcision find an interpretation integrated in a general explanation of the universe, in other words, a cosmogony." p.135

3. Kingship: "The concept of kingship is one of the most impressive indications of the similarity in thinking between Egypt and the rest of Black Africa." - p.138. The institutions of kingship, down to the ritualistic killing of monarchs, was practiced by the Egyptians, as is still the case in some African societies today.

4. Cosmogony: 'Negro cosmogonies, African and Egyptian, resemble each other so closely that they are often complementary. To understand certain Egyptian concepts, one must refer to the Black world, as is attested by what we have said about kingship... The similarity of mores, customs, traditions, and thinking has already been sufficiently stressed by various authorities. Perhaps it would take more than a lifetime to report all the analogies between Egypt and the black world, so true is it that they are one and the same.' - p.139

Anta Diop cited several authorities to support his contention that the mental structure of the Black world is the basis of the ancient Egyptian philosophy.

5. Social Organization: This is among the most remarkable traits of ancient Egypt that could still be found in Africa today. Ancient Egypt was stratified as follows: peasants, skilled workers, priests, warriors, and government officials, the king. In Africa today, we have a social order which is as follows: peasants, artisans or skilled workers, warriors, priests, the king.

We should contrast this with the western society, where the institution of monarchy was a recent invention.

6. Matriarchy: This is perhaps the most telling trait shared by Old Egypt and Modern Africa. Egypt was a matriarchal society, so is most of Africa today - Islam and Christianity had withered the practice away in some part of the continent. Astigmatized western scholars have not been able to reconcile their contention that white people build the civilization in Egypt, and the simple fact that the society these whites were supposed to have built was organized on matriarchal line, in sharp contrast to much of the western world which remain, until today, rigidly patriarchal.

7. Kinship of the Meroitic Sudan and Egypt: There are some evidence to suggest a Sudanese (Nubia) origin of the Egyptian civilization. Nubia is undoubtedly older than Egypt, and the migration was south-north. This argument is supported by the fact that all the objects of worship in Egypt are Nubian. Among others, the oldest pyramids are located in present day Sudan, a fact that western scholars are glossing over, since it will require their looking for a White origin. Also glossed over is the fact that Nubian writing is more evolved than Egyptian writing - this does not conform with the 'experts' jaundiced view that African didn't have written language! Egypt and Nubia are the Biblical children of Ham - Mesraim and Kush. 'Until the close of the Egyptian Empire, the kings of Nubia (Sudan) were to bear the same titles as the Egyptian Pharaoh, that of the Hawk of Nubia. ' p. 147

There should exist no contestation of this if white scholars are prepared to believe the records the Egyptian left of their Nubian origin. So long as their was no mention of a white ancestry, neither Herodotus, nor the Egyptian are qualified, in the eyes of the white scholars, to write their own history. 8. Geography: Let's imagined an antique civilization at the northern part of Europe, how would one react to some Black scholars laying claim to originating that civilization? This is what white scholars want Africans to accept. With all seriousness, they have been pouring resources into discovering a mythical White origin of the Egyptian civilization. Egypt thus remain the only country in the world that has to justify its geography.

The question provoked by all the vain attempt to paint Egypt white is: Why would white people leave their heartland to go and found a civilization in Africa, and withdrew as miraculously as they came? As Anta Diop wondered, 'No less paradoxical is the fact that the Indo-Europeans never created a civilization in their own native lands: the Eurasian plains. The civilization attributed to them are invariably located in the heart of Negro countries in the Southern part of the Northern Hemisphere: Egypt, Arabia, Phoenicia, Mesopotamia, Elam, India.

In all those lands, there were already Negro civilizations when the Indo- Europeans arrived as rough nomads during the second millennium. The standard procedure consists of demonstrating that those savage populations brought all the elements of civilization with them wherever they went. The question which then comes into mind is: Why did so many creative aptitudes appear only when there was contact with Blacks, never in the original cradle of the Eurasian steppes? Why did those populations not create civilization at home before migrating?' p. 152

As to scholars like Bertrand Russell who like to credit the Greek with mythical ingenuity, Anta Diop reminded them about all the great Greek intellectuals and philosophers were trained in Egypt. On page 232, we read ' Solon, Thales Plato, Lycurgus, Pythagoras encountered difficulty before being accepted as students by the Egyptians.' He then quoted from one authority to buttress his argument, ' I then realized, and realized clearly, that the most famous Greek systems, notably those of Plato and Aristotle, had originated in Egypt. I also realized that the lofty genius of the Greeks had been able to present Egyptian ideas incomparably, especially in Plato; but I thought that what we loved in the Greeks, we should not scorn or simply disdain in the Egyptians. Today, when two authors collaborate, the credit for their work in common is shared equally by each. I fail to see why ancient Greece should reap all the honor for ideas she borrowed from Egypt.' p.232.

To those who asked how the Black people happened to sank to their lowly status, Anta Diop said we could ask the same of the Greeks, who were the ancestors of western civilization, and of the Italians. When a Roman general invaded Britain, he was so appalled by the savagery of the people he saw that he doubted if he could make a successful slave of them. Today, Britain is arrogating to itself a front-row among civilized nations, while Greece glory has receded.

If one accept the African origin of humanity, which no serious scholar, black or white, contest today, why the reluctance to accept that the parents of the human race were also the pioneers of human civilization? It is true that the Black race lay weakened and prostrated today, but this has not always been the case. One example will suffice: Ghana Empire was thriving long before the Anglo-Saxon settled in what is today's England. How many English people would like to admit that when their forebears were just waking up from their savage state, Ghana Empire was at the peak of its glory?

Aside from unremitting aggression and wholesale violence, the White race contributed little to ancient human civilization. All that Euro-America now claims were borrowed from other people, especially the Black people. When the White man discovered the gunpowder - which both the Chinese and Egyptian priests have been using for ages, the road was open for him to plunder, despoil, ravaged and pillaged. That was the beginning of his glory!

Anta Diop wrote more than an history book. He blazed a trail. He was a pioneer who courageously took up the prejudiced white scholars, who have been promoting racial arrogance in the name of scholarship. Anta Diop was a pioneer who, more than any other person, confronted the western scholars, challenged them and made them retreat from peddling the lies they have been promoting about Africa. Since the publication of his book, western scholars has ceased to take it for granted that Africans will remain silent. It was to this great scholar that Africa owed so much of her historical redemption. No wonder he is called the Pharaoh of African history; it is a richly deserved accolade.

Every African owed it to himself to read this book, it more than set the records straight - it is a journey in self-discovery.

Generation Gap (from the father's point of view)

A Little background information is necessary in order to understand the story I am about to relate.

I am getting on the wrong side of sixty. I am retired. Money is not fighting in my pocket but, give praise to God, I do not lack what to eat. I live in my own house and have a devoted and loving wife. Although, I won't describe us as pious, we are practicing Christian. Upright, but not evangelical. Believing, but not righteous. We believe in live and let live.

My happy life was however punctuated by a bad luck. It was not really a bad luck, just a delay. I am sure the God Almighty knew what he was doing. Praise be to him. I had a child very late in life. I know that God was testing me, so I did not panicked. By his grace I am now the proud father of a beautiful girl. Ama is not the apple of my eyes; she is my eyes. Each and every time I see my little girl, I feel a pleasure which is difficult to put into words. Only a parent can understand what I am trying to say here.

Being a very small family, we are very close. That was when Ama was younger. By some strange reasons, the older my daughter gets, the stranger her behaviour becomes. The more she advances in age, the farther she drew away from me. The more she drew away from me, the closer she gets to her mother. Do I feel jealous? You bet I do!

It got to a stage when entire conversation with my little girl does not go beyond, 'Good morning.' 'How are you doing?' 'Fine, thank you dad.' Off, she go. Off she goes into her mother's room. The two ladies will stay in that room, locked up for hours. Occasionally, their giggles will reach my tormented ears.

What could they possibly be talking about. Women, what strange, unfathomable creatures they are! Aside from her mother, Ama also talks a lot with her friends. Many times there were when she will visit a friend, spend the whole day there and come back home. The first thing she will do is pick up the telephone and call the same friend again. They will spend the whole evening post- morteming their activities during the day. So, I am pretty sure that she does not suffer from any ailment. It is only I whom she's banishing from her life.

I have watched American electronic-psychologists giving advice on what to do when your children doesn't communicate with you. 'Talk things over," are the usual staple. It makes you wonder if the 'experts' parental-experience goes beyond the academic. How do you talk things over with a girl who behaves as though your very presence torments her?

Let me get on with the story.

One evening, I was relaxing in my usual seat, doing what I usually do in the evenings. At my age, very little activities occupy the time. I sat watching my favorite Ghanaian soap, drinking my usual Guiness with Mandigo. Before you started getting any silly idea, you should remember that, at my age, sex doesn't mean the same thing as when you're eighteen.

My wife was relaxing in her room. Ama was out the whole day. Since the university closed over lecturers pay dispute, she has being going out a lot. From her mother, I heard that she had been visiting the campus, meeting her colleagues to study together and commiserate one another over their predicament. She also told me that Ama has been seeing a boy and told me some details. Her tone suggested that she was betraying a secret. I did not know why I should be kept in the dark. I am too old to want to change the world, especially its youth.

Suddenly, Ama burst in. She always seems to be in a hurry, especially in my presence. In her tow was a boy. That was the first time she has ever brought a boy-friend home.

"Hello, Dad." She shouted and dashed to her mother's room.

I continue to watch my soap. The boy paced up and down and decided to make himself comfortable by sitting down. He was a young boy with a handsome face. I kept one eye on the TV and the other watching him. He was obviously ill at his.

It is unbelievable how far the world has changed since my days. In my youth, no boy will be bold enough to go with his girl-friend to confront the father. It is simply not done. The elders of families handle such delicate affairs. And the boy's dressing, my God! I do not call your name in vain! In my times, you have to dress very properly (a strong emphasis on the proper) when you want to visit any of your in-laws. Here, I have a boy visiting my daughter and dressed like those characters one sees on MTV.

Shall we describe the pants as a trouser or a bag sewn together by a tailor, who has had trousers described, but has not actually seen one? For a shirt, the young fella wore a full-length Jacket. On his neck, he planted a loosely-tied loud tie. In the breast pocket of the jacket protruded a towel- size handkerchief. He wrapped a red bandanna around his head like some of those American hustlers who call themselves wrestlers. He wore a very dark glasses, the type worn by Mafia bosses in movies. A fire-service boots adorned his feet. I took some time to scan him properly. I did not know whether to cry or laugh at the picture the boy cut with me.

He sat down, studying his fingers. Everytime I look up, though, I found him looking at me. I had to verify if he was indeed the mystery boy. How do I frame the question without appearing over- bearing or too inquisitive?

"So you are Ama's friend?" I tried to make my tone very flat.

He sat upright in his seat and looked at me. "Yes, sir." He replied in a shaky voice.

He's my girl's visitor, I didn't want to alarm him. He felt so uncomfortable and I felt sorry for him. The whole thing appeared like a great torment to him. How do I make him more comfortable?

"Would you like a drink, kid?" I asked him.

He gulped down saliva as he considered my question. "Yes, sir. Gin and lime, sir."

I had the feeling that the kid was trying, desperately, to look and act manly. He was trying to posture a confidence that he did not possess. I can understand his uneasiness. Which man had confronted his father-in-law without some apprehension? He looked like a lamb being led to the slaughter. I wondered what was going on in his head. And asking for gin and lime? That simply was not done in my time. I gave him his requested drink, he was extravagant in his thanks. He really was nervous and very tensed. I watched in dismay as he almost filled his glass with lime and, looking at my face, felt embarrassed. He quickly added gin.

"How close are you with my girl." I tried to strike up a conversation with him. I did not want to leave him with the impression that he was not welcome here. I love my little girl, and I consider any friend she chooses OK for me.

The boy's face registered astonishment at the simple question. "Close, what do you mean, sir?" He asked me. I thought it was such a simple question.

How do I re-frame the question without embarrassing him further. I was in a sort of quandary. How do I strike a conversation with a boy young enough to be my grandson? On the other hand, the easiest thing would be to watch my soap and close my mouth. But that's not very welcoming, either. What would he conclude except that I hated him. God knows that I cannot hate anyone my little girl loves.

I tried to help him. "I mean how solid is you re-, friendship?" I was being semantically careful.

"You mean close as in close?" The boy asked. I really hoped that my girl hasn't got herself involved with a dullard. He looked at me as though he had problem understanding the question. "Do you mean to ask if we're doing stuff together, sir."

'Stuff!' Is that not what they call drugs, nowadays. God of Israel, I hope that Ama hasn't got herself involved with such stuffs. He does not look like an addict to me. But, can you ever tell?

"Stuff?" I wanted to know what he really meant.

He sat on the edge of his chair. His face was a meter of turmoil. "Yes sir, do you mean to ask if we're doing stuffs like discoing, cooing, necking, kissing and f-..."

He looked as though he hated what he was telling me. His youthful lips were curled into a semblance of impertinence as he rolled off what he's doing with my little girl. When he mentioned the F- word, I had to stop him. I knew that he was not going to tell me that they were 'Fishing' together.

Perhaps it was a mistake, but I had to show my paternal concern. I asked if they were taking any precaution. He looked very surprised by the question.

"I don't believe in protection," he said. "Jah Guides." He concluded.

Heaven helps those who help themselves, as the saying goes, Here sat a boy, sipping my drink, revealing to me that he's doing 'stuff' with my daughter, and telling me that he doesn't believe in protection because 'Jah Guides.'

As to my question as to whether or not his parents are aware of what he was doing, he looked bemused and told me that: "My old folks are OK."

He looked more amused as he scrutinized my face. He explained that he meant by 'old folks,' his parents.

I wanted to know if his parents were aware of his 'stuff.' He found my question humorous. "My folks are strictly twenty-first century guys." He told me.

The type of vocabulary the youth of today possess is astonishing. What could 'twenty-first century guys' possibly mean? In my time, no child will dream of calling his father 'guy.' I wonder if his mother is 'gal' to him.

"I meant to say, sir, that they are dynamic, sir. They are up-to-date. They are into electronic and stuffs. My father actually uses a computer and my mother packs a pager. They are cool cookies." He explained to me.

His has promoted his parents from 'guys' to 'cool cookies.' Could we blame these on the pervasive western culture our children are consuming? And 'dynamic!' Words have really lost their true meanings, especially with our youth.

"My old lady tells me things since when I was ten or eleven. My father has been giving me money for accessories and immunities since I was twelve." He answered when I asked if he discussed 'stuffs' with his parents. He uses his slangs as though they were part of the normal, everyday's vocabulary. He decoded 'accessories' and 'immunities' to mean 'Condoms and things.' He didn't say what 'things' are. Maybe it is time, our youth start to carry a translator. How do we, otherwise, have conversation with people whose vocabulary consist of 'stuffs,' 'things,' 'old folks,' 'old lady,' 'cool cookies,' and other meaningless, to us older folks, patois.

I had wanted to strike a conversation so that I appear as a good host. The more I ask, though, the more voluble the boy gets. Could it be the effects of the drink? I don't know where I got the urge to ask if he smoke. He then proceed to give a lecture on the benefits of smoking every description of plant you care to name. Makes you wonder if our universities are maintaining resident Botanists\Chemists to concoct things for our youth.

Any parent will understand my frame of mind by this time. Are we too intrusive, or do we only want the best for our children. When do we cross the boundary between caring and intruding? Should we stop caring? Should we stop worrying about what future our children are building for themselves. What do I do when a boy, my potential son-in-law, tells me that he gets his kicks from smoking lettuce leaves? I ruminated through my mind's eye what his plans for the future could be. Ama's mother had hinted that he was a sort of student. However, when I asked him, he gave me an earful. He dismissed every subject they teach at the university and told me that he was kept in school because his father had more connections than the Ghana Telecom. And he was not trying to be witty.

In my days, men start forming a definite plans for his future at an early age. It seems as though our youth have abandoned this all-important affair. Worries about the future are things they are not prepared to face NOW. The future, to them, is a VERY FAR thing to be worried about today.

"Water always find its level." He explained when I asked what plans he has for the future. He hasn't figure out what plans he has for my daughter. "I haven't figure that one out yet, sir. .. We going to be cool."

The women finished their women-business and emerge. I was glad when they came out. To my utter consternation, Ama threw herself a him, wrapped her arms around him and whimpered, "I have missed you." It was less than two hours.

The ways of the youth remain unfathomable, at least, to me.

Generation Gap (from the boy's point of view)

For reasons I can't yet fathom, girls, among some of their mysterious personalities, like to introduce us (boys) to their parents. I am not in a hurry to let my old folks know about ANYTHING, most especially about my girl-friends. But then Ama, that's my girl-friend's name, is very different from most girls. She has only one nagging problem in her life - yes, you guess it, she would like me to meet her parents.

Ama is stunningly beautiful, I no lie. She possesses that raw beauty that endows a true African princess. Those girls with such good looks that make you think that the creator must have taken extra time in sculpturing them. Ama can stir a desire in a monk, I tell the truth. There is plenty of very good news in her body.

The gorgeous eighteen year old Sunshine (my pet name for her) persevered and I finally obliged her. I dressed up my baddest (that is in very up-to-2007 outfit for young men like myself) and we went to her folks at Mamprobi.

Ama hugged her pretty mother (that is where she got her ravishing looks from). She said a greeting to her acned father (let's say he cannot win a beauty contest). She then repaired to another room with her mother to do, what I supposed, women usually do - gossip about us (men), leaving me with the father to do what men do - talk politics, discuss current national and international affairs and, eh, talk about them (women).

There I was, a bundle of nerves staring at, eh, Ama's father, or is he my father-in-law? The English language fails in situations such as this. For Ama's sake, I vowed to wow the man. 'Father's very difficult to please,' she'd warned me. I should know: I have one. Which father is not difficult to please? Perhaps that's why they are fathers.

Ama's father sat lazyboning in a chair drinking the Ghanaian contribution to cocktails - Mandigo Bitters mixed with Guiness. He wore an old-fashioned trouser and a simple shirt. His stomach was round and fleshy. Was that a beer belly? Age? Shall we say an old man? Anyone above thirty years is to us (youngsters) an old man, anyway. How do I become prince-charming and impress Ama's father sufficiently to fulfil my obligations to her?

He kept to his drink and gave no indication that I was there, or that I even exist at all. That rankles, but I kept my cool. He drank his bitter concoctions and watched the television. I sat, my sweaty palms folded on my knees. Each time I looked up, though, I caught him glancing, really staring at me. Was that an ironic smile dancing at the corners of his mouth?

"So you are Ama's friend?" Ama's father wondered suddenly and woodenly. I was caught unaware by the question: its abruptness and directness momentarily threw me.

"Yes, sir." I replied.

Silence.

"Would you like a drink, kid?"

"Yes, sir. Gin and lime, sir. Thank you, sir." I replied and regretted it immediately. The truth of the matter is that I was totally uncomfortable sitting down there with the old man. All my well- rehearsed performance has come to nothing. I have drilled myself on how I was going to handle the situation, but he is either a good actor or he can read my mind. He is silent when I expected him to talk and talk to me when I least expected him to. And the questions - he hasn't really ask any of the questions I have prepared myself to handle.

"Gin and lime, it will be then, kid."

And why doesn't he stop this 'kid' stuff? I am twenty years old, and I consider myself a majority, grown-up. Okay, I am actually nineteen and two months, but I don't believe in months. His calling me kid makes me look so puny. I don't like it at all, but how do I tell Ama's father?

He dragged himself from his easy chair, cast a long look at me (I examined the carpet afresh) and sauntered to the drink cabinet. He ruminated a little, got a bottle of Zoom-Zoom and a bottle of lime and put it on a side-table beside me. He fetched and brought a glass to me. He almost suffocated me with his presence.

"Thank you, sir. Very much, sir." I said in a shaky voice. Perhaps the liquor would restored some of my battered confidence. In my nervous state, I mis-poured the drinks - almost filling my glass with lime before remembering the gin. I put the glass to my mouth, tasted and swallowed. I almost choked on his next question.

"How close are you with my girl?" Ama's father wanted to know.

His 'girl!' I guess he was letting me know who pull the punches around here. I didn't understand the question properly and was determined not to fall into any trap.

"Close, what do you mean, sir?" I asked him.

Silence.

Ama's father seems to agree with Che Guevara's observation that: 'silence is arguments (conversation) carried on by other means.'

"I mean how solid is your re-, friendship. How close are you two?"

"You mean close as in close, sir" I needed some elaboration.

"Yes, close as in close?" He was persistent.

I didn't want to irritate Ama's father, but I was determined not to answer any improperly-framed question. "Do you mean to ask if we are doing stuffs together, sir?"

"'Stuff'?" His eyes bulged. That was the first time he asked me anything with some life in his voice.

"Yes sir, do you mean to ask if we're doing stuffs like discoing, cooing, necking, kissing and f-?" He didn't allow me to finish. I was going to tell him that I do with his daughter only what two young and healthy couple would, naturally, do. His face was a map of distress as he regarded me.

"You mean..."

"I mean what sir?"

"Never mind. But are you taking any precaution?"

"Protection? I don't believe in it, sir. Jah Guides, sir."

"Do you mean to say that you're doing 'stuff' with my daughter and you're taking no precaution?" His big eyes bored into me.

"Your questions threw me, sir." I admitted. "But we are cool, sir. My old folks are OK."

"Your old folks?" Ama's father is not hip.

"My parents, I mean, sir."

"Are your parents aware of your doing 'stuffs' with my girl?"

I wish he will end this 'my girl' stuff. It sort of makes me feel like an interloper. "My old folks are strictly twenty-first century guys, you know, sir."

"Twenty-first century guys, what does that mean?"

"I meant to say, sir, that they are dynamic, sir. They are up-to-date. They are into electronics and stuffs. My father actually uses a computer and my mother packs a pager. Actually, sir, I am being modest there. My father is a wizard-level computer genius. Even some of his colleagues think he's up to guru-level. My mother plays chess and dreams algorithm all the time. They are cool cookies, sir."

"Do you discuss 'stuffs' with them?" The old man is catching up, but he's not yet comfortable with the lingo.

"My old lady tells me things since I was ten or eleven. My father has been giving me money for accessories and immunities since I was twelve."

"Accessories and immunities?" The old man was askance.

"Yes, sir. Condoms and things, sir."

For some strange reasons, it appears that Ama's father did not like what I was telling him. I was determined to answer him as truthfully as I could. The more I make a good job of telling him nothing but the truth, the more profound he looks. Could he possible hate me?

"Do you smoke?" Ama's father wanted to know. The pretension of watching the TV was long gone. I now have his undivided attention. I felt like a criminal being grilled by tough detectives. It was not a nice feeling.

"Tobacco you mean, sir."

"Tobacco, what other things are there to smoke, kid?" His penetrating stare was affixed upon me.

"Tobacco are strictly kid stuffs, sir."

"Really!" I did not know whether or not he was amused or anguished by what I am telling him. His shoulders were broad. His arms and hands very bid - like any old man's arms, anyway.

"Yes sir, there are some real cool stuffs, sir."

"Like what?" He wanted to know. I had the feeling that he wanted me to name him stuffs like the over-hyped cannabis or heroin. I really do not dig those stuffs.

"Like dried lettuce leaves, sir. Cabbage leaves are also good, but they leave a bitter after-taste. Paw-paw leaves are fantastic, but they leave you a physical wreck afterwards. Nothing beats young egg-plant leaves, nothing really. Some guys also swear by cassava leaves, but I can's give an opinion on that, sir."

I was becoming more voluble than I intended. I don't know if it was the way he asked the questions, or is the drink having an effect on me?

"How old are you?"

"Twenty, sir."

"Ama said that you're nineteen." He watched my tortured face closely. Could he think that I was lying to him?

'I am 19.2, sir. But since I do not believe in decimals, that makes me twenty. Doesn't it?" I have gained enough confidence to ask Ama's father questions

"I guess it does." I detected some cynicism in the voice. I really don't dig cynics.

Silence.

"Ama's said that you are a sort of student, what does mean?"

If he really wanted to know, he could have asked his daughter. "It means that I am a sort of student, sir" I replied petulantly,

"I don't catch you."

" I didn't threw myself, sir."

He corrected himself; "I don't get you."

"Sir, I don't kind of dig all the schools stuffs, sir. I am cool, you see. Honest to God, sir, I tried all the stuffs they got there, sir. Philosophy - too dense for me. Logical Positivism, Logical Atomism, Ethics, Naturalism, Materialism, Immaterialism, Subjectivism, Sophism, Metaphysics, I cannot make a head or tail out of all the rambling. I got my hands into some Sociology and Political Science. I even tried some Anthropology - none of them jell with me. Neither did Economics plus the rest of the social sciences agreed with me, sir. I guess that I'm not just constitutionally equipped to deal with them - anything abstractly stated always floors me. The physical sciences, I must admit, are too tough cookies for me. I told you that I did not like decimals, that kind of make things tougher for me. I can' t handle mathematics because I think those guys are just kidding themselves writing all those Greek letters and thinking that they are being scientific. I hate statistics because it reduces everything to percentage points. The spiritual philosophies cool my soul, but I cannot imagine myself a singer or an artist - too much fakery out there, sir. Everybody is now into music, Jesus this, Jehovah that. I am different, sir. I am cool." I cannot believe that I could become so loquacious with Ama's father.

"How did your parents manage to keep you in school, then?"

"I told you that my old folks are OK. My father has more connections than the Ghana Telecom."

"Have you figure out what agrees with your soul?" I detected the cynical smile again.

"Not really, sir. I guess I will just cut myself adrift and let the current carry me in its wake. Water always finds its level. Don't you agree, sir?"

"I bet it does. What plans have you for my daughter, then?"

"I haven't figure that one out yet, sir. Nevertheless, we will be OK. We always are. We are going to be cool, sir."

Just then, Ama emerged from the room with her mother. I had the feeling her evening had been better spent. The women were giggling. Ama threw herself on my lap. I saw the father winced in agony.

African State Declare War on the USA!

The tiny West African State of Kosangba stunned the world yesterday when its Chief Minister; Nana Bambeu Kugboji, declared that his hard-to-find-on-the-map, postage stamp-sized landlocked republic has declared war on the US, the world’s only superpower. Addressing a well-attended World Press Conference yesterday at his squalid, dilapidated woebegone capital of Petuje (pop. 567), the bearded Chieftain declared the US a threat to world peace and vowed to mobilize is republic’s puny fighting force (exactly 1234 border police force equipped with WWI Rifles, no air force, no marine, no standing army and, obviously, no navy) to attack the USA which he declared to be a “menace to mankind,” and a “threat to mother earth as we know it.”

Nana Kugboji is apparently not kidding as he has written to the newly-formed African Union (AU) and the European Union (EU) a letter copied to the Secretary General of the United Nations (UN) asking for an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council (SC) in which he declared that unless the SC condemn the US and authorized a UN Inspection team to enquire into US weapons of “mass murder” and US violations of “International laws and norms and the persecutions of minorities in territorial USA” he will lead a “coalition of the willing to disarm the USA and change the brutal Bush’s regime…”

In a voice booming with the resonance of a mighty African thunder, Chief Nana asked, “Which country in the world has violated more International Treaties than the US of A? The Kyoto Agreement to protect the environment and the international court on war crimes are just the latest in the long list of International Treaties than has fallen under the jackboot of this wicked, rapacious and bloodthirsty nation of war-mongering savages. No, we can no longer sit back and watch this nation of vile mongrels continue to hold the rest of the world hostile, pardon me, hostage. My people and I have decided that enough is enough. We are going to help the American people defend theirselves (sic).”

The African chieftain shook with primordial emotions as he shouted, “In the name of peace, democracy and human rights this avaricious, predatory imperialistic sore on the conscience of mankind have bombed: China (1945-46, 1950-53), Korea (1950-53), Guatemala (1954, 1967-69), Indonesia (1958), Cuba (1959-60), Belgian Congo (1964), Peru (1965), Laos (1964-73), Vietnam (1961-73), Cambodia (1969-70), Grenada (1983), Libya (1986), El Salvador (1980s), Nicaragua (1980s), Panama (1989), Iraq (1991- present), Bosnia (1995), Sudan and Afghanistan (1998), Yugoslavia (1999). How long more would the world wait before calling this power-drunk, gluttonous land of injustice to order?”

When asked if he was aware that the US is the world’s sole superpower, Chief Nana was disdainful: “The US is nothing but a super-addyourownsevenletterword. (Hint: ends with something into which you can crawl)”

When Richie Salty of the CNN asked if the Chief has the military might to back up his military threat, the chief said that he has mobilize all his elephant hunters for a war to end all wars. “The fact is that you white people have always mis-underestimated (sic) us. My forebears gave imperial Britain a good trashing at the battle of Petuje when those thieving rednecks were foolish enough to wander into our land.”

Being told that the USA has the support of the British Prime Minister drew a laugh of derision from the African tribal chief, “What is one to expect from the leader of that Isle of Iniquities?”

The Chief was not impressed with the argument that the US invaded Iraq to bring freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people. The African head of clan attired in his ceremonial battle attire made of Lion and Leopard skin trembled as he cried: “The US, this imperialist monster, is the only country in the world to have loyally supported lovers of freedom such like Marcos in the Philippines, Diem in Vietnam, Pinochet in Chile, Suharto in Indonesia, Zia (and now Musharraf) in Pakistan, Franco in Spain, Mobutu in Zaire, Duvalier in Haiti, Ozal in Turkey, the Shah in Iran, Salazar in Portugal, Somoza in Nicaragua, Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, Stroessner in Paraguay, Papadopoulos in Greece, Batista in Cuba, Saddam Hussein (until they fell out) in Iraq, Idi Amin in Uganda plus all the rulers of Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Arabia oildoms.”

“And this silly notion that the US is fighting to preserve democracy is laughable considering that the moron sitting the White House was selected by the Supreme Court and not elected by the popular vote of the people of the United States of America. Is it democratic to lose the popular votes but win the elections? Give me a break!”

Nana Kugboji was visibly irked when the TIME magazine reporter asked if the Iraqi leader’s maltreatment of his own people were not sufficient ground for the US to intervene. “Do you Western Press Guys and Gals read anything more serious than the make-me-happy nonsense they teach you at the ideological-orientation camps you call universities? What country in the whole wide world has brutalized more of her citizens than the US of A? Beginning with the Native Indians whom you exterminated with biological weapons through to the Blacks whom your police continue to use for target practice unto this day, the US is certainly way ahead of any nation when it comes into brutalizing her minorities. No nation even comes close second. You cannot claim to be unaware of the COINTELPRO programmes of the FBI to disorganize black groups and the murder of black leaders, or the CIA introduction of drugs into black ghettoes or the way Blacks were used in Syphilis experiments by agents of the US governments. Go and read your history before you come before me to make stupid, sanctimonious remarks about Saddam’s mistreatment of his people. Your own government is a serious threat to its own black citizens and also to the rest of the world.

When the elderly reporter from CBS, Shirley Pearbone, asked if the African chief does not believe that the USA was right to go after terrorists after September 11 2001, the Chief snorted: “You people keep prating about September 11. We in this part of the world have had nothing but September 11 all our lives, thanks largely to your government’s policies. What do you call Angola, Ghana, Mozambique, Sudan, Libya and the rest of the countries in Africa where your government agencies have negatively impacted on the lives of the people? And, please Ma, do not insult my intelligence by giving me any lecture on terrorists. Which organization is more terroristic than you very own CIA which has, for several years, set itself the agenda of toppling governments, organizing and financing insurgencies and proxy wars just to ensure that the non-white people of the world will keep living wretched lives and continue to be hewer of woods and drawers of water for you white people? And where were you wonderful seekers of truth when your agents of destructions were boasting that they were in our countries to make sure that people keep living wretched lives? ‘The objective of the war is not to make UNITA win a war, but to devastate Angola and make the people lead wretched lives,’ was how one of them put it in TIME magazine. Go and check page 3 of the August 10, 1989 issue of that mouthpiece of white supremacy. And don’t tell me that you are too naïve not to know that Osama bin Laden was not manufactured in Africa. And for your information Saddam Hussein did not sire him either. He is a product of your own CIA. His family and the family of your brain-challenged president have business relationship and owned shares in the Carlyle Group. Go figure!

The Chief burned with anger when asked if Iraq with weapon of Mass Destruction is not a threat to world peace to justify the invasion. “Weapon of Mass Destruction, indeed. Manufactured from what, tissue papers? You guys will never stop amazing me with your utter stupidity. You guys are sometimes so stupid you make my pointers and retrievers look like Rocket Scientists. About the only thing you shameless bunch do is to parrot the rotting lies the liars leading your countries are telling. So, your former puppet, the lamentable Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, and for that Iraq must be destroyed and thousands of her people killed and millions more made to live wretched lives. Did you stopped to ask yourself if Saddam had the delivery systems, you stupid …? And did you really believe that Saddam Hussein was such a senseless madman that he will threaten the USA with whatever puny arsenal he had in order to invite the virtual obliteration of his own country? Use your brains, ladies and gentlemen, if you have got any, that is. Iraq was no threat to anyone except to Western leader’s figment of imaginations. You thieving bastards wanted Iraqi’s oil and, as usual, your leaders are masking their naked thievery with humanitarian halo.”

When asked why he is such a passionate anti-America, the African Chief brimmed, “Because you Americans are so stupendously arrogant and ignorant. You never learn anything from history despite all your universities and think tanks. There you are badgering around the world like demented Zombies, making exactly the same stupid mistakes all over. You are so consumed with your short-term interests that you cannot see beyond your long noses and learn the lessons of history. You are the only branch of the human race that believes in humiliating your foes. There was Iraq, beaten and humiliated yet you are not satisfied. You want more to piss and trampled upon it. Why do you Americans have that unique tendency of not looking upon your defeated enemy with compassion and favor? There you are – going gung-ho trampling upon Iraq. You have killed sadadm Hussein but has that solved your problems? You defeated Germany in your WWI but your attempts to humiliate the Germans got you only WWII. You overthrew Mossadegh in Iran and what did you get in return. Ayatollah Khomeini, that is what you got! Go figure! Saddam Hussein is gone, but verily and verily I say unto you, what you will get in return will be far worse. Mark my word.

Rounding up, the African chief took a savage swipe at the assembled press “You bunch of mindless hypocrites.” He cried, his hand swinging the pungent African air. “Your governments are leading the world into perfidy and about the only thing you are doing is merrily and cheerfully cheering them on. What do you care? So long as your fat paychecks keep coming in, what do you care, indeed? You guys are so mindless that about the only thing you are doing is parroting the nauseating lies that the USA and its sidekick, Britain, is interested in giving freedom to the Iraqis? Where in their entire history have the USA and Britain fought for other people’s freedom? I ask you where? Search your consciences, if you have any. Goodbye.”

At which point the African chief pulled a watch from his breast pocket, consulted it closely and declared: “I have wasted enough time on you minions.”

Zimbabwe: The Algebra of regime change

According to the lies being peddled by the racist Western media, Zimbabwe is another glaring example of black’s incapacity for self-governance. According to this script, black people are simply ill-equipped mentally, physically, emotionally and intellectually to manage their affairs without the guiding hands of compassionate and altruistic whites.

To these white Supremacists, president Robert Mugabe is just another example of a tyrannical black autocrat who has ran the affairs of his once prosperous country aground, and demolish all the fine institutions left over by benevolent whites - who continue to carry the ‘burden’ of their unfortunate black cousins.

Deep within all these hogwash of racist lies is buried the fact that Zimbabwe is going through very rough economic patches as a result of the punishing economic sanctions Britain and her Western partners have imposed on the unfortunate Southern African nation because Mugabe has the courage to try to right the historical wrongs of European colonialists.

To call the West, plus its institutions – leadership and scholarship liars, is to be guilty of inapt language: they have done nothing but tell lies since the dawn of history. The West singularly remains the only branch of humanity that has consistently sought its own advancement at the expense of other people. Lying, cheating, stealing double talk and other chicaneries are acceptable to Western leaders so long as it advances western interests.

Because of its stranglehold on the world’s communication outlets, the West is able to continue to peddle its lies with impunity. And the fawning journalists at the service of the western press continue to unashamedly tell bare-faced lies about objectivity.

The punishing economic sanctions against Zimbabwe are written in black and white and they are in the public domain. The question is beggared whether or not these supposedly objective truth-seekers are incapable reading and understanding their own language! The BBC, which nauseatingly continues to shout about its objectivity, cannot claim ignorance of these measures. Neither can the other White Supremacist mouthpieces like the CNN, NBC, AFP etc, claim to be unaware of the economic sanctions the EU and the United Snakes of America (USA) have imposed on Zimbabwe; yet they continue to peddle the ungodly lies about Blackman’s incompetence!

Pray, is the CNN, with all the resources at its disposal, unaware of the mind-bogglingly mis-titled law the USA has imposed on Zimbabwe – the so-called Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act passed into law in December 2000, (ZDERA)?

For those Africans who continue to buy into the lies the Euro-Press tells, it’s important to bear some important historical lessons things in mind: One lesson is that throughout history Europe has always claim to be what it is, in fact, not. Europe’s genius (and the source of its wealth and strength) lies in its ability to mask its true intentions. The success of Europe lies in its success in persuading the rest of the world to accept Europe’s selfish interests as that of humanity. Another lesson Africans will forget at their peril is that in dealing with other non-White people, Europe’s conduct has been totally dishonorable. And we are being charitable here! We should also not forget that Europe remains the only continent (even if we can call it that) that rely on other people’s resources but lack the capacity to engage in mutually-beneficial commerce; Europe cannot feed, house and cloth itself without the resources from other land. Yet, Europe always greedily wants what other people have but it’s unwilling to engage in honorable trade. That explains why Europe continues to marshal all its resources to steal what rightfully belong to other people. History is our best teacher.

When the starving hordes of Europeans were rescued by the natives of the continent we today call America, they didn’t set out to beg the so-called Indians for accommodation. Hell, no! With their philosophy of ‘Why pay for it when you can kill for it,’ when their hungry and greedy eyes eyed the vast land with its boundless resources; their natural selfish instincts were aroused. They systematically wiped out their rescuers whose sole crime was to grant the Europeans the humanity they neither understood, recognize or deserve!

Today, the vast continent of America belongs to the progenitors of the unprovoked genocidal racial war Europeans launched against the Indians. And the children of these conquistadors shamelessly built monuments, named rivers, cities after their greatest hero – the monster Cristobal Colon, aka Christopher Columbus. And they continue to celebrate their sham Thanksgiving (giving thanks to their gods for allowing them to massacre their benefactors).

The same sordid tale was repeated in Australia when that Island of Iniquities (Britain) decided to empty her criminals on the hapless Aboriginals. Never in their nature to want to share, the European bandits dumped in Australia massacred some forty millions Aboriginals whose sole crime was to own the land these depraved species of humanity craved. Today, we have the Prime Minister of these savage mongrels disturbing our peace with sanctimonious tears about democracy and human rights in Zimbabwe!

New Zealand and Canada were among the places where Europeans successfully wiped out the indigenous people in order to steal their land and resources.

Thankfully, Africans were able to successfully wrest control of their lands back from European colonizers and empire builders. This is a feat that we must not try to belittle. Africa remains the only place where Europeans were forcibly forced to regurgitate their ill-gotten lands. Whichever we throw it around, our heroes and heroines fought hard to ensure that we did not go the way of the Aboriginals or the Red Indians. We salute their gallantry!

It must be galling indeed for Europeans to see that after all the weapons they threw in our directions, we managed to take physical possession of our land. It must be doubly agonizing for them when President Robert Mugabe started the revolution of land distribution in his country.

Suddenly, Western leaders and scholars discovered that Mugabe is a tyrant in the mold of, no not Idi Amin, but Hitler himself. Again, history refuses to support these jejune attempts to paint black white. Before he began his land red-distribution, Mugabe was a darling of the West. He was lauded by the Western press as example of enlightened black leaders- the so-named New Breed African leaders!

Today Western press continue to lampoon Mugabe, but they only need to go back to their own archives to read what they were writing about the man before the land reform began. And let’s be mindful of the fact that the Queen of England herself decorated Mugabe with a Knighthood in 1994!

When the trick of a Knighthood failed to persuade him no to go ahead with his land reform programme, the British leaders and their western allies decided to break him. Contrary what Britain and her allies are saying, Mugabe’s only crime was to try and right the historic injustice of white people stealing land belonging to Africans. All other excuses they are giving we can safely dismiss as pure nonsensical.

As I keep telling anyone who will listen, the biggest problem the West has vis-à-vis Africa is that of credibility. Any African for whom thinking is not an encumbrance ought to ask herself why the West suddenly discover that Zimbabweans are yearning for democracy and human rights!

Why was it that when that accursed ruthless empire-builder, Cecil Rhodes, was cheating African chiefs of their land, Western leaders and scholars didn’t raise a voice in protest? When that stiff-necked racist Ian Smith was brutalizing the indigenous owners of the land in Zimbabwe and carting them into arid parts of the country, the West and its institutions didn’t raise a voice in objection. When Mugabe and Nkomo launched the liberation war to free their country, no country in the West lends a helping hand. On the contrary, they provided their kith and kin in Rhodesia with the wherewithal to kill and maim Africans whose sole crime was to fight for what rightfully belong to them. British firms like BP and Shell breached the half-hearted sanctions imposed on Smith and his Clique. Yet, these racists want us to develop collective amnesia, forget our history and condemn our heroes! Not on your lives!

For those Africans who still get their ‘facts’ from the BBC, I say consider this: our beloved Ghana depend on ‘donor’ support for upward of seventy percent of her budget. We are not alone; actually we are in good company. Because of the neo-colonial structure of the world’s economy, many Third World countries depend on these supports. Zimbabwe remains the only country in the world that is denied access to these supports.

According to the ZDERA, Zimbabwe is denied access to loan from all international financial institutions (section 2 of the act). Zimbabwe is denied bilateral debt relief (section 4b1). These punishing measures are to be lifted only when: “… that the following conditions are satisfied: (1) restoration of the rule of law – The rule of law has been restored in Zimbabwe, include respect for ownership and title to property…”

There we have it! Western leaders, through their press, keeps telling us the lies that they are fighting for democracy and human rights in Zimbabwe, but according to their law, all they want is the maintenance of white privileges. As Cynthia McKinney, one of the few African-Americans in the congress fumed: “To any honest observer, Zimbabwe’s sin is that it has taken the position to right a wrong, whose resolution has been too long overdue – to return its land to its people. When we get right down to it, this legislation is nothing more than a formal declaration of the United States complicity in a programme to maintain white-skin privilege. We can call it an ‘incentives’ bill, but that does not change its essential ‘sanctions’ nature. It is racist and against the interests of the masses of Zimbabweans. In the long run, the Zimbabwe Democracy Act will work against the United States having a mutually beneficial relationship with Africa.”

Living on less than one dollar a day

I am always amaze at the length Europeans will go to portray Africa and Africans in bad light. From AIDS (supposedly wiping out whole societies in their mythical ‘sub Saharan’ Africa) to Mad Cow disease (claimed to be caused by game meat imported by Africans in Britain) everything bad has to have an African origin. Had SARS evolved in Europe, there’s no doubt that some enterprising European scientists would have linked it to some invented African origin!

Since Europe embraced the ideology of racism, her leaders and scholars have adorned the African with a panoply of psychological fantasies of a schizoid, self-hating, slavery-loving, sniggering, simpering, grinning, cringing and servile Big Black Sambo incapable of thoughts beyond food and sex. Throw in our supposed lust for “pure white belle with swishing skirts” – to borrow one of their descriptions, and you have the complete picture the racists are painting of us. That these clichéd racist’s imaginations exist only in their heads have not daunted them through the ages.

Of course, since the West controls the world’s mass media, Western views, however jaundiced, easily become gospel truth.

Astronomical figures are conjured up to show how we Africans remain the wretched of the earth. It is said that 90% of us are illiterate with no one telling us what ‘literacy’ was supposed to mean. Even if we accept that literacy means the ability to communicate in a European language, then I should question the figures because both my parents and both my maternal grandparents are fluent speakers of the English language. It is said that our life expectancy is only thirty-five years or thereabout - my maternal grandfather was close to one hundred years before he died and my father was over seventy before he departed. My mother died at the ripe age of 70 years, thank you very much.

And it just so happen that we have rabidly racist societies sending their so-called experts to go out and teach ‘Human Rights,’ to Africans – of course, it never occurs to them that in Africa we have the most hospitable and humane human beings to be found anywhere in the world. And we have Europeans trudging the length and breadth of our land purporting to be teaching some ‘Christian Love’ – a commodity so signally lacking in the home countries of these sanctimonious hypocrites. I don’t know a single European society that is showing any love and compassion to those that sojourn amongst it. Correct me, if I am wrong, please!

And with the zeal and speed at which ‘tolerant’ Holland is busy humiliating and dehumanizing its immigrants, you’d think that foreigners were the causes of all the woes bedeviling The Netherlands. Why no one bothers to include racism among the tenets of ‘Human Right’ still remains a source of mystery to me. Or is it because racism is so pervasive in Europe? And we have societies that cannot sell a bottle of water without showing a woman’s breast going out to the world to give sermons about ‘Woman’s Empowerment.’ What sickening hypocrisy!

The latest lamentation of the racists who pretend to love us more than we love ourselves is that we Africans should be pitied because, they say, most of us live on less than one dollar a day. How Western organizations conjure their alarming statistics about Africa remains a mystery to me since no one has ever polled me or anyone that I knew. Is it really true that most Africans live on less than a dollar a day and is it cause for pity if they so do? I have lived in both Africa and Europe, so I think I can make some comparisons that the racist pollsters are avoiding.

Apostles of unbridled materialism would want the world to start feeling sorry for me because I fed on less than a dollar a day. The truth is that there are days I spend less than a dollar in a day, and there are actually several days that I, in point of fact, spend zero dollar a day. There are days on end that I do not even spent a brass farthing, but please do not waste your tears on me. There are days I got all my meals from the fruits and vegetables from my garden. And there are other days I received all my daily nutriments free from my neighbours. So much for your dollar a day lamentation!

Living in a fool’s paradise and believing himself ‘rich’, the European has successfully turned himself into a consuming-junkie and Big businesses are successfully preying upon his insatiable gluttony. It is with this consume-all-consumables mentality with which Europeans go around the world to measure other people, and to spread their gospel of unbridled materialism, greed and avarice.

Believing himself rich, the European has to live the illusion of wealth. Let us consider briefly a sketch of our ‘rich’ cousin. He’s among the lucky few who still have a job. He works in a dotcom firm and loan was easy to get. Our rich cousin lives in a mortgaged council flat not bigger than my kitchen that they told him is worth about half a million Euros. Our cousin is so overjoyed with the idea of owning a house that he failed to realize that the banks and the estate agents, who valued the house, are just playing some tricks on him. His head dances with joy when handed the keys to his smallish, roach-infested apartment that takes over one-third of his salary. With house ownership comes other accessories necessary to join the ‘haves.’ On this fantasy of house-ownership wealth, our unfortunate cousin takes out car loan and bought a big car that must reflect the image of a ‘house owner.’ And, of course, other loans for furniture and the other appurtenances are necessary to maintain the image of a ‘rich person.’ Our cousin must have the biggest and most expensive kitchen money can buy, so more borrowed money is poured into building a futuristic kitchen. Since our rich cousin is too busy running a rat-race (to pay his debtors) to cook decent meals his expensive, high-tech kitchen, built with borrowed money, is used only to warm supermarket-bought canned foods!

Our ‘rich’ cousin needed all these material aggrandizements so that he can become ‘acceptable’ as a ‘success’ story. On this illusion of wealth our cousin can heave his chest and proclaim to the world that he is ‘rich. Until pay back time, that is.

Overwhelmed by all the debt, he becomes stressful and suffers from a host of physical, mental, psychical as well as psychological problems that kept him awake at night. Of course, he’s not alone – actually he’s in good company. And of course there is the media telling him that he’s better off than the usual bogeyman – the ‘AFRICAN.’ Pictures of some Africans, unfortunate victims of wars or nature’s vagaries are boomed to his tube to tell him that he’s OK!

Does our ‘rich’ cousin finds happiness in the material opulence with which he surrounds himself? Does he derive any joy with all the gadgets he has bought with borrowed money? I doubt it very much. The truth is that I see more happiness in Africa than I see in Europe. I see more colours, I see more joy and I certainly see more laughter in the poorest of African villages than I see in the wealthiest of European cities. Which might, in some ways, confirm the saying that you can buy the luxuries, but you cannot buy happiness.

Swissair once hoteled me in the Swiss town of Kloten. It was a leisurely summer day and in the evening I took a stroll and I couldn’t believe the sight. In Kloten there is definitely material opulence everywhere but the people that I saw looked so gloomy! The houses were all well kept with the lawn trimmed and the driveway shinny. But Kloten was as lifeless as it was soulless! It was as though it was a totemic town uninhabited by humans. The people of Kloten were tooling around town in their shinny limousines but their faces registered profound unhappiness. Kloten strikes me like a sterile bubble. It was dreadful!

I can easily contrast this with a typical African village where, no matter how materially deprived the people were; there will still be joy and laughter and abundance of vibrant colours and music everywhere.

These were some of the points I made in an article published by the Dutch Newspaper, ‘de Volkskrant’ some years back in which I wrote, inter alia: “The European has succeeded in taking the toils out of his life and all the joys as well. Finding no real happiness in the innate objects with which he has surrounded himself, the European has to escape once in a year from all the gloomy drudgery of his technology. He buys his tickets and takes a trip to Africa. What does he find? He finds people crawling out of their little huts with wide smiles on their faces. He sees men toiling in the tropical heat, humming sonorous songs. Our ‘rich’ cousin sees poor women, with children on their backs, toiling and yet chatting happily. He sees bare-footed kids with a loin for a cloth scampering around in joyful plays. The European is astounded. How could people be so happy in such a materially-deprived existence? That is the great African mystery. That is what the Europeans, with all their newly found sciences and technologies have been unable to unravel. What makes the Africans tick? Since Europeans are incapable of thinking of happiness sans mechanical gadgets, they cannot understand cultures that do not depend on gadgets to produce true happiness.”

I do not write this to suggest that Africa hasn’t got is fair share of problems. No! The sad truth is that no society created by humans is devoid of problem. And no society in Europe, Africa or Asia has managed to solve all its human development problems. The quarrel is with the Western media portrayal of Euro-America has a sort of paradisiacal seventh heaven and the portrayal of Africa as a hopeless place inhabited by sub-humans.

As I wrote in the Dutch paper, European can keep accumulating their useless statistics, we Africans shall continue to face the morrow with confidence, cheerfulness and optimism. If slavery and colonialism failed to wipe us out, no force of nature or man can so do.