Today on Africana Media

The sale of houses and the fees paid out have now become the bone of contention for Ambassador Rotimi’s defenders.  But one thing is clear: officials at the Embassy are horrified and angry that the Ambassador is trying to bastardize their reputation by making available to journalists internal discussions at the Embassy, which could potentially jeopardize their chances of advancing in the service, depending on the prism on which they are viewed and by whom.  They are angry because they have no recourse to either refute or confirm the information that Ambassador Rotimi is dishing out to his defenders.  They know it is against civil service rules for them to talk to the press as the Ambassador, a political appointee, is doing.  They are even more apprehensive of a total cleansing of house: the recall of most of the senior officials there.

But then, the controversial online blog, Saharareporters.com, decided to inject ethnicity into the issue, painting the Ambassador as an saint and aggrieved party.  The site is a big thorn on the Nigerian government, especially the Yar’Adua administration, as it has published many unflattering exposes on the members of that government, and its greatest followers are the Igbo.  What irked most of its readers was quoting somebody the Igbo have come to regard as “Igbo-hater,” and an Yoruba tribalist, Prof. Bolaji Aluko, an prominent prominent political activist himself.

Saharareporters.com wrote, “Also a US-based Professor, Mobolaji Aluko, told Saharareporters that the minister, while he campaigned for former dictator Sanni Abacha to transmute into a civilian president in 1998, told him that they will have to solve the “Yoruba problem”

“Aluko said he still has Maduekwe’s “final solution to the Yoruba problem in Nigeria” ringing in his ears since 1998. “Tell him that I said so, and ask him whether I did not confront him with it right there in New York at the Council of Foreign Relations”. Abacha died soon after those events and Maduekwe moved to the new power brokers.  His search for strong authority brought him to the top of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2007.”

“I mean I have heard so much of this and that African event, that I don’t know which one to believe, and I have looked at the costs of so many other constituency events and have come to believe that the African events are some of the most expensive.  I thought this was a celebration of our son, but an avenue for making money.”

I mean I have heard so much of this and that African event - inaugural ball - that I don’t know which one to believe, and I have looked at the costs of so many other constituency events and have come to believe that the African events are some of the most expensive. I mean this is a celebration of our son, not an avenue for making money. 

The Times today profiled Zimbabwe’s Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor, Gideon Gono, who has become one of the biggest abusers of office in Zimbabwe and has looted and continues to loot the Zimbabwe treasury on his own behalf, and on behalf of his boss, Robert Mugage.

Gono is building a 47 en suite bedroom palace, with a glass swimming pool with underlights, a gym bigger than many good houses in the Zimbabwe capital, a mini-theater and landscaped gardens.  Read how this man lives the life of opulence while the 12 million Zimbabweans suffer.

The Action Congress should re-think their opposit’on to the Yar’Adua’s call to expunge the immunity clause from the constitution.  It smells of opposing something just for the sake of opposition, which have no basis in fact, to use the opposition’s words.  When the President, Vice President, Governors and their deputies, understand that they could not hide behind the immunity clause to brazenly loot their respective states’ treasuries, they will be frightened to moderate their kleptomania.

President Obama is in a position to tell African leaders these tough love statements as their “son”, because he is embarrassed as a black man of Africa being looked upon as a ignorant child by the rest of the world, incapable of taking care of itself.  It is time for tough love.  Obama is very good at that.  During the campaign, he chastised black American leaders for acts unbecoming of good citizenships.  It is the same epiphany he has to bring to Africa.  Anything less would be a failure of his administration.

On that first day of celebrations, the band will accompany me to the Isi Ogwe (village square).  There, I will join with other of my age mates, men and women.  We will proudly be seated in our uniformed outfit, which I have already paid for.  After the gun salutes, the age group will be called upon to officially present whatever they have done for the village.  After the presentation, our names will be called individually to pay a certain amount of money to the village.  Individually, those who can afford it, it is at this juncture that you get up and offer a more substantial sum of money to the village, or agree to individually accomplish a task.

Having said all this, I am compelled to say that there were and there still are definitely “Media Warriors for Obama,” who helped to make the Obama quest for the presidency a very successful one.  Sitting on top of that list is none other than Keith Olbermann of MSNBC’s Countdown, followed by Daily Kos founder, Markos Moulitsas, Huffingtonost.com founder Arianna Huffington, Joshia Micah Marshall of “Talkingpointsmemo” Chris Matthews of MSNBC’s ‘Hardball’, Rachel Maddow of the MSNBC and of course the jedreport’s Jed. 

Nothing bothered me more than seeing the Rev. Jesse Jackson shedding so much tears, especially after vowing to cut off Obama’s nuts.  I am so glad none of the networks bothered to interview him, although they continued to briefly switch to him.

And it seems the networks have decided to rehabilitate Tavis Smiley, after he thought he was so big until the black community pariahed him.  He saw that there was a force bigger than him.  And did you see Juan Williams of ‘Fixed News’ weeping tears.  Damn, all these renegades!!

We urge the electorate to send this man, Barack Obama, whose candidacy has been described as “transformational” by the former Secretary of State and Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, retired General Colin, to the White House.  We have no doubt that Obama would achieve greatness for America.  He will restore America to its past glories, a country that is feared for being the only super-power left in the world, but for being the country where the oppressed come to make their dreams come true. 

Well, the only good thing that has come out of this anxiety, is that I have been walking almost six miles every morning.  At least, it reduces the beating in my heart.

“Botswana demonstrates how a country with natural resources can promote sustainable development with good governance, on a continent where too often mineral wealth has become a curse,” Mr Annan, a 2001 UN Nobel Peace Prize winner, said.

The last presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain ended about an hour ago, and the insta-polls have just come in, showing Obama soundly trouncing McCain.  According to the CBS poll of uncommitted voters say Obama Won Final Debate.

“And tonight’s results have, by a wide margin, made it a clean sweep. Here are the final results of the survey of 638 uncommitted voters:

Fifty-three percent (53%) of the uncommitted voters surveyed identified Democratic nominee Barack Obama as the winner of tonight’s debate. Twenty-two percent (22%) said Republican rival John McCain won. Twenty-five (25%)percent saw the debate as a draw.” Read the full CBS News report

CNN had the result as McCain: 31 percent, Obama 58 percent. On the favorability:

Obama Favorable:

63 percent before debate --> 66 percent after debate.  Unfavorable: 35 percent before debate --> 33 percent after debate

McCain Favorables

Favorable: 51 percent before debate --> 49 percent after debate
Unfavorable: 45 percent before debate --> 49 percent after debate

Other findings from CNN:

Who would better handle the economy?
McCain: 35 percent
Obama: 59 percent

Who would better handle the financial crisis?

McCain: 35 percent
Obama: 56 percent

Who would better handle health care?

McCain: 31 percent
Obama: 62 percent

Who would better handle taxes?

McCain: 41 percent
Obama: 56 percent

Even Fox News pollster, Luntz said this:  “None had made a decision to support Sen. Obama before the debate, but more than half supported after the debate. It was a good night for Barack Obama.”

In essence, in the three debates Obama has won resoundingly.  Stay tuned for more report

With the shrillness reminiscent of the Jim Crow era, the right-wing of the Republican party was whipped into frenzy of hate and fear by Ms. Palin.  When she mentioned Obama at her rallies, there have been vocal shouts of “kill him,” “terrorist,” “off his head.” When you hear these epithets being shouted at Obama, you remember all the Black leaders who have been murdered in cold blood, all those who were lynched during Jim Crow, and you wonder whether there is a subtle message here about what should happen to Obama.  Is it an indirect way of convincing someone to do to Obama what was done to President John Kennedy, Senator Bobby Kennedy, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, or even Reagan?

Given how most African countries are ruled by tyrants and dictators, there is no doubt that those who love democracy in Africa would proclaim Mbe’s honor.  He has given South Africa that preminent position for advancing the cause of democracy in Africa, by heeding the demands of the electorate as represented by elected officials of the African National Congress.

On ther other hand, his sacking is demeaning and smells of vendetta - it didn’t show statesmanship on the part of Jacob Zuma.  Why continuing to kick a man who is already down?  Thabo Mbeki was due to step down as President after the elections in April, 2009.  Why was the rush in having him removed except as an vindictive payback, notwithstanding what this would do internationally to the interests of South Africa.  It was a bad judgment call.

As I sat down to think about his questions and the fact that the African community is quite lacking in all these areas, I began to understand how our culture of entitlement because we are educated, our ego to be recognized for our accomplishments, our laziness and anathema to being acclimatized to realities of our surroundings and situations, our glorification of what we would have been if we were back in our respective countries, our faked elitism in looking down and thinking we are better and brighter than our brothers and sisters in this country, and finally our egregious sin and stupidity in believing that we should be given something for nothing rather than work for that something, have all combined to this prostrate state.  Unfortunately for us, that’s not how the system works in this country.

Now, we know that in war or in a shoot-out in an “OK Coral” movie, the person who blinks first loses, because your opponent pulls out his gun and shoots you squarely on your temple.  And that’s exactly what happened in that high-stakes brinksmanship that Senator McCain orchestrated.  McCain, a war hero, who should have known better to issue a challenge to a much more accurate and younger quick draw, lost badly and got it on his temple.

Just on a personal and professional level, it would be stupid not to sympathize with Clinton. Just yesterday, September 17, Mrs. Clinton was forced to pull out of a protest rally to be held against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at the United Nations, when she learnt that the organizers had also invited Governor Palin without informing her.

Since the end of both the Democratic and Republican conventions, McCain, who has been excoriated by the press for lying about Barack, took the lead in polls, fanning seeds of discontent among Democrats.  Well, the tide seems to have turned again, and Obama leads in the polls, though it is not really significant.  As has been suggested by two people, the polls shows nothing but racism as a factor in the race.