The Africana Media Blog

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.

The “Palin” phenomenon would not have arisen if the Obama campaign had been pragmatic in selecting Clinton as his running-mate rather than emotional with assumed unforgivable and destructive attacks by Senator Clinton.  That’s is ‘Politics 101’; if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.  I say bring back those who devised the “kitchen-sink strategy,” the Mark Penns, the James Carvilles and the Paul Begala’s.  McCain understands what he needs to do to win, and by his pick of Governor Palin, a strategic decision made by Karl Roves students, it is beginning to appear that Obama should have done the right thing.

As Obama said, this is the greatest moment in history, and that history should be completed with the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States of America.  And when November 5, 2008, arrives and the results of the election would have been counted, Barack Obama would have won in a landslide.  He has prepared for this a long time, and has earned the right to be POTUS.

Andrew Sullivan is dissecting the real McCain, and the Obama campaign better start taking note from what he writes.

I am very sad that I would not be going to Denver, Colorado for the Democratic National Convention.  Nevertheless, I am going to attempt to bring you all the details of what is going on there.  So, as an African, this is the place to be to get the true coverage of what’s going on in Denver.  Anyway, I would be one of more than 15,000 journalists already there.  From outside and way out of the Convention, I would have an unimpeded view of all the goings-on there.  So, buckle your belt and enjoy the view with me. 

The first thing you have to know is that the Convention starts today, Monday, the 25th of August, at 3 pm, Denver time, but 5 pm here in the New York area and will end on Thursday, when Obama accepts his party’s nomination, the first black man ever to be nominated for the post of president of America by any major political party.  If you wish to check the schedule for the beginning ceremonies, go here. The Republicans start their own on September 2, 2007 and end on September 5.

There will be all kinds of pomp and pageantry, razzmatazz, prayers and displays of patriotism.  Americans love America, whether true or not, but they certainly display and want you as a politician to wear your patriotism on your sleeve.  The Republican party has been trying to paint Obama as unpatriotic, because he initially didn’t wear lapel pins, which he has started wearing.  Contrast this: Obama was born in Hawaii, which is the 50th state of the United States of America, and McCain was born in Panama, where America had bases where his father was stationed.

VICE PRESIDENTIAL PICK

If you are remotely reading or listening to the news, I am sure Africans are more than tuned in this election because of Barack Obama, I know you already have heard of who Senator Obama picked as his vice-presidential running mate, Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, a very small state in America, but one of the 13 states in the Union, which is now 50. 

For a whole week, there was media frenzy about who Obama was going to pick.  Speculation abounded as to whether it would be Senator Biden, Senator Batch Bayh of Indiana, Governor Kaine of Virginia or even those of us who were hoping for the miraculous candidacy of Senator Hillary Clinton of New York, who fought Obama to a standstill during the primaries.  We were hoping that Obama would do a Jack Kennedy, who chose Lyndon Johnson, or a Reagan who chose current Bush’s father, after a very bitter primary campaign.  Well, no need crying over a split milk.  The pick of Biden is a great pick, though Clinton would have more than unified the party.  I don’t believe in the so-called baggage she would have brought to the ticket with her husband, former President Clinton as a loose cannon.

Anyway, as founder of DailyKos website, Markos Moulitsas wrote, “The more I read stuff like this (from Stephanopolous on Good Morning America Weekend Sunday), the more comfortable I am with Biden’s selection.

“I have never seen a vice-presidential candidate, in the announcement, come out with THAT KIND of ferocity. Usually, you see it a little bit later in the campaign – not at the announcement. But Joe Biden showed one of the main reasons that Barack Obama picked him. They WANTED a scrapper out there. They WANT a fighter out there. They know Senator Biden will be able to get UNDER Senator McCain’s skin. They’ve known each other for an AWFUL long time – more than 35 years. As one Obama aide told me yesterday: We know that Joe Biden can go out there with a 2-BY-4 if he has to.”

There’s really no faster way to my heart than having a Democrat go after Republicans with a (rhetorical) 2-by-4.”

WHO’S SENATOR BIDEN

This information is from the Wikipedia:

Biden was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the son of Joseph Robinette Biden, Sr. (Baltimore, Maryland, November 13, 1915 – Wilmington, Delaware, September 2, 2002), and wife (m. 1941) Catherine Eugenia “Jean” Finnegan (Scranton, Pennsylvania, ca. June, 1918 –).[2][3] He was the first of four siblings[3] and is of English heritage on his father’s side and Irish heritage on his mother’s side. He has two brothers, James Brian Biden and Francis W. Biden, and a sister, Valerie (Biden) Owens.[4] The Biden family moved to Claymont, Delaware, when Biden was 10 years old,[3] and he grew up in suburban New Castle County, Delaware, where his father was a car salesman. In 1961, Biden graduated from Archmere Academy in Claymont, Delaware[3] and, in 1965, from the University of Delaware in Newark,[5] where he double majored in history and political science.[3] He went on to receive his Juris Doctor (J.D.) from Syracuse University College of Law in 1968, and was admitted to the Delaware Bar in 1969.[5][6]
In 1966, while in law school, Biden married Neilia Hunter. They had three children, Joseph R. “Beau” Biden III, Robert Hunter, and Naomi Christina. His wife and infant daughter died in a car accident shortly after he was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972. His two young sons, Beau and Hunter, were seriously injured in the accident, but both eventually made full recoveries. Biden was sworn into office from their bedside. Persuaded not to resign in order to care for them, Biden began the practice of commuting an hour and a half each day on the train from his home in the Wilmington suburbs to Washington, DC, which he continues to do.
In 1977, Biden married Jill Tracy Jacobs. They have one daughter, Ashley, and are members of the Roman Catholic Church. In February 1988, after suffering from neck pains, Biden was hospitalized and underwent lifesaving surgery to correct two brain aneurysms, one of which began leaking.[7] The hospitalization and recovery kept him from the Senate for seven months.
Biden’s elder son, Beau, was a partner in the Wilmington law firm of Bifferato, Gentilotti, Biden & Balick, LLC and was elected Attorney General of Delaware in 2006. He is a captain in the Delaware Army National Guard, where he serves in the Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps. He is set to be deployed to Iraq in October, 2008.[8] Biden’s younger son, Hunter, works as a lawyer in Washington, D.C., serves on the board of directors of Amtrak, and previously worked in the Commerce Department.
Hunter Biden was also briefly the president of a hedge fund group. That enterprise ended badly, in mutual recriminations between the Bidens and a business partner, and lawsuits in New York State.
Since 1991, Biden has also served as an adjunct professor at the Widener University School of Law. He teaches a seminar on constitutional law.
In 2002, Biden became a member of the exclusive Washington, D.C. Alfalfa Club. Biden has attended the World Economic Forum in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2007. He sits on the board of advisors of the Close Up Foundation and is a part of the NATO Observer Group in the U.S. Senate.

There’s praise for Biden’s pick by the general public.  According to Zogby polls, 43% approved of Obama’s decision, 22% disapprove, 26% said it made no difference and 9% were undecided.

THE CONVENTION

As I already pointed out, the Convention begins today Monday, August 25, at 3pm Central time, but 5pm Eastern time.  Obama’s wife, Michelle, will headline the speeches - she will be the first to speak, and will be joined by their two daughters, Malia and Sasha, her mother Marian Robinson, and her brother Craig Robinson, who is to introduce her.

Other speakers include Rep. Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the house of reps, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper and Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill.  There will also be a tribute to Senator Kennedy, whose endorsement of Obama in January was great news for the Obama camp.

But in all these do-good programs launched by the international community to move Africa to the present century, rather than being in the time-warp of the 19th century, nobody ever thinks of where or how these millions receiving aids are supposed to live a decent life, a decent life with roof over their heads.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that the American media is colluding to derail Senator Barack Obama’s march to the presidency of the United States.  In many studies, and as a few of the media itself, has come to acknowledge, they are doing everything to get very negative on Obama’s positions, while handling with kids’ gloves what his Republican opponent has been saying and doing, especially with the inconsistency of his position on several issues. 

Yesterday morning, I tuned in to CBS radio, and the first item on the news was “Did Obama’s overseas trip help or hurt him,” and proceeded to quote the new inconsistent USAGallop poll which had McCain with a lead of 4% over Obama of likely voters.  But on Monday at the same time, the CBS, which had been accused of doctoring an interview between its network anchor Kathie Couric and McCain, cutting out certain portions of the interview in which McCain made certain statements detrimental to his campaign, didn’t lead with a poll by the same Gallop organization which showed a bounce for Obama after his trip, with an 9-8% lead over McCain. 

Despite perception to the contrary, in which Americans felt the press was harder on McCain than on Obama, a new study by the Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University, has “found that ABC, NBC and CBS were tougher on Obama than on Republican John McCain during the first six weeks of the general-election campaign.

“What is most annoying is that the Obama campaign, for reasons best known to them, as if they haven’t learned how the campaign almost came to be derailed by vicious attacks by Hillary Clinton, are adopting the same silly “taking the high road,” approach to the attacks by John McCain and the media.  People tell you they detest negative advertisements, yet they are more than influenced by those ads. 

As we say back in Africa, “Do me, I do you, God no go vex.” You hit me, and I hit you back, God will not be angry.  That needs to be imparted to the people who run the Obama campaign.  Docility in the face of voracious negative attacks, don’t win elections.  Both Al Gore and Kerry tried it, look where it landed them.  A word for the wise. 

What is going on?  Now, it is African women who seem to be making more progress than their male counter-parts.  Are African men being castrated or what?  All we hear are this woman or that woman being appointed to this post or that post on the international scene.  What happened to our males? 

For the 262,368 times, the MSM has dwelt on why Obama should not accept that the ‘Surge’ advocated by McCain has worked in Iraq, while ignoring the same question of McCain of why he voted for the iraq war, said Americans would be welcomed with love and that the war would hardly cost the American tax payers anything in monetary or terms.  Yet the war has cost more than $700 billion and counting and over 4000 lives. 

Again, I am sure you want to know who is this guy with the over-accomplished daughter, with the 5-acre estate with a mansion to boot in toney Westport, Connecticut. Rajat Gupta, the father of Geetanjali is a brilliant man, and holds many directorships in top companies and universities.  He is the Managing Director of that ivy league of consulting companies, McKinsey and Company…

Democracy seriously is crying for leadership in Africa.  It needs the leadership of a country with the stature of Nigeria, as in the case of Zimbabwe, South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki having abandoned his claim to such leadership.  Yar’Adua came into office through the machinations of fraudulence, but there is nothing that says he could not do the right thing by championing democracy in Africa, including good governance, civil rights, gender equality, free and fair elections and the independence of an free press.  That’s a path that could lead to his own redemption.

So, I vote for our keeping our eyes on the prize - POTUS, and despite all denials, I am happy that Obama is beginning to see the clear sky now that the fog has cleared.  I don’t see another candidate that could help him win easily as Senator Hillary Rdoham Clinton could, and I vote for her as the vice-presidential candidate to Senator Barack Obama.  It is a winning combination that is formidable.

What the Zimbabwean situation has shown is that there are quite a few African leaders with democratic credentials who are no longer willing to acquiesce in the politics of the former OAU (Organization os African Unity).  That organization, popularly known as the “club of dictators,” died and was buried in 2002.  We are beginning to see the emergence of credible African leaders.

“When a caller asks for help with being a compulsive liar, Anderson says he totally understands, because he did the same thing as an adolescent, lied about things as trivial as what he had for lunch. “Ultimately it all comes out and you end up looking like a complete jerk,” he says - from the Popnography of March 22, 2007, talking about when Anderson Cooper was host of the ABC program, The Mole.  In fact, I didn’t know about this when I blared the title of this article, “Anderson Cooper, You’re a Liar.” We can’t begrudge Mr. Cooper his pedigreed background, being born to the sion family of the Vanderbilts of the railraod tycoon, nor his meteoric rise in the world of broadcast journalism.  Nor should we begrudge him his recently $4 million a year contract with the CNN.  With all the encomiums written about him, you would think that Anderson Cooper is the poster child of journalistic integrity.  But I and millions of Africans disagree.

I woke up this morning feeling nasty, and I couldn’t put my hand on what made me to feel that way.  There were two things that bothered me, first that I had not written the article titled, “Anderson Cooper, “You’re a Liair,” Africans are Screaming.”

I also remembered that I was itching to find out what the two top African Union diplomats in the US thought of what was going on in Zimbabwe, especially the withdrawal of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai from the June 27 presidential run-off.  Listen, I was certain I wasn’t going to get any meaningful answers, but still I decided to give them both a call.  First I called the AU UN office in Manhattan, and was told that Ambassador Lila was out of town.  She was traveling in Africa, then I called the AU office in Washington DC, and Ambassador Amani was also in Africa.  In a case like this, there is really no need to attempt to talk with lower officials, they would give you the run-around about the Ambassador being the only one who could possibly give you the right answer.  Even the Ambassadors themselves will tell you that the best thing might be to call Addis Ababa, that some times I wonder why are they here anyway. 

I have written so much about Mugabe and Zimbabwe that I feel nauseated reading my own writings.  I don’t feel like hearing about Mugabe, I feel the same way as Kenya’s Prime Minister, Raila Odinga, who described him as an eye-sore on the continent.  I remember the article I wrote in 2001 about Mugabe and White Farmers which was quoted and quoted ad nausem, in which I made the point that 99.9% of Africans in the continent agreed with his land distribution policy.  In hindsight, was I right, yes.  But that doesn’t mean that I believe Mugabe should stay in office for life, and I stated this in an article I also wrote in Gamji online and which also appeared in the African Sun Times of March 21-27, 2002.  The first three paragraphs of that article are more appropriate at this time than ever, and they express my feelings now. Here it is:

When those of us who became of age in the late 1950s and early 1960s remember the great joy and happiness we all experienced at the victory that Africa was going to win over our imperialist Europe and colonialists, we are now shedding tears that Africa has been dealt the worst hand at the rulers who we thought would rescue us from that intolerable knowledge of being a slave to another human being. The late 1950s and early 1960s were a time of joyous exuberance for us as Africans.  It was the time of Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Nnamdi Azikiwe of Nigeria, Leopold Senghor of Senegal, Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya and of course Julius Nyerere of Tanzania.

We cheered heartily when we heard Nkrumah tell us that Africa could not be free when one African was still under bondage.  Today, Africa is still under bondage, but not from the imperialist and colonialist Europe, but rather at the hands of other Africans.

I have shed tears for mother Africa; in fact, I have literally shed tears for Robert Gabriel Mugabe of Zimbabwe, a hero of the Republic of Zimbabwe (former Rhodesia), who would rather tarnish his image in the pursuit of unbriddled power and ambition.  It is therefore with great sadness that hundreds of millions of Africans who had come to include Robert Mugabe among the heroes of Africa, are unfortunately left with no choice than to say a requiem for Robert Gabriel Mugab

That was six years ago when I wrote that article, and Mugabe was 78 at that time, he is 84 now and we are still talking about the same man and the same issues.  In the March 29 elections, Mugabe and his party Zanu-PF lost their majority in parliament, and after more than a month of utter silence on the presidential election results, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission finally announced that Mugabe was second to Morgan Tsvangirai the opposition leader in the presidential poll, but that Tsvangirai didn’t win the required 50+1 to clinch the presidency outright.  Since then, Mugabe has unleashed a rain of terror on the opposition, with Mugabe’s government sanctioned thugs and militias killing 87 opposition members, according to Tsvangirai and the opposition party’s secretary-general in leg irons during his last court appearance for ‘treason’, for saying that the opposition had won the March 29 presidential elections.

I remember the same scenario that is occurring now happening the same way in 2002, except this time Mugabe has vowed not to relinquish power even if the electorate votes him out, he would go to war over being rejected by his people, and that only God could remove him. 

In 2002, I remember writing the following:

It is inconceiable to most of us that at 78, Robert Mugabe would be so driven with the trappings of power that he would lie, cheat, and subject millions of Zimbabweans to a far worse condition than they were subjected to under white rule.  Unfortunately, Mr. Mugabe is not unique in this department, as he is merely a reflection of other African leaders who have decided to give him succour than tell him in no unmistable terms that what he was trying to do, what he did and what he continues to do, are totally unacceptable in the so-called 21st Century African Renaissance. If Mugabe felt that he was so beloved by his people, the right thing to do was to offer the unconditional opportunity to express themselves by allowing everybody entitled to vote to vote freely according to their choice.  Unfortunately, Mugabe did everything to see that he stole the recently concluded election in Zimbabwe.

The shame and sadness I feel is that if there is a God, he should grant Mugabe his wishes and remove him.  That should be every African’s prayer for Mugabe.  Africans have endured enough, but Zimbabweans have suffered more. 

News briefs for June 18, 2008, an Africanamedia way of providing you with short read on events of interest.

But it was what Castaneda said that aroused my greatest interest.  He said he attended a meeting of civil rights groups in Abuja last year.  He cited the growth of Al Qaeda in northern Nigeria, but went to say how Al Qaeda is spreading massively to the south of Nigeria.

Into this maelstrom of forces, a audacious young man decided to thrust himself.  In the parlance of horse-racing, he was never given a chance of even getting out from the gate.  There was the attitude that it wasn’t your turn yet, you haven’t earned your stripes to be a player in this game, more so on the Clintons, who felt that they had done so much for the black community, which I debunked in an earlier article, for a black man to have the audacity or rather the effrontery to challenge their rightful claim to the presidency.  But the bubble of the aura of inevitability was burst on the night of January 3, when Iowans dealt a blow to the Clinton brand, by giving a skinny freshman senator with an African father and a white mother, a resounding send-off to the claim of the Democratic nomination, and hopefully and assuredly to the presidency of the United States of America, and by extension a leader of the world by the status of the United States of America as the only powerful superpower left today in the world.

But, make no mistake about the general election, it is going to be brutal.  There are people who will not vote for Obama because he is black, even the Russians preferred McCain 36 to 28, of course representing the so-called working class whites in this case of Europe.  But I believe he has demonstrated enough of an broader appeal that would help to push him to become the next POTUS.

Given his singular visionary leadership, culturally, politically, Pan-Africanistically, and more so economically, I believe a reassessment of Nyerere’s economic policy is in order.  Rather than being described as an “Heroic Failure,” it should be described as an “Monumental Success.” It goes to the core of my belief, that we should stop attempting to run before we could even crawl.  The deliberate steps at economic engineering are the seeds of economic success.  I salute you, Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere!!

There is a new sheriff at the Nigeria house in New York.... Well, last Wednesday, May 7, the Mission had a party to introduce her to the diplomatic community, and this is where I found things to be a lot different from what was happening in the past.  Okay, I was driving through Nigeria House on 2nd Avenue and 44th Street in the evening of Tuesday, May 6, when I saw all these workers sand-blasting the front of that edifice, the best investment that Nigeria ever made.  I parked my car and looked around.  Yeah, there was a lot of cleaning of the front going on that night.

“One of the things that was said was he looked people in the eye and Hillary didn’t. That’s big for me, as a police officer. “

Then I looked at the actual figures coming in from both States, and shouted Holy Moses, what has the “Teflon Candidate” done here, mow down his opponent to size, wow Jesus of Nazareth, mind you I am a Godanist strictly African belief a belief that says we had our God before the advent of the white imperialists, Chukwu, Chineke, but this day okay this evening I was ready to invoe His name.  I went to the refrigerator and poured a good amount of white wine.  It needed celebration, all the polls were wrong, wrong, wrong, except the not-so-trusted Zogby that has been quite off in this election circle.

In conclusion, Obama has suffered a lot of brutal bruises, inflicted on him by the press and the Clinton campaign’s kitchen strink strategy.  Any other candidate would have wilted in the face of the massive assaults, but this candidate has shown more mettle in the face of enemy fires.  Despite his losses in Ohio, Texas and recently in Pennsylvania, more super-delegates are flocking to endorse him because of his principled positions on issues, for example the gas tax, thereby reducing significantly Senator Clinton’s edge in the super-delegates’ count to less than 20, while maintaining 135 edge in pledged delegates.  His win in Guam yesterday, despite what the detractors consider as non-stetlar performance, reinforces his resilience, after all it was his opponent who told us that 50+1 is a win, in this case, 50+7 is a big win.  Only a teflon candidate, in the mode of Ronald Reagan, could achieve that, and that individual is Senator Barack Obama, the Teflon Candidate. 

UNIVERSITY CLUB, New York, Apr. 30 - The International Crisis Group today honored President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf with the Fred Cuny Award for the Prevention of Deadly Conflict for her outstanding leaderhip in democracy, development and peacebuilding in Africa.

Finally, a full complement of the Nigerian diplomatic corps has been completed with the arrival last week of Prof. Joy Ogwu as Nigeria’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations.

What I have tried to establish here is that the Chinese, as much as they proffer friendship for Africans, they are just as manipulative as their western counterparts: they are only interested in the natural resources of Africa.  They know exactly what the arms they were shipping to Zimbabwe would be used for, but why would they bother about the fact that thousands of Africans might die from the 3 million rounnds of ammunition, 1500 rocket propelled grenades and 3000 mortar bombs and rocket launchers.  African lives are meaningless.  They would rather maintain a cordial relation with an oppressive government than worry about such mundane things as thousands of lives being obliterated.

Jed over at The Jed Report has posted another of his videos, this one highlighting all of the lies Hillary has told over the years. Jed seems pleased with the buzz it is generating:

Bosnia and Back Again, my latest video, is off to a strong start—it’s gotten at least 86,323 views (up from somewhere between 36,697 and 66,064 view when I first wrote this post) and is currently the #2 top rated video in YouTube’s news & politics category, and #5 #8 overall. It’s also generating buzz on the web—over at The Nation, Ari Melber calls it a “devastating” video.

Video after the jump:

Chorus of endorsements of Barack Obama sweeping through Pennslyvania’s largest newspapers.  The Philadelphia Daily News is the latest to endorse Obama.  Here’s a look at some of the comments by the newspaper:

THERE IS a way to match Clinton’s and Obama’s performances on a relatively equal playing field: their campaigns.

A candidate’s campaign may be the best indicator of how she or he will govern. If so, an Obama administration would be well-managed, inclusive and astonishingly broad-based. It would make good use of technology and communicate a message of unity and, yes, hope.

It would not be content with eking out slim victories by playing to the narrow interests of the swing voters of the moment while leaving the rest of the country as deeply divided as ever. Instead, an Obama administration would seek to expand the number of Americans who believe that they have a personal stake in our collective future - and that they have the power to change things.

It would motivate them to hold their representatives accountable for making it happen. That is, after all, the only way to get us out of Iraq, to address global warming, to make us energy-independent. It’s the only way to resist the forces arrayed against providing universal health care, rebuilding our infrastructure and returning our schools to world-class status. It’s the only way to give our children the means to compete with children in other parts of the world who are healthier, better-educated and have more opportunities than many of our own.

An Obama administration would be freer of the the corrupting influence of big-money donors and corporate interests. Obama has raised $240 million overall, with half coming in contributions of less than $200. People who contribute to political campaigns can feel they “own” a candidate and so Obama would owe allegiance to the wide swath of America that has financed his campaign.

Based on his experience in running a quarter-billion-dollar enterprise with thousands upon thousands of volunteers, we could expect an Obama administration to be well-managed and cost-effective, with the president choosing forward-thinking advisers committed to his program, demanding that they work as a team and pay attention to details.

He would be steady and calm, given neither to irrational exuberance or outbursts of anger. He would make mistakes, that’s for sure, but he could be expected to recognize them, adjust, and move forward.

He would adjust his views to reality rather than trying to adjust reality to his views.

Obama’s unprecedented appeal to younger voters is significant not only because it expands the electorate, which is vital. It’s also a validation of his promise as a president to be free of the baby-boomer/Vietnam/segregation-era hangups.

Younger people are more egalitarian, more accepting of diversity, and more comfortable with rapid change. They also are less confined by old resentments or regrets.

AND AN OBAMA administration would lower the tone of the rhetoric that separates us.

Read the whole endorsement below:

The blogsphere is filled with the shameful Obama bashing by the troika of right-wing ABC news anchor Charlie Gibson, former Clinton administration high executive George Stephanopolus (aka “the shrimp") and of course their adored candidate Hillary Clinton.

Yesterday, Saturday, April 12, http://www.mydd.com posted the results of county conventions in West Virginia, where Clinton is supposedly leading with huge numbers.  However, the results of these county conventions show clearly Obama winning big.

Shawn Christensen of the Huffington Post has written about how Senator Obama actual lead in popular votes over Senator Clinton amounts to more than 1-2 million votes, if the caucus votes were re-calculated to show the number of people represented by each delegate.

BLOG BY NENE

Nigerian men are ‘old-school’ which means they buy you drinks, so women need not fret.

I never let the issue of nationality get in the way of a good time.  So I recently attended the Naija Happy Hour at Amalia Lounge, the biggest Nigerian singles-party in New York. The typical pick-up line was ‘So where are you from in Nigeria?’ and no-one was fazed when I responded that I was not Nigerian.

It’s a full time job being an African socialite these days, Africa is the latest cause célèbre and many organizations trying to out-do each other on behalf of Africans. Seems like everyone and his grandmother is starting a non-profit for the benefit of Africa (after their own ‘administrative expenses’). Being a capitalist, I stay away from these and political causes to focus on the business and social events (I love a good party!). There are so many African professional networking groups in the New York area – AngelAfrica (pan-African), Afripro (everyone), Nipro (Naijas), Star 100 (Ghanaians), Senepronet (Senegalese), Naija Happy Hour and the new African Federation Inc (AFI) (an umbrella body). Others have started and fizzled out. With all this action, I have to allocate my time wisely and carefully choose which groups I give my time to.

It has always been an axiom of faith that if you live in a glass house, you dare not throw stones at another man’s glass house; otherwise, he would retaliate and your house would be in tatters.  We are witnessing this in the cacophony of silence of African leaders with regards to what Mugabe is doing in Zimbabwe. 

An African Ambassador in reply to a question, after a speech, as to who she supports in the current electioneering campaign in America: 

Well, let’s put it this way.  I am the same age as Senator McCain, so I support him.  I am black and I am African, so I support Senator Obama, and I am a woman, and I support Senator Clinton.

This certainly gives a new meaning to diplomatic double, nay, triple-speak.

It is becoming apparent by the day that President Robert Mugabe lost the election in Zimbabwe, but rather than acting like a statesman, he is bent on subjecting his country and the citizens of Zimbabwe for more hardship and agony.  Without the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission announcing the result of the election, Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party has taken two preemptive measures, first to announce that the party has chosen Mugabe to run in a run-off, and secondly to challenge the results that are being anticipated by the Electoral Commission.  According to BBC,

Morgan Tsvangirai said such a move would be illegal and impractical.

So far, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has refused to be intimidated by the government, which controls all the apparatus of media.  It is hoped that Mugabe will not borrow a leaf from Kenya’s Kibaki and announce that he won the election.  Already conceding to a run-off is an admission that he lost the election.

South Africa’s president Thabo Mbeki is being severely criticized for not pressuring Mugabe to leave office in the face of overwhelming evidence.

What’s on everybody’s mind is whether Mugabe would go gently.  African leaders are also being viewed for their hands-off approach to Mugabe’s actions.

A McClatchy newspaper report says that another Clinton supporter has a suspect past, and named Nigerian-American multimillionaire Kase Lawal, as the culprit.  It has said the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission brought a case against Lawal, though Lawal said he has been to Nigeria numerous times and nobody served him with any papers ..

HOUSTON — A Texas oilman who’s accused of defrauding the Nigerian government by illegally pumping and exporting 10 million barrels of oil is a major fundraiser for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

Kase Lawal of Houston is at least the fourth person accused or convicted of criminal wrongdoing to help finance Clinton’s political ambitions since 2000 and the second in her quest for the White House. The list also includes Chinese and Pakistani fugitives and a former Miami lawyer who was convicted of defrauding Cuba.

“I am reluctant to utter a blasphemy and say that Mugabe should be applauded because there are so many unpredictable unknowns that could further tarnish the relative peaceful atmosphere he has shown not only of himself, but of the country.  I am inclined to believe that he has changed a lot of the misconceptions I have of him.  It has become an axiom of faith that once in a man’s life, he reflects and tries to do the right thing.  As we have seen, I believe Mugabe has made peace with himself with what fate has in stock for him.  My prayer is that he would go the last mile and do the right thing: call it quits!!”

Nigeria’s ThisDay newspaper has made international news by reporting that former President Jimmy Carter is on the verge of endorsing the presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama.  Quoting a conversation Carter had with correspondents in Nigeria’s capital Abuja, ThisDay wrote: 

Former President of the United States, Jimmy Carter has hinted that he might cast his vote for Senator Barack Obama to aid his emergence as the candidate for the Democrats in America’s bid to elect a new President.
Carter, who is a Super Delegate from Georgia State, gave this hint at a media interaction after the Carter Center Awards for Guinea Worm Eradication in Abuja yesterday.
Carter, who was accompanied by his wife Rosalynn, did not profess a direct support for Obama but rather choose to make a veiled statement.
“We are very interested in the primaries. Don’t forget that Obama won in my state of Georgia. My town which is home to 625 people is for Obama, my children and their spouses are pro- Obama.
My grandchildren are also pro- Obama. As a Super Delegate, I would not disclose who I am rooting for but I leave you to make that guess,” he said.

There seems to be a deluge of super-delegates now moving towards the Obama candidacy.

‘Eye on Africa’ by Venise Grossmann presents Dr. Chika A. Onyeani, author of controversial book, Capitalist Nigger: The Road to Success. 

Obama’s white family has as much claim to him as he has allowed us to have 100% claim to him.  Why shouldn’t they?  He speaks of his single teenage mother raising him, and then taken over by his white grandparents.  Hence the anger that the late mother would have felt about the pirahnic frenzy with which so-called angry white women are attacking her son.  For God’s sake she was his mother.  A single mother abandoned by her black husband when she was only 20 years old.  But she didn’t break down and raise a vagabond as a son.  Not only did she not break down, she on the contrary achieved a stellar career that allowed her to influence the lives of the indigent, achieving her Ph.D. in the process.

One of the world’s most famous writers, Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison, once described former President Bill Clinton as America’s first Black President.  In her eloquent defense of the President during the worst period of his presidency, in the October, 1998 New Yorker Magazine, Morrison said of Clinton

Years ago, in the middle of the Whitewater investigation, one heard the first murmurs: white skin notwithstanding, this is our first black President. Blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children’s lifetime. After all, Clinton displays almost every trope of blackness: single-parent household, born poor, working-class, saxophone-playing, McDonald’s-and-junk-food-loving boy from Arkansas.

Here’s the whole article. The united and unflinching support of African-Americans during the McCarthy-era like investigation of Clinton saved his presidency. Read More

“Just as millions of white Americans looked the other way or acquiesced as hundreds of blacks were lynched in the deep South, there is the concerted effort to provoke a backlash against Obama’s candidacy and momentum.  You know how ironic this is:  America has spent almost a trillion dollars fighting the war in Iraq, a trillion that could have been used in providing better health care, jobs, school funding, etc. for the so-called blue-collar workers who are being wooed by the right-wing Jim Crow lynch mob.  But now the ascendant concern of many of these people is the condemnable statements of a pastor, not the recession, not the imploding stock market, not the mortgage crash, As Obama said, in four years, there will be another distraction and the problems would continue to pile unresolved.”