SIKANKU: Flashback; recounting a reporting experience in Ghana.

A bill designed to enable citizens abroad to vote, sparked one of the fiercest demonstrations in Ghana’s modern political history.

By Etse Sikanku

The skyline was layered with thick black smoke billowing from burning tires. Armed policemen fired live rounds to disperse protestors who had encamped at the junction leading to the president’s residence—the Osu Castle. A middle aged woman cursed in unprintable expletives. Some rioters hurled stones at the advancing policemen while chanting: “Abaa gbe wo yee, abaa gbe wo yee” (They’re killing us oh, they’re killing us oo).

Hundreds of anti-government rioters mostly from the Committee for Joint Action (CJA)—a coalition of opposition parties—were protesting a law which would make it possible for Ghanaians abroad to vote in national elections. While state officials wanted to extend universal suffrage to citizens overseas, opponents felt the process could leave opportunities for election rigging. It was Valentine’s Day in 2006 but there was no love lost between the ruling party (N.P.P) and its opponents.

“We have gathered here today to show that we love our country more than our wives and girlfriends” yelled Johnson Asiedu Nketsia, the spokesperson of the CJA, in the local Twi language.

He was a slim fellow with thick black moustache and a piercing soprano-like voice. His nick name was General Mosquito. That was before the entire demonstration started though.



Back at the Castle junction, everyone ducked for cover. I tried making my way out but it wasn’t easy. When I turned, I saw state police firing hot water cannons from their armored vehicles while others chased the crowd with batons. Immediately, I flung my press pass around my neck hoping I wouldn’t be mistaken for a rioter. Out of the blue, something whitish landed very close to my shoes generating wisps of white smoke. I had just been tear-gassed. So I began running faster, panting heavily with watery eyes, as I started suffocating.

Suddenly, my phone rang. Paul Adom Otchere, host of CITI Eye Witness News, was about to go on air and the production desk wanted me to lead. Although I was in dangerous circumstances, I felt people had to hear the news the way it was and in a timely manner. Since my first day on the microphone, I have always felt journalists hold positions of trust and responsibility to the public. To me, this was a rare, sacred and privileged position which needed to be upheld at all times. Others had done it under worse circumstances and I wasn’t about to betray the profession and my own feelings.

“Let’s roll,” I said without even thinking. Once on air, Paul first asked me for an update and the response to his question is what I’ve uploaded as an audio file. I will never forget this day.
Thanks for listening!

BYAMUKAMA: Family size, education, organized production, key to solving poverty in Africa

This is the concluding part of Byamukama's exposition on poverty in Africa

Every year six million children die from malnutrition before their fifth birthday.Source: World Bank Stats

By Emmanuel Byamukama, Ames, Iowa.
Published: May 23, 2010 6:52 PM CDT

Though not a major cause of poverty, high number of children in a family is another point to ponder on. Moreover, these children are not spaced apart. That means they will demand care and needs more or less at the same time. On average, a family in my village has between 6-10 people in a household! However much the parents work hard, much of the effort will go into producing enough food to feed the family. Why large families? Well, traditionally, people have grown up knowing, “the more children, the more you are rich”. This would be in form of bride price (dowery when girls are married off) or in form of security, when a father has many sons.

But also they argue that if you have one or two kids, should one die out of the many diseases that can claim a life in developing countries, then you are left with zero. On the hand, even when parents desire to do some birth control, e.g. child spacing, or even having few children, it becomes impossible to use the birth control methods, mainly because its not something they perceive as a problem, they have never heard of it or even conceive it in their minds, leave alone the affordability and availability.

Who is to blame for all this poverty? Well, there is always someone to blame for our faults! But a time comes when you can’t blame your parents for your behavior and failure! I think for long, there has been a blame game for problems of developing countries to colonialists. I don’t want to go that way too much, but may be its time we owned our problems and start from there! I think that the way our system works is what is at fault here! We don’t seem to recognize our problems, the root causes of poverty. We don’t seem to learn from developed countries, what makes them rich and prosperous. Our biggest challenge is that we have not developed our own appropriate technology!

Our problem has been importing technology that is not suited for our culture, environment, terrain, education, later alone our needs. Luckily, some of these technologies are good for us, we don’t have to re-invent the wheel, however, we need to adapt the technology for our environment.A good example in Uganda is mobile phones.

Now, communication is important, but in Uganda, a poor youth who is farming on the land, has a mobile phone, which does not help him make connections or talk with customers, but only chats with friends on air time that is expensive! Given our terrain, and tropical conditions, we need to heavily invest in appropriate technology that will meet the needs of our people.

Is there anything that can be done to help? Yes, plenty. Education. This is where I agree with one of the presenters. When people get educated, not only do they learn how to read and write, but they get to know the world around them and learn to make choices. A vivid example of how education can help is to note that current leadership in Uganda wins elections in rural areas but not in urban areas. Because the urban people are educated and can make an educated choice when it comes to elections! Moreover, educated class is likely to have fewer children that they can afford to provide quality life.

How about in the area of agriculture since it’s the largest employer? In order to balance demand and supply, there is a need to improve on value addition and processing. This is where aid would most be beneficial. During harvesting and shortly after harvesting, there is flooding of the market with goods. Because of the perishability of these goods, very soon they will be out of market. If the system can be stabilized by removing from the market part of produce into e.g., canning, food processors, this would help a great deal. Research and investment should be done in the area of agroprocessing.

What else? Production could be organized and coordinated so that there is comparative advantage. Areas that are best suited for some crops could be encouraged and assured of market. For example we can have areas that produce beans and others that produce ground nuts, millet, sorghum etc.

Anything else? Government could encourage production by removing taxes on agricultural inputs like fertilizers, insecticides, seeds, to spur production.

External market is another big potential. This could encourage large scale production and improved quality. Much of the produce in rural areas is organic. No chemicals used whatsoever. This could be a boost for organic produces if only the can be a link and trade restrictions removed.

Bottom line? Now that we depend on agriculture, we need to have organized production, invest in agro-industries that will create jobs and add value to agricultural produce, invest in agricultural research and development in areas of high value crops, appropriate technology, value addition and markets. Once there is significant income going into households, they will afford basic needs, demand better services (education, health care, etc), which in turn will support other sectors.

I think eventually, we will get there. As more people become aware of the problems, and as problems become more eminent, we will have no choice but to change the way we act. People will be demanding governments for favorable policies and good governance, governments will reject foreign influences and loans or grants that have, in my opinion, done more harm than good, and governments will work for their people instead of against their people or else they won’t be elected again.

This pretty much is what happened in developed countries! It took an industrial revolution (appropriate technology), great leadership of their governments, and time. No wonder the grants, numerous NGOs (900 NGOs in Uganda) and all the good will for nearly 40 years in Uganda have not made a great impact (or may be things could be worse). It has to be inside out, we must realize the root causes of poverty is learn to fish not be given fish or hope to be given fish!

Emmanuel Byamukama is originally from the Eastern African country of Uganda.

BYAMUKAMA: Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa: Are we treating the symptoms or the root causes (I)?

They work as hard as anyone else in the world but why are Africans still poor?

By Emmanuel Byamukama, Ames, Iowa

Recently, I attended a round table discussion on poverty, this having been part of the poverty awareness week at ISU. Three speakers opened up the discussion by sharing their experience in various projects they are involved in; helping communities live better lives in developing countries.

There was the engineer, who has designed cheap easy to use implements to purify water (project based in Ghana). The other discussant was an education psychologist, looking at how education can help in reducing poverty (Project based in India). The third discussant was a communication specialist, who is looking at attitudes and perceptions of poor people and how best to help them (project based in Uganda).

Having been brought up in rural area, I thought I could share my thoughts on poverty in a rural setting, particularly in Uganda, where I come from.

First of all, poverty is relative. In any community, there will be people who are extremely poor, but also a few who are well off. Webster dictionary defines poverty as “the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions". I once heard a story about two people who grew up as the poorest in their families. The first one said “Men!, we were so poor so much that our family car had holes, we could see road through the holes”. The other one said, “For us, we walked whenever we needed to go places”!

Second, I want to say that rural people work very hard. In a rural village, people wake up early, on average 7am. They have no breakfast and will head to the garden to farm. They will use rudimentary tools (hand hoe, “pangas”, forked hoes) to prepare land for planting, weeding and harvesting. They will toil in the field till about mid-day. Then they head home prepare lunch (from scrap, nothing like stored food), rest a little and go back to the garden in the evening. So in terms of hours of work, rural people really work hard. Plus this work is real physical drudgery.

So then one wonders, if people work hard in rural areas, why are they still poor? There are a number of reasons. First, the crops grown are on a small scale. Because farmers grow a bit of everything on a small parcel of land, it is hard to grow on a larger scale. Well, why don’t they grow one crop and on large scale? This is partly because they don’t want to risk with one crop in case of failure and limited land. Plus, even when they grow one crop, it wouldn’t sell so well to provide money to cater for other food needs in a home. Why are prices low? Prices are low because of supply and demand! In a rural village everybody is a producer and there are very few consumers. In my opinion, this is a major challenge. This is where 80% of the population are producers. Therefore there is high supply that exceeds demand. People are doing same things. This is different in developed countries, where about 2% of population depend primarily on agriculture for employment.

Rural dwellers are poor because they do not produce goods for sale. What is produced is consumed by the producers, hence no value added. No processing, transportation, packaging, or branding. These activities would add value, create jobs and improve prices and limit supply. The supply problem is exacerbated by the fact that timing and harvesting of the crops happens at the same time. So you have basically flooding of the market with the same goods, therefore the few buyers will determine they price they want to offer, which should be the reverse.

Then again, life in the rural areas is reduced to food. Produce food this season, eat it, next season produce again, and so on. But life is not about food only! One needs clothes, good education for the children, health care and good housing. So what happens in a rural area where these basic needs are not met? The rural poor are aware of these needs, no one doesn’t like good things. But challenge is that they kind of become ‘used’ to their conditions and seem to relax. I mean a grandpa was poor, his son lived in the same conditions, now even the grandchild.

They are living on same land that has been cultivated for many years without replenishing the fertility. When things become really worse, for example by the time the third generation starts to use this little piece of land, which was an inheritance from the parents, this land is so small to sustain this growing population. The third generation in a family usually will decide to emigrate. They will sell their piece of land, if they are lucky to a family member, if not, to a distant villager and move out to another area, but the same sort of story repeats.

SIKANKU: Does Chelsea really need Kaka?

Chelsea needs to finish off all the foreplay by poaching players with proven penetrative abilities.

By Etse Sikanku

This morning, I woke up to news that Chelsea is planning a swoop for Madrid and Brazilian midfield star, Kaka. Not that my opinion matters at Stamford Bridge. After all, they’ve just made history by winning a cup double. Ancelotti has done what almighty Jose Mourinho, the demigod of the blues, couldn’t do. And for the Italian to have done this only in his first year on the job is truly remarkable.

But Chelsea does not need another Michael Ballack. Ballack, for all his reputation typifies the ageing (think Drogba, Anelka, Deco,) and blunted (think Kalou, Obi, Sturridge) group of Chelsea players who need to be cleared out if the club is to make any headway in the Champions league next season.

Terry and Lampard can make all the noise about a historical domestic double but in between those lines we all know they’d readily switch both cups for a Champions league medal. In fact, it’s no secret that these domestic trophies became only a consolation target after missing out on Europe’s biggest prize.

So it’s understandable that Kaka—a champions league winner in 2007—has become a major target. But after a disappointing season at Madrid, this fellow is way past his time. Greeted with pomp and pageantry (and of course the cash) on his arrival at Madrid, Kaka has failed to meet expectations at the El Bernabéu.

You’d think that after Shevchenko’s (another Milan alumni) disappointing gig at the bridge, Chelsea will be wiser. Should the move materialize, this will be no different from Ronaldinho’s move to Milan, Henry’s to Barca or Berbatov’s switch to United last season. If football is romantic—as Barcelona and Arsenal have often shown—then why seek intercourse when a player is all but de- flowering.

I mean, all things being equal, don’t we all like our girls fresh, ripe and at their prime? What Chelsea needs are players at their peak; virgin players who haven’t been overused or mutilated. Or at worst flowering players with sweet attractive footballing nectar. The likes of Villa, Silva and Torres who will massage balls, wow opponents and mesmerize their supporters to full climax. Truth be told: Abramovich wants that European trophy as badly as any team in Europe. And to capture it, Chelsea needs to finish off all the foreplay with excellent penetration next season.

After coaching him in Milan, does Ancelotti know a thing or two about Kaka that we don’t know? Or is this just about a sentimental re-union? Don’t forget that the Chelsea coach also wants AC Milan pair Alexandre Pato and Thiego Silva at the Bridge. Is Ancelotti simply trying to save the careers of his former players, create another Milan in England or does he really think these are players Chelsea needs? Simply, is Kaka a good buy for Chelsea? Should he be their prime target or should they focus on other better players?

SIKANKU: In the US, “African” stigma runs deep as some prefer to be called Black American instead of African American.

"Look at me. I’ll accept it if you say I’m black. But I’m definitely not African."

Once in a while, amidst the tumult that is graduate school, an interesting conversation comes up. My African American friend, Abrianna and I recently had a conversation about her “ethnicity”.

This topic came up because I had inadvertently referred to her in a different conversation as an African American. Now you wouldn’t imagine this would offend anyone.

But before I could finish my sentence, she shot back: “I’m not African-American”. I was shocked. At first, I was tempted to dismiss it as one of her many backhand jokes intended to derail the merits of some argument (or the other) I was putting up. But the angst in her voice was clear.

“Oh, if you’re not African-American, then what are you”?
“Black-American” she, answered. I couldn’t believe my ears. For me, out of all the things that could offend a black person in America, this was not one of them.
“What’s the difference, I asked.”
“Well, I don’t come from Africa so I don’t see why African should be associated with my identity as American”.

Wow.

If her first admission caught me off guard this completely knocked me out. I didn’t know whether to be surprised or disappointed. It would have been easier if this was one of those academic arguments people make just for the sake of arguing. But no, Abrianna Chapman was dead serious. So I just laughed gently.

Well, I think my laughter incensed her all the more.

“How you going to say I’m African when I have never been to Africa and don’t know what it’s like”. Look at me. I’ll accept it if you say I’m black. But I’m definitely not African.”

Boy, where do I start from. I wanted to explain to her that although she has no idea what Timbuktu, Cape Coast or Abeokuta looks like, historically we share a common ancestry. But Adrianna is a college senior. Surely, she must know all about the trans-Atlantic slave trade or at least watched a movie or two about it.

To be sure, I asked. “So where are you from?"
“I’m from Mississippi” she said matter-of-factly. This was it. I couldn’t contain myself anymore. I was besides myself with laughter

“That would make you a Native-American” my other African friend Paa Kwesi Annan quipped.

Seriously though, I believe this is a topic that merits some serious thought. I will never forget this conversation I had with Abrianna. It belies the commonly assumed notion among Africans that every black person in the US is a brother.

Has our reputation as Africans fallen so low that our very own are now shunning their roots? Is it right for African Americans to dissociate themselves from the continent or is there enough fodder for closer collaborations between Africans and the black Diaspora?

Are we really overstretching it when we assume that blacks in the US have any sort of connection to Africa? Or drawing closer home, was Abrianna’s indefatigable defense of her ‘blackness’ as opposed to her ‘African-Americaness” justified?

WoOp: Inter Milan draw first blood as Roma crushes in Coppa Italia final

Etse Sikanku,WoO

Inter Milan have just claimed the first of a possible treble by racing past title rivals Roma in the Italian Super Cup Final. Amidst claims and counter claims regarding Lazio’s luckstre performance last weekend, there was no love lost between both clubs in a high tension game at the Stadio Olimpico stadium.

However Inter will be worried after play maker Wesley Sneijder came off as early as the first minute after injuring his thigh. Undoubtedly the Dutch midfielder has been at the heart of Inter’s fairytale season and Inter fans will be hoping his injury isn’t a major one.

The victory will no doubt intensify morale for an already highly motivated team which is still riding on the huge reputation of crushing almighty Barcelona—Spain’s supposedly unconquerable soccer citadel—out the Champions League. With two points at the summit of the Italian League, Jose Mourinho’s team is on course to make history as the first in Italy to win a treble.

For now, Congrats to Inter for another labored but accomplished performance. This was pure Mourinho: forget style, get the early goal, and shut the enemy. And it was a task the black and blue warriors were all too eager to accomplish after perfecting the act all season.

In the mean time did anyone see how Balotelli was wickedly kicked by Totti towards the end of the game for absolutely no reason at all? It makes me wonder whether Roma are just sore losers or pure racist. There was totally no reason for it. Also does anyone know how serious Sneijder’s injury is? Congrats to Inter for a well deserved victory. Now go ye therefore and conquer Italy and Europe. Adios!