NOBODY OWES BLACKS ANYTHING: TRUTH, HONESTY AND FRANKNESS

My topic today is the Black Race - it is not about Africans from the continent, or Africans in the Diaspora, or African West Indians, but about the Black Race. My discussion is about truth, it is about honesty and frankness.  It is about no more lies, no more hiding the truth, and no more blaming others for what is happening to the Black Race.  It is about accepting responsibility for our actions; it is about playing the same games that others are playing and becoming very successful.  (READ MORE)

NYERERE AND THE NEW TANZANIA:  A SUCCESS STORY

"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!!" (READ MORE)

IS CHINA'S INVOLVEMENT IN AFRICA IMPERIALISTIC?

It has become an axiom of faith that these days, no week passes by without a major western newspaper, magazine, television news program or radio commentators, commenting on the Chinese penetration in Africa, and especially how the Chinese are snapping up Africa’s important natural resources on the cheap. In fact, the word these western commentators are more likely to use is “pillaging” Africa’s natural resources. Just last week, African leaders gathered in the sunny French Riveria city of Cannes.

IT IS TIME TO TRANSFORM THIS CONTINENT'S INFRASTRUCTURE

AFRICA’S ECONOMIC GROWTH and poverty reduction are closely linked with the quality of its infrastructure — its power, transport systems, water supply and sanitation, and its ICT networks.  (READ MORE)

ISN'T WILLIAM JEFFERSON'S SENTENCE EXCESSIVE COMPARED TO HIS COLLEAGUES?

How did former Louisiana congressman William Jefferson end up getting 13 years in prison for accepting bribes totaling $500,000.  Remember Jefferson's freezer was found to contain $90,000 which allegedly he was going to use to bribe Nigerian officials...(READ MORE)

WHO'S A TRUE AFRICAN-AMERICAN?
Posted by Chika Onyeani

According to the Harvard University news of January-February, 2004 there was a lot of pleased talk at the reunion about the increase of black students at the university, which has 'ballooned' to 530 or about 8% of Harvard's 2003 enrolment.  However, the celebratory mood of the evening was broken by Prof. Guinier who charged that the majority  - perhaps as many as two-thirds - of the students were not true African-Americans, but West Indian and African immigrants or their children, or to a lesser extent, children of biracial couples. (READ MORE)

WHITE MASTERS, BLACK SLAVES
Posted by Chika Onyeani

"The grocery store owner in Harlem, New York who sells tainted milk and expired food; the Chinese restaurant owner on Georgia Avenue in Washington, DC who sells rat and roach infested food; the Indian taxi driver in New York who refuses to stop to take us where we are going; the Caucasian restaurant owner who sits us at the back of the restaurant so that we would not "diminish" his standing with his guests; the Bloomingdale's, Saks Fifth Avenue's and Macy's security men who follow us all over the store, have every right to do so because we deserve to be treated contemptuously. (READ MORE)

THE JERRY RAWLINGS CIRCUS 
Posted by Chika Onyeani

Mr. Rawlings almost completely abandoned the subject he was supposed to discuss, and informed us how he wished we had 4 hours and would like to discuss the last eight years of misrule in Ghana. Seriously, he was totally petty, and most of the time he was shouting about this and that, though he had informed us - with him and everybody laughing - that his wife had admonished him about his shouting during his speech making. He used the phrase, "ladies and gentlemen," like a thousand times. He would try to remember the subject matter but would lapse again into his criticism of the Kufuor government. (click here)

OUR RIBADU-EL-RUFAI OBSESSION
Posted by Prof. Moses Ochonu

The jury is still out on the tenures of Nuhu Ribadu and Nasir El-Rufai, but those who are jittery about history’s verdict on the duo are already out in force, rehabilitating and romanticizing them. The two men themselves suffer from delusions of heroic accomplishment. They have helped stoke an outpouring of revisionist histories that have wittingly or unwittingly fumigated their complicity in the political crimes of the recent past. Their recent actions, however, betray a more sober aw areness of the gradual unraveling of their populist self-packaging. They have become vocal in defending their records, while taking cheap shots at the Yar’Adua-Waziri nightmare, which they created. (click here)