Kobbler!

I had finished what I had to do in the UK. And then I finished what had to be done in Ghana. I came home. The Government of National Unity was a few months old. There was hope. Everyone seemed to be smiling. There was bread on the table. We had milk for breakfast. There was fuel at petrol stations. The sun was shining. And then our leaders began throwing dirt at each other. The harmony started sliding away. Pockets of violence emerged, albeit mildly. We all thought it was a passing phase. My friend Kobbler began to wonder. He would sit at his street corner where he has mended our dirty shoes for decades staring blankly at the decaying sun. He would ask what it is that politicians really wanted? Was it money, was it power, was it control, was it peace, was it development? We all could not answer him. He would also ask what it is that the population had done wrong? What had we done for God to punish us this much? Could it not be appeased? Or was it our ancestors that were angry with us? What was it? He would then take a deep sip from his opaque scud beer. Deeper sips as each day passed. Deeper than what I had ever seen him take. I could not dare ask him why. His eyes were now strange red balls of fire. He looked like he was on fire inside. Some friends told me he would sometimes cry. Crying so deeply like a pained child. Some said he was drinking too much. Some said he was losing it. How does one lose it? I wondered. His questions left us with other questions. Deeper questions. Where were we going as a country? Would this ever end? When? Where? How? Who would end it? How? When?

Then last week, a call came. Kobbler asked for me. I ran to his house. He was breathing high. He had lost strength. He looked wasted. He looked at me for a long time. He cluthched my hand weakly and said, "You must stop asking questions to yourself". I was beside myself with wonder. What had gotten into him? "You must demand what you want!" And then he violently died!

Alive!

I still am...

Infant mortality rates versus dictatorships!

And so they have gathered in Uganda, exchanging brilliant notes on how to reduce infant mortality rates and partenal mortality rates. A very good topic. Soft landing. Thats what they do, they can talk about anything else, as long as it doesnt threaten their stranglehold on power. Such is the calibre of our African leaders!

Its a Friday!

This is a day when I go out with friends and have a few chilled ones. See you on Monday!

Diamonds and life situation

You may be aware that Zimbabwe has finally been allowed by the Kimberly Process Diamond marketing syndicate to sell its stockpile of alluvial diamonds. It is estimated that Zimbabwe currently has diamond stocks worth about US2,5 Billion. It is also estimated that the diamond find in Zimbabwe at the moment is the biggest find in over a century. Basically, Zimbabwe's find rivals or perhaps exceeds the Kimberly (South Africa) diamond fields which largely built South Africa's economy to what it is now.

When the fields were discovered around 2007, villagers dug out huge trenches and sold diamonds literally on the streets. A few wise men instantly became millionaires. The government reacted swiftly and deployed the army. Rumours surfaced that there were brutalities and wanton human rights abuses. The international community immediately slammed us with a selling and marketing ban. Since then we have been stuck with the gems.

Our economy has been struggling for the past 10 years. Presently, our GDP was estimated at US2 Billion at the beginning of the year. It has since been revised downwards to US1,4 Billion. At peak, our GDP hovered around US6 Billion.

The question is, with our current situation, should we be allowed to sell or not?

Black Stars coming to Zimbabwe!

One of Zimbabwe's most flamboyant businessman Mr. Phillip Chiyangwa has announced that the Black Stars of Ghana will be coming to Zimbabwe in early August to play our national team, The Warriors. True to his style, Chiyangwa proclaimed that he is bankrolling everything from chatering an Air-Zimbabwe plane from Harare to pick up the boys in Accra and back to paying hotel bills and all other costs. In his own words, he would like to personally see Gyan in Zimbabwe dribbling past our national team players.

Mr. Chiyangwa is not short of controversies. He is known to own over a hundred cars and claims he is one of the richest guys on the continent. At one time, he invited journalists to his house and showed them a magnificent room filled to the bream with his stylish suits and designer shoes. He also claims that if he is driving a white car, he will wear a white suit, black car, black suit and so forth. Mr Chiyangwa is a property mogul in Zimbabwe. At present, Harare municipality is pleading with him to sell it back vast tracts of prime land which he has acquired over the years. His Company, Pinacle Investments has embarked on an ambitious project to build replica upmarket houses in Borrowdale (Harare's plushest surbub) known as Chisora Village.

It is also known that when Michael Jackson came to Zimbabwe around 2003, Mr. Chiyangwa personally drove him. He is also known to own a 2 Million Pound Rolce Royce which he does not hesitate to parade for anyone who cares. When the Brazillian organizers came to Zimbabwe last year as part of preparations for the friendly match that was later played this year between Brazil and Zimbabwe, Mr. Chiyangwa also personally drove them in his top of the range vehicle.

At one point, Mr. Chiyangwa sponsored the Premier League in Zimbabwe.

We remain steadfast as we watch what happens next. As they say, the only reason why some of us stick around these parts is to see what happens next!

Were the elephants at the waterhole black?

The whole of Africa is hung over. Its over now. The first ever Soccer World Cup on African soil. For once, we all stood united. African Unity. We rallied behind South Africa. We cheered for Ghana. We cried for Cameroon, Nigeria, Algeria and Ivory Coast. But it was all capped yesterday. What a spectacle. Bright lights, magnificent images, wonderfull soccer. Spain took it. Iniesta broke the hearts of the Dutch. We got to know of Paul, the octopus.

Yet, after all is said and done, did we really feel part of it all. How much were black South Africans a part of this great indaba? Will black South Africans wake up today and feel better than they were before this soccer showcase? Will their lives have improved? Did they take anything away from the World Cup? Was the first ever World Cup held in Africa really African?

I think not.

In the townships of Soweto, Alexandra, Khayelitsha and others, today marks a return to the persistant problems. In fact, most black South Africans might from today turn against their brothers from other African countries in another episode of xenophobic attacks. The underlying point being that, nothing has changed. A few guys (read white) will pocket a few millions, whilst the crones in Khayelitsha must still struggle to put meagre food crumbs on their rotten tables. It is sad. It makes some of us angry. It is not fair.

Was that our very best?

Listening to BBC World Radio this morning, I heard someone say, the level of celebration we accorded Ghana's Black Stars was as if we had lifted the world cup. Should we have celebrated that much? Was that the best we could do? Some people are being fired for reaching the same levels that Ghana reached. Is there something wrong with us? Was Ghana's celebration merely premised on the fact that they outdid the rest of the continent? Shouldn't we have aspired for more? Shouldn't we have aspired to conquer the world rather than conquering ourselves?

These are just but my ramblings...

Its time...

I will watch Brazil slice the Dutch before Ghana anhilates the South Americans. God bless us all...

My money still on Brazil!

It may sound very unpatriotic, but Im rooting on Brazil. Of course I wish Ghana all the very best. Ghana has done well so far. I hope they win tomorrow. For all our sakes. Its still within reach for us as Africans.

Let us celebrate Nutifafa's wonderful life!

We met at work, and friends we became. He was biggish in stature, light in complexion, with full bulging hands. He was a lawyer par excellence. God took Nutifafa away last month.

It was a shocker when I got the news. I was in Nairobi. I did not go for my intended beer afterwards. I know he wanted to be a political power player, a kingmaker. He did not want to be the face of politics, he wanted to control politics from behind. He had already begun this tiresome journey. I know he was going to complete it.

He was loved by his daughter. And he loved her as much. We sometimes spoke about his wife. He loved her too. I never met her, maybe I will. We sometimes spoke about sex. He loved sex too. We were the only two guys married at the firm, so we had a connection. Sometimes when I got too busy, he would advise me to go home to my wife.

We went together to the Volta region. We went to his father's house. We chatted all the way and back. We had wanted to start a flower project in Ghana, the first of its kind under greenhouse. He was providing the land. We found the water salty. We had wanted to desalinate it, creating another project. i will still have to set up a flower project in Ghana. For him. I will. I already have the land. I now need the money.

The same aflao road that we used took him away. the same road we traversed in tranquility. I had wanted to visit the accident scene. I had very little time. In Ghana they celebrate the life of a person when he passes on. In Zimbabwe we mourn, sometimes for weeks, or even months. We bury our dead within three days, four at most. We slaughter a beast to feed the people. It is said if you do not weep visibly at the funeral of a friend or relative, you are a witch. you may be accused of having eaten the dead.

Nuti, you made a mark in my life. I will never forget you. You remain my hero! go well dear friend, till we meet again in Heaven, rest in eternal peace!

Ramblings from Harare

It has taken me much longer than I had anticipated to blog. There are many reasons: work, family, social commitments, career development etc. So many things have happened. I left Ghana. I had a second child. We formed our own law firm. We formed the Zimbabwe Ghana Business Forum (ZGBF). It metamorphosed into the Zimbabwe International Business Forum (ZIBF). I am the Vice Chairperson. I convinced the Deputy Prime Minister to accompany us to Ghana. We did business. We were successful. I have basically summarised my life of the last nine months, time enough for a child to be conceived and born.

It has not all been easy. I did not expect it to be. Life is like that. But it was never impossible. It has always been achievable. It feels good to count your successes.

I have been forced to change my lifestyle drastically; to split my commitments between work, family, business initiatives and my own personal relaxation. I am very fond of relaxing, I think sometimes I am very lazy. Its all part of the game.

Zimbabwe is in winter now and temperatures have plummetted to below ten degrees at night and no more than twenty during day. July will be worse, we expect temperatures below five degrees at night and no more than fifteen during day. And the winds will pick up, howling across our stone cold faces day and night. Already our power untility, ZESA, is facing a tremendous challenge to keep us supplied with power. Fortunately for me, because I stay in town, we rarely have power cuts.

The country itself has been shaping up, slowly but with visible signs of progress. I was away in Accra when we hosted Brazil. I dont think this would have been possible five years ago. We now use the US Dollar (mostly) as our currency. You can also interchangeably use the Rand, Pula, Pound or Euro. Politically we may have lost a part of our sovereighnity, but economically we have made a stride. Inflation is now at 4%, projected to close the year at 6%. Our GDP is still rather low, infact rather embarrasing. Our Finance Minister tells us we are likely to formally generate as a country only 1,6 Billion US Dollars. At peak we hovered around five to six Billion. its still a steep climb. Unemployment is subsiding, no one was sure of the figures anymore, but our industrial wheels are slowly turning again.

We now have food in all supermarkets and stores. We now have adequate fuel. One of the Country's major projects, the construction of Joina City ( a 24 storey building in Harare) was completed two months ago. I hear they now want to pull down one of our very first malls, Ximex Mall, and replace it with an even taller building. Karigamombe Centre, where my offices are on the 14th Floor, used to be the tallest building in 1986 when it was completed. And then came the Reserve Bank building with 24 Floors. then there was the Trust towers. I dont think we were on the wrong path. All the other buildings in harare average fifteen floors.

These are just but my ramblings. Iam still here, and alive

Is sporting success directly related to democratic freedoms?

We saw the success of the Ghana Under 20 very recently. In the same year, Ghana successfully changed governments through elections held last year. President Obama also chose to visit only Ghana much to the chagrin of many an African country. The Ghana senior soccer team was the first team to qualify on the continent for the 2010 soccer world cup showcase.

Take Zimbabwe. After brilliant promises in the 80s and 90s, the country has gradually been sliding the rankings scale over the last ten years. This is also the same time that inflation soared to astronomical levels. The economy tumbled into a see-saw. Take South South Africa. Immeadiately after independence and the new democratic dispensation in 1993, SA went on to win the 1996 Africa Cup of Nations. They also won the Rugby Worl Cup and were very close in cricket. After the Zuma Mbeki debacle, the South African senior team management has taken it as a full time job to hire and fire coaches. Reason? Sliding perfomace and strings of poor results.

Is sporting success directly related to democracy and and good economic management? I say to a very large extent, Yes. How about Nigeria then? For some time, the only good thing that came out of Nigeria was the senior soccer team. And Cameroun? Paul Biya seems to escape international glare. No one notices that he is creeping silently and brutally to three decades in power. Yet the senior Camerounian team has been doing well under the circumstances.

In Africa, however, sporting success is directly influenced by the government of the day. It is the government of the day that puts in place administrators either on merit or on other grounds. It is the government of the day that determines whether to abuse sporting funds or not. It is the government of the day that decides to tear gas fans in a stadium when they parrot opposition slogans or not. Yes, democratic space has a lot of influence on the sporting success of a nation.

This is for you, Comrade Knox.

Bits and Pieces

It has been two weeks here since Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai withdrew his party from attending cabinet meetings. He also withdrew from chairing the Council of Ministers as stipulated by the Global Political Agreement that gave birth to the unity government formed on February 9 this year. Life is now much better in Zimbabwe, at least we have climbed out of the catastrophes’ of last year. We now drive straight to a petrol station and fuel is back to normal supplies. Smoke is now billowing from our industrial sites spanning from Masasa in the East, to Graniteside and Willovale in the west of the Capital. I was also pleasantly surprised by the amount of air activity at our Harare International Airport. Kenya Airways now flies in and out of Harare three times a day, South African Airways four times a day, Ethiopian Airways three times a week, British Airways through Comair once everyday. There is of course our own Air Zim which continuously jets in and out of the airport to various domestic routes, South Africa, Zambia, Nairobi, Dubai, China, Singapore and London amongst other routes. Life was getting back to normal.

In the streets, Zimbabweans are very optimistic. Infact there is a very large class of people who believe that this setback to the coalition government is all but very temporary. Having been trained in negotiation skills, I should say President Mugabe is driving a very hard bargain. We must also give it to him, the man is a shrewd negotiator and you may not want to be at the other end of his table. It is now very clear that the MDC has been outmaneuvered at every turn. Yet, it is the party that holds the key to economic revival. Zimbabwe’s economy in my view remains one of the strongest in Africa. Lets face it, this nation has seen it all, yet never at any point would you drive into Harare and visibly see the distress. We are indeed a very resilient people.

And so as I write, I’m pinning my hopes on a settlement. Both the MDC and Zanu PF will be traveling to Mozambique for a summit that is gunning to settle these differences. Hope is one of the things that has guided many Zimbabweans to weather our economic, social and political storms. We still believe that we have our heads above water. We also have a lot of pride, a never say die spirit and an abundance of patience. Sometimes when I listen to my people speak, I get convinced that I was born in the right country, with the right genes. I will put my shoulders on the wheel, and God willing, we will take our place as Africa’s Paradise in the not too distant future.

Is South Africa ungrateful?

I was listening to BBC World Radio 1 this morning. The subject matter was that of Nigeria's rebranding exercise. It is a whole topic on its own and I will have top dedicate a post to it. However, what came out of the conversation rang a very loud bell in my ears. The Chairperson of the rebranding exercise was bitter that South Africans are an ungrateful lot. She argued with good reason that during the incarceration of Nelson Mandela and apartheid, Nigerian civil servants used to contribute their personal earnings to further the cause of South Africas' freedom, justice and equality for all. She also said that many of the South African freedom fighters were sheltered in Nigeria for long periods. Today, however, South Africans treat Nigerians like dirt.

I remember when I was still in Primary school in the 80s in Zimbabwe. Once a week we would sing songs of solidarity for our oppressed colleagues in South Africa. During our open days and parents' days, we would perfom dramas' of freedom, castigating the white oppressors of our friends in SA. It was emotional. I may need to remind you that Mugabe has always been an avid pan Africanist. Lets suspend the debates of what is happening in Zimbabwe now, for now. As such we felt at one with our brothers and sisters. When I got married, I had the fortune of staying in the very apartment that the former president of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki used to stay in. The apartment is at Gail Court, along samora Machel Avenue, close to Pinsau pub, for those that take the holy waters of babylon.

Today, each time I visit South Africa, I am saddened. I have never sought refuge in South Africa, and never will. But I feel so shaken by the ignorance that is displayed by the average South African, not only towards Zimbabweans seeking refuge there but towards any other African. The situation is particularly bad for West Africans' and in particular Nigerians. South Africans are of the view that they live in heaven. But they forget, that there is not a single African country that was independent that did not contribute towards their indepence. We all fought alongside them.

Isn't it time they were educated about this? Am I expecting too much?

U20 doing well

The U20 Ghana soccer team has done well. I congradulate them.

God has blessed me again.

Just when I thought
That the world had come to an end
When enemies were plenty
and friends very few
God blessed me again

Again and again
He keeps loving me
And I love Him too
Thank you God for the double gift...

Refraining from politics for a short while.

You will all notice, that from where I stand, I must take a short sabbatical from blogging about politics. I shall need to re-establish my feet, re-engange my safety nets, and assess the situation. The days of shooting from the hip are hereby suspended.

You all know what I mean, dont you?

It is good to be home

After some time, being away,
It is so good
to be home.

To touch, to see, to smell, to taste
all the familiar surroundings
it is wonderful to be home

I am coming, from a far away land
where I was a teacher, and a student
all rolled into one

To all the wonderful people I know,
you are appreciated!
It is good to be home.

Debunking South Africa's crime rate.

With just under a year before the world's most popular sport descends on South Africas shores, figures just released show that the country's crime rate is far from rescinding. South Africa is the world's most crime riddled nation with a woman being raped every 18 seconds, and numerous murders occuring per day. President Zuma earlier this year appointed a tough talking and seemingly no nonsense police chief who promised to wipe crime off the face of South Africa. However, the figures on the ground are speaking a different story.

The South African crime rate is a problem that does not require populist politicking like President Zuma is always doing. It is a manifestation of centuries of segregation, political upheavals and inadequate distribution of wealth. It needs a multi-faceted approach. South Africa must embark on a massive job creation exercise twinned with a massive roll out of adult education. Most of the middle aged South Africans have never seen the insides of a classrooom, especially the ones that did not go into exile during the 80s and early 90s when apartheid was reighning supreme. During my stay in South Africa, I was amazed at how some South Africans view the killing of another being as being the equal to just killing a goat for a meal. I blame ignorance for such a warped view about life. Education helps in cultivating values and subsequently morals in human beings.

The inequal distribution of wealth makes some sections of South African society to believe that it is right to rob from others who have amassed undeserving wealth. South Africa is a developed country in some sections, and poorer than the poorest place on earth in others. You do not need to be a rocket scientist to know that if there is poverty in a sea of plenty then there is trouble.

The political leadership, black and white, ruling and opposition, must come together and address these issues. The police alone will never be able to curb crime, even if you go and train them on the moon...