Tag: africa

Tell the African story – including corruption

(Pic: Flickr / DW Akademie)
(Pic: Flickr / DW Akademie)

Two weeks ago, one of Kenya’s leading newspapers, The Daily Nation, published the story of a county governor who had spent some $197 000 on accommodation at a high-end hotel while awaiting renovation of his official residence. Quoting a report by Kenya’s Auditor General however, the paper noted that the county’s government also spent some $5 300 on house rent for the same Governor, during the same time period he was living at the hotel (July 9th to August 1st 2015). If these numbers don’t speak for themselves already, then add some 1.2 billion shillings ($11 855 844) misappropriated by the same county in September of 2013. You get the picture?

What is worrying about such blatant corruption and outright impunity in Africa is not its existence; it is the recurrence. It is the fact that it is as systemic as the education sector or agriculture is to the common citizen. I worry that while a child’s disease and a region’s poverty will be well documented by some aid agency and paraded to solicit funds from some well-meaning individual, these incidences of corruption will not see the light of day in the western world. It seems as if, we Africans, would rather allow benevolent stereotypes to flourish than for our dirty linen to be aired in public. The narrative thus remains the same. Africa is poor because it is poor; and while we’re out fighting the poverty narrative, we fiercely defend the source of our poverty.

I know there is a lot of noise about ‘Africa Rising’ going around the web and in intellectual circles; I also know that this is complete hogwash. Africa is going nowhere – not yet at least. There cannot be any development on a continent that propagates and recycles the same ideals that have kept it from developing for the last 50 years. So, citizens having some internet with which to shout at western media will not in itself change the continent’s trajectory. The corruption will stay, terror attacks still go unattended and ethnic strife still pit us against each other. Just because we can tweet at CNN and get an apology does not mean we are better off as a people. While it is laudable that we are challenging stereotypes about our continent; and while we need to show things as they are, we must acknowledge that incidences of corruption too are a part of our social fabric. They might be undesirable alright; they might be shameful; but integrity to our continent and preparedness for real development implies (indeed requires) that we talk about these indecent characteristics too.

So what happens to our sandy beaches and wild animals and M-Pesa and the Savannah? Nothing. But if we want a complete story of us, we must be at the forefront of telling it. If any media speaks about corruption, or terrorism in Kenya, it has every right to. Granted, sensational reporting is below media ethics, the truth must nevertheless be spoken. It is pretentious of us Africans to imply that exposure of our continent’s weaknesses, or our politicians’ misdeeds, somehow blemishes our “good name”. Because it is this very identity that gets tarnished every time we want to keep the monopoly on talking about corruption within our borders.

There is no substitute for thinking.

Franklyn Odhiambo is an alumni of the African Leadership Academy and student of the university of California, Berkeley. Oh,and he’s Kenyan too.

‘Con’ pastors thrive as Africans become increasingly desperate for miracles

Ugandans participate in a massive preach of the Born Again Church in Mbarara, western Uganda's largest town, on August 23 2008. (Pic: AFP)
Ugandans participate in a massive preach of the Born Again Church in Mbarara, western Uganda’s largest town, on August 23 2008. (Pic: AFP)

At a South African church rightly called “Incredible Happenings”, the pastor believes that he can exorcise demons from his female followers by sticking his fingers in their private parts in full view of his congregation.

In a popular church based in Nigeria – where 84 people died after the collapse of one of the church buildings – the presiding pastor has convinced many followers that the tragedy was the devil’s work, a manifestation of a spiritual warfare between God and Satan.

The sighting of a plane on the overfly ahead was offered as justification, even as an official (if earthly) probe found the building flouted basic construction standards. Many followers agree with this rationale, and back the thinking that those who died needlessly are martyrs.

In Pretoria, at the aptly-named “End Times Disciple ministries”, the pastor regularly serves up snakes to his congregants to eat, pledging they will turn into chocolate. Many oblige and lap it up. In Kenya a flashy “pastor” on national television admitted swindling his congregation, with the defence that they were not coerced. He is now a celebrity of sorts.

Such happenings are to be found all over Africa, where congregations often blindly act on the leadership’s instructions, few challenging them. They faithfully queue to buy miracle oils, and the women even sleep with pastors so that they may be impregnated with the Holy Spirit.

Desperate for miracles

Have we Africans become so desperate for miracles, that any odd John can introduce himself as a “man of God”, patent it and have no one question him or her at all?

Religious and spiritual beliefs on these shores tend to be personal and very subjective, which should be no surprise. It is one of those topics that most give a wide berth, for fear of offending people or the deities they feel they owe their existence and good fortune to.

Like the rest of the world, Africa has seen its beliefs systems and religious practices evolve over time, be it African spirituality in the form of ancestral beliefs and worship, to Islam, Christianity and many others.

In many instances, though not in all, the church has contributed in building healthy societies, including through advancing education for both the young and old, offering  healthcare and in developing skills.

They have also supported community building and social cohesion in many African countries, where they tend to be big players. The church is further seen as the custodian of morality, ensuring that human conduct remains on the straight and narrow.

But there is the downside. Human rights have been, and continue to be, abused in the name of religion. One example is the marginalisation or abuse of women, children and homosexuals, with Bible scriptures invoked as justification of such injustices.

It is interesting to watch how the structure and the function of the church has changed so dramatically over the past few years, especially within black communities. The Catholic, Anglican, and Apostolic faith-based churches historically enjoyed a large following within African communities. That has to some degree changed, with an explosion of evangelical churches across the continent.

“Born Again” eruptions

Evangelical or “Born Again” churches have sprouted everywhere in Africa, some well structured and headed by solid leadership, others run as highly profitable enterprises by self-proclaimed prophets, who to their congregations still qualify as “Men and Women of God”. Many are run almost as if they were insurance companies owning sanctimonious spiritual powers, playing on the hopes and fears of their followers, in exchange for generous tithes.

It would be wrong to tar all with the same brush, but some of the practices their followers are subjected to in the search for miraculous healing and prosperity pose the question: Are their adherents still able to independently think for themselves outside of the indoctrination that goes on in some of these churches?

The evidence is that the greatest beneficiaries of these miracles are the owners, who get richer as their poor and desperate congregations continue to await the promise of healing, prosperity, and blessings, in forms ranging from husbands to miraculous conceptions.

Question then is, at what point does it all end? Where exactly does God feature? Has strife and suffering reduced we Africans to a people that willingly abandon all logic and sense, and allow ourselves to be stripped of our dignity by our “Brothers and Sisters in Christ”, all in the name of miracles and quick fixes to life’s challenges?

It is overly simplistic and patronising to assume that the suffering and poor are lazy and only seek quick fixes – on the contrary, people of all inclinations toil daily to put some put bread on the table.

But let’s face it, life is tough and can be cruel. And the real reason people suffer is due to the myriad of social ills and the venal leadership of many of our governments. Africans have lost faith in many of our religious and political structures and are now seeking solutions from alternative sources. Those that claim to be connected directly to God are very conscious of this fact, capitalising on the increased hopelessness.

How can we see this manipulation for what it is, and stop the perpetuation of our own misery? For those that believe in a God, at what point do we do a one-on-one conversation to get the answers we seek, or does He only hear the prayers of a select few?

The truth is that self-proclaimed “prophets” or “men and women of God” also want better lives for themselves and will continue to happily milk people’s hopes and fears.

Religion alone will not lift us. We need to build educational and financial institutions that will allow us to reach our true potential individually and collectively. Maybe in this way we can have faith in ourselves and stop looking to others to intervene on our behalf.

Palesa Thinane-Epondo for M&G Africa

Africa, can we speak?

A man holds a placard reading "I am Nigerian, stop Boko Haram" during a gathering at the trocadero place in Paris on January 18, 2015 to protest against Boko Haram islamists after a large-scale attack in Baga. (Pic: AFP)
A man holds a placard reading “I am Nigerian, stop Boko Haram” during a gathering at the trocadero place in Paris on January 18, 2015 to protest against Boko Haram islamists after a large-scale attack in Baga. (Pic: AFP)

According to Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights presented by the UN, everyone has the right to freedom of speech. But with every right comes a responsibility hence the classic philosophy that our freedom ends where the next person’s freedom begins. This of course is not easily understood.

The Charlie Hebdo episode is important as it awakened intriguing debates – arguments of freedom of speech, Europe’s Islamophobia issues and the hypocrisy of politicians in attending a march for freedom of speech whilst condemning freedom of expression in their respective countries, to name a few. These issues mirror our global village and are worthy of media attention. However, around this same time frame a debatable 150 to 2000 lives were claimed in Nigeria through yet another attack orchestrated by Boko Haram, and debates about the tragedy’s little media coverage quickly surfaced. We hastily saw the emergence of #JeSuisNigeria, #IamNigeria and #IamAfrica in reaction to #JeSuisCharlie.

This response summons reflection on the presentation and representation of African issues in the world media and most importantly global reaction to our issues.

Not too long ago we saw how the world ignored Ebola until it became an intercontinental concern and this speaks volumes on our status as the “dark continent”. Many of our salient issues are misreported or simply overlooked. We want our stories reported too, the same way that events that shake the world or just a country are reported, according to their relevance and impact. An outcry for coverage, however, is not always an appeal for international intervention.

Alas…”according to their relevance and impact”…perhaps African stories are deemed to be neither essential nor impactful to the world.

But!

“Let he who can speak, speak for himself.” So says a Somali proverb.

Several broadcasting powerhouses that have branches dedicated to reporting African narratives on an international scale are not African. And one must wonder about the whereabouts of rich African tycoons who are qualified to invest in the creation of African broadcasting panels that can inform the world on a global scale, since our governments give us little hope.

Those who have toiled for this cause have done a fine job and it is good to see different news outlets both in the physical and in the cyber world committed to African narratives but can we see something as big as Euronews focused on our stories?

Some events are hard to tackle.

Reporting on Boko Haram is challenging as it is difficult to obtain information under the circumstances of terrorism, there is scarcity of information and accuracy even in Nigeria.

The Nigerian government’s failure to promptly pronounce themselves on the attack in Baga but President Goodluck Jonathan’s rush to publicise his solidarity with France is something alarming and distasteful, unpardonable.

Although #BringBackOurGirls turned into a case of viral humanitarianism let’s remember that the world stood with us and it amounted to nothing. This because the politics of politics is what takes place behind the scenes and it comes complete with shenanigans, schemes, executive brouhaha and the struggle for resources, power and influence. Despite the anger and frustration remember that politics is a system affected and influenced by various elements and components.

Sadly we sometimes pay for governance at the expense of our very lives.

The world occasionally stands with us with their display of short-lived solidarity, so it is our responsibility to remember when the world has forgotten.

Many times our respective countries do an average job. Everyone is rightfully preoccupied with their internal affairs, hence the necessity for central panels that can go in-depth and minimise the ignorance and mediocrity, reporting not only the calamities but the successes too.

Above the famous ignorance from the West, what is far more insulting is African indifference, the one we try to obscure.

Our sorrows are many and we have become complacent as experience has silenced our voices.

Where is our accountability? Ubuntu? General concern?

Instead of being outraged about the lack of coverage we get in the West, let’s scrutinise the lack of coverage we get in Africa concerning African issues. There is much to deconstruct here and before we demand and expect our voices to be heard let’s evaluate the value of our opinions. What are the factors influencing our freedom of speech? What are the factors affecting our solidarity? What has driven so many of us to stagnancy? And to those who are speaking, why are we not familiar with their voices? Where are the evils? Let’s start recognising and fighting the enemy within.

Because before we expect he who can speak to speak for himself we need to be wise enough to analyse his ability and right to speak in the first place. Can we even speak?

Clênia Gigi is a student, avid reader, poet, spoken-word artist, Pan-Africanist and feminist. Connect with her on Twitter: @Clenia_Gigi 

Sex education: What Nollywood and sermons don’t teach

(Pic: Flickr / Nollywood Artist)
(Pic: Flickr / Nollywood Artist)

Positive parenting had began to gain popularity among parents and teachers in the small Nigerian town of Sapele where I grew up, and my school was not going to be left behind.

So, every Valentine’s Day saw us assembled in our school hall to be treated to a film screening. Somehow, my teachers always managed to find the same kind of Nollywood story: good girls who kept themselves pure in the midst of the moral morass of youth and married handsome, wealthy men who loved them dearly for their virtue and would do anything to have them.  In the late 1990s, the whole film show business seemed like such a big deal. But did it occur to anybody to question the choice of Nollywood as a viable Sex Ed aid? I I don’t think so.

Before the film played, it was mandatory that we live through 30 minutes or so of reorientation. The big colour television, placed at the centre of our school hall, would be on, the blue screen waiting, while a teacher – preferably the most religious or the most willing/concerned – talked to us about our changing bodies. By an unspoken consensus, on days like this – on other days too, but especially on days like this –  everybody tried to avoid the use of certain words. And, standing in line, my breath held, my self-comportment overstretched, it was easy to understand why.

Those words, in their raw carnal forms, had terrible pitfalls. We had seen it happen many times; girls we knew, swallowed whole by the scotching intimacy of carnal words. Girls who knew about breasts and hips. Girls who we could tell, just by looking at them, that they were doing ‘it’. Girls who became pregnant. The general impression being that good girls just did not notice their bodies.

For the same reason that these words could just not be said, these films we saw were less about whatever narratives they managed to have and more about the overarching message. That narrative was: Good girls wait and are rewarded, bad girls end up with babies on their backs walking the streets looking lost. Good boys graduate, get great lives and have beautiful families, bad boys end up unfinished and angry at the world.

Then one year, our ‘exposed’ Home Economics teacher brought back a new movie Yellow Card (Zimbabwean) from one of her trips to Lagos. That film represents for me, to this day, a kind of epiphany.  At school that day, I saw a story that was by miles different, unnerving even, but possible. I saw young people who were preoccupied with sex but also preoccupied with education and careers. It showed them making mistakes but also it showed them trying to make better choices. And for showing this, that sex was not so much the problem as much as poor sexual choices were, for attempting to move the frame of conflicts to a flexible one, the whole positive parenting film show thing became suspect.  Our teachers feared we would become confused. And so, the whole film-screening campaign with its preemptive concern for possible life-altering choices was quietly shelved.

If campaigns to improve sexual and reproductive health education has done anything well in the last couple of decades, it is that it has increased the willingness of parents, schools and religious bodies to talk to about sexual and reproductive health. In communities like the one where I grew up, and perhaps communities like it mirrored all through Africa, this is how you mostly learn sex education: from well-meaning people in churches and schools who would designate whole programs to “talk to the young people about sex”, but deliberately neuter or thwart the message in the “best interests” of young people.

Recently, I attended a church program where the guest speaker, a woman from a religious NGO, insisted that “the computer age” was directly responsible for the proliferation of abortions in young girls. And as I sat there listening to her say these things in her confident, measured voice, I was not worried by the certainty of her illogic. It was the readiness, gratitude almost, with which the audience swallowed this rare information that worried me. The nature of information that was disseminated is problematic, perhaps enough to be counter-productive?

The statistics around abortion appear conflicting. Certain research shows that this conservative approach to sex education led to better sexual behaviour. Other research shows that it did not reduce the abortion rate. And that worse still, the numbers of unsafe abortions in countries like Nigeria are as high as ever. While this says nothing definitive about the challenges that apply to the methods of Sex Education currently practiced in Nigeria and other African countries, enough information exists that draws attention to the inadequacies of the approach.

From school lessons in the 1990s to school lessons now, SEX = SIN is the form of sex education that young people are getting, instead of the more pertinent ‘there are safe ways to have sex’. This is mostly because Nigeria, like much of Africa, is a highly religious space, where your Sunday School teacher most likely doubles as your concerned/willing school teacher, so there is the unavoidable problem of an overlap of the same kinds of sermonised sex education everywhere.

The dangers of going out to seek or buy protection can still seem as big and as real as the dangers of reckless, unsafe sex in certain communities. And this sermonised form of Sex Education which very often equates the emphasising of condom and contraceptive use as promoting irresponsibility, if anything, contributes to the entrenchment of conservative ideas in communities that are already too conservative.

Sex education is everywhere; on billboards, on TV, in churches, in schools, but it is still a long way from being about the simple and most basic thing: the right to protect yourself. It is yet to transcend religion or what I am willing to telling you. It is yet to be about life, about safety, about options.

Kechi Nomu writes from Warri, Nigeria. Her poems have appeared in Saraba Magazine and Brittle Paper.

The ridiculousness of “If the West can do it, why can’t we?”

King Mswati III of Swaziland and his wife arrive at the White House for a group dinner during the US Africa Leaders Summit August 5 2014 in Washington, DC. (Pic: AFP)
King Mswati III of Swaziland and his wife arrive at the White House for a group dinner during the US Africa Leaders Summit August 5 2014 in Washington, DC. (Pic: AFP)

I am absolutely exhausted by the argument that we cannot complain about inefficient and corrupt African leaders because “even Western leaders do it.” The follow-up to this point is usually an indignant “How come when white people do it, it’s OK?”

And by ‘it’ here, the speaker is referring to plunging a population into a well of suffering simply because one can.

A few days ago I happened upon an article on The Root in which the gripes social media users have with Swaziland’s royal family were brought to light. The article was short and simple: a report on a report really.

“Swaziland’s royal family has found itself ensnared in the firm grip of social media users who are determined to expose the lavish lifestyle of “Africa’s last absolute monarch,” while most of the country’s people barely subsist on $1 a day per person, Agence France-Presse reports.”

But the responses to it are what angered me. Of the hundreds of comments that this post attracted, many of them repeated the same idea: if the [insert white royal family] can do it, why can’t we?

I was so overcome with rage, I found myself doing the one thing I promised myself I never would: I left an angry Facebook comment. But that was not the end of it. My rage at the commenters, many of them African American echoing a sentiment often uttered by Africans too when our own leaders are to be held accountable for one act or another, did not go away.

So here I am, finally explaining why “Well, the King of Britain does it” has to be the dumbest counter-argument I have ever heard.

“If they can do it, why can’t we?”

When this question is posed, it is often by a person, I assume, beginning to familiarise themselves with the heady nature of self-pride. The underlying idea here, is that to criticise one’s own leaders is to exempt the West from blame for their own misdoings. It is a noble idea, and of course, very understandable, even to me, a mere child. But it is sorely incorrect.

To say, “If the British family can live far above its subject why can’t the King of Swaziland?” is to say two things:

1. Exploiting one’s own people is something of a competition and God forbid the African be excluded from suckling the sweet fruits of corruption.

2. Comparing the people of Britain to a nation where sixty-percent live under $1 a day like Swaziland, is perfectly logical.

Indeed at some point in the past they suffered under the tyrannical rule of their monarchical lords, but for the most part, in 2014, the people of Britain are not as affected when the Queen takes a private jet to some island as the people of Swaziland are. This is a simple fact.

Plunging your nation into economic turmoil is not some sort of marker of empowerment. And the very idea conjures up images of corrupt African leaders winking at the portraits of former colonial powers, as they continue the age-old tradition of exploiting African people.

It is simply unacceptable. When will we get to the stage where we view our states through our own lenses? When will we remove ourselves from the “at least…” mentality? “At least it’s better than being exploited by whites.” “At least even the Europeans go through this in their own countries.”

Accountability is not a joke. And government is not a playground where we as citizens must continue to watch our leaders play while we tell ourselves that it’s alright because other people do it too. What is this – primary school?

Governance is not something our leaders do as a favour to us. It is an opportunity that we award them.

To say that what the King of Swaziland is doing is acceptable, is to say the suffering of those people (our people) is acceptable.This mentality is bigger than Swaziland, it is bigger than us. To say that corruption is a problem “everyone has” is to say that it and the ludicrous levels it reaches on our continent every day, is acceptable. To ask, “If the West can do it why can’t we?” is to say we are not people worthy of sound, accountable governance.

Why do we not ask “If the West can do it, why can’t we?” of education reform, of health policies, of infrastructure development, of government transparency, of social welfare policies, of economic engagement, of business forums, of infrastructure maintenance, of youth employment, of medical innovation, of technological integration, of political growth, of citizen empowerment, of sports development, of intra-continental trade, of trade policies, of foreign policies, of art evolution, of literary celebration….

Why?

This to me, is a symptom of us having bought into the lie our leaders are living. Drunk on new power and political “equality”, some of our leaders want to forget that political reality only means so much in the face of economic fact. They go to the UN and sit in big chairs next to the President of Italy and think just because the fellow can get away with running the economy like a gangster, so can they.

They shake hands with Obama and think to themselves, “Hey, if he can get funded by morally ambiguous corporations, why can’t I?” as if this is a nightclub. Well, news flash: this is not a nightclub. Economic reality is the only reality that matters. If the GDP of your nation cannot fill even one American state, you have absolutely no business trying to live like the US president.

This is just how life is. So we as citizens, cannot, no, MUST NOT allow our leaders to continue living this lie. The first step to that is to respond, the next time someone says “The President of the US does it”, with: “We’re not in the States here, comrade.”

We have to demand more for ourselves, because as long as it’s fashionable to disguise acceptance of corruption as “our right”, nobody will demand it for us.

Siyanda Mohutsiwa is a 21-yeard old math-major at the University of Botswana. She is currently slumming it in Finland. Follow her on Twitter: @siyandawrites