BOOK REVIEW: Title: Reforming Leadership in Africa

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BOOK REVIEW

Title: Reforming Leadership in Africa

Author: J. William Addai

Publisher: Publishers Graphics Indiana, USA, 2009

Price: US$24.99 plus shipping

Reviewer: Kofi Akosah-Sarpong

Increasingly, leadership has emerged as a key factor in Africa’s progress. Bewildered leadership schemes have seen a good part of post-independent Africa sinking, some leading to horrible civil wars and state paralysis. Africa’s leadership jam reveals that African elites have not understood their environment in relation to Africa’s progress, especially how to draw leadership materials from within their raw cultural values. Nigerians, Kenyans, Guineans and Central Africans will tell you they have everything but leadership.

This acknowledgement was revived when I read Reforming Leadership in Africa, a contribution to the on-going discussions continent-wide for the need to appropriate Africa’s cultural values and institutions into Africa’s progress, as a matter of psychology, confidence, dignity and logic. Such appropriation will help the continent’s progress by fostering the required self-assurance considered necessary for progress. The schism in Africa’s leadership organization has come about because the ex-colonial structures have not been harmonized skillfully enough with Africa’s indigenous ones, especially in the on-going decentralization exercises and the talk of developing new leaders for tomorrow’s Africa.

The propaganda have been that the ex-colonial structures are generally thought to be superior (though wrongly) to that of Africa’s, not only by the ex-colonialists of yesteryears but also Africa’s elites of today. Visit African bureaucracies and you will shocked whether they operate on African soil ? the leadership organizational values (the nuances, for instance) are heavily non-African. The trick in resolving these contentious African leadership issues, argues the author, is to develop skills to appropriate the differences to bring out the best in Africa’s leadership potential. The author, an Ashanti himself, draws heavily from Ashanti traditional leadership values and institutions, which he describes as his ?research test tube,? to explain the leadership reforms Africa feverishly needs to drive its progress.

In his bold attempts to locate where the African leadership-progress inadequacies come from (that’s lack of Africa’s cultural inputs), it is easy to see where Africa’s developmental troubles come from ? leadership mired in the notorious authoritarian, individualistic Big Man Syndrome cooked in ex-colonial European systems against Africa’s traditional consensus building systems. If Africa’s development challenges are first and foremost leadership, then what value of leadership? Leadership that for historical and cultural reasons, flow from Africa’s innate traditional values, and simultaneously balanced with Africa’s ex-colonial heritage. The question is how African elites, as directors of progress, can draw from Africa’s cultural values to reform their trembling leadership tests today. And short of that; continue to suffer, as African leaders repeat the old mistakes that have disturbed them and their people’s progress.

Against the backdrop of global intercultural leadership studies, Joseph William Addai, an administrator, a religious and international development scholar, puts in extensive scholarly and practical work to provide matter-of-factly answers to Africa’s leadership predicament. These are enriched by his participation in diverse programs in North America, Papua New Guinea, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Of particular note is his drawing from the Ashanti Kingdom’s Manhyia Palace and the late heavyweight Ghanaian neo-liberal conservative political leader William Ofori-Atta (Paa Willie).

It is clear from Addai’s work that from scratch African states were in leadership dilemma ? that’s if they are aware of that and that it is a pressing development issue, and how to reconcile ex-colonial Europe’s individualist-oriented leadership organization with Africa’s traditional group-oriented system. Underpinning all these systems are the foundational values of each society as drivers for effective leadership organization for progress. Africa has leadership difficulty at the moment because its foundational cultural values do not flow dexterously into its modern state organization, as the Japanese have successfully done.

In dealing with both inadequacies of the European leadership system imposed on Africa and the shortfalls of Africa’s traditional leadership organization, Addai compellingly discusses various leadership theories and practices (as an opener to Africa’s) and come out refreshingly with the view that some sort of hybridization of the European and the African systems is needed to make progress.

Perhaps, Addai’s thesis, with the prominent argument that an understanding of African cultural values is indispensable to Africa’s leadership organization and progress, will be of help to attempts to review Ghana’s on-going 20-year old decentralization exercises, which have been more about the ?political and fiscal? without weaving into it Ghana’s cultural receptivity as an organizational necessity and progress mechanism.

Development / Ghana / Africa / modernghana.com

Book Review. Rhapsidies On ‘Kindness’

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The sacred and profane of state power in the black star of Africa: By Kwesi Yeboah. Rhapsodies On Kindness is a literary and historical work that addresses problems facing contemporary Ghana. This book is very readable, erudite, and engaging. It is anchored on theoretical musings, solid empiricism, and the political economy of the very recent Ghanaian past. Although Ghana is the focal point of analysis, the thematic preoccupations of this book are applicable to Africa as a whole and other regions impacted by the virus of neo-colonialism, dependency, and hegemonic control.

The author, Kwesi Yeboah, a native of Ghana and a product of Achimota College, Achimota, Ghana, has an unusual gift as an activist, public intellectual. He trained at the University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana, as a Classicist and an Historian, and studied Mechanical Engineering, Mathematics, and the Physical Sciences at the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, and McMaster University, Hamilton both in Canada. This academic cross-breeding underscores his ability to move from the precincts of superb, intellectualized rhapsodizing to the grounds of sound scientific analyses and theoretical meditations. True to his craft, Yeboah pays flawless attention to detail and seeks coherence and wholeness in satire, caricaturization, theory, and empiricism.

Yeboah is clear about his intention ?to shock, to vigorously jolt the memories and minds of Ghanaians into re-examining that which we have always taken for granted, our attitudes, accepted practices and prevalent mentalities…? (P. xi). These objectives are amply attained throughout this book. Yeboah besmears the noses of his readers with vast metaphorical stretches of excrement, putrefaction, decay, and social flatulence, all symbolizing what has gone wrong in Ghana. On the whole, this book is a theater where Ghanaians are summoned to see the dramatization of the follies and foibles of the Ghanaian past, transposed onto the current political precipice of uncertainty.

Domiciled overseas, Yeboah owes a debt of gratitude to the Ghanaian media forms: they provide a substantial number of the topical news items that inform this book. But it is also obvious that Yeboah makes use of overseas sources that deal with Ghanaian and African affairs, for example, he makes reference to Daily Telegraph’s articles, BBC articles on Africa and African news sites on the world wide web. It must be said that Yeboah’s work is not an intelligent culling of journalistic reminiscences, nor is it based on sympathetic quarrying of topical media news. Rather with remarkable breadth and perceptive synthesis, he brings fresh empirical reflections to illuminate essential historical and contemporary processes.

Rhapsodies is arranged in three parts and each is divided into verses that are not periodized and also do not follow any precise thematic format. Part One is entitled ?The Shock?, Part Two is called ?The Awe?, and Part Three is ?The Sacred and the Profane?. There are forty-five verses and each has notes and references. Simply the structure of this book, essentially the verses, mirror daily topical issues on recent developments. Using the most recent social, political, and economic developments as his scale-pan, Yeboah pries back and forth into the history of Ghana, drawing on various historical incidents and political milestones. Hence, he is able to appraise specific issues while caricaturizing specific historical actors. Overall, a thread of consistency conjoins the varying parts o! f the book and enables him to grapple with various topical issues without straying from his stated objectives

The richness of this book is derived from its subject matter and the stylistic approaches employed by the author. Yeboah employs history as a vehicle of literary deployment. For instance, by echoing the sycophantic accolades of Ghanaian heads of states, he is able to bring readers to the frontiers of history, while at the same time conveying his message of power-drunk leaders. The solid scholarship that undergirds this book is demonstrated, for example, by Yeboah’s references to Milton’s epic, The Paradise Lost; the American War of Independence and the American Civil War; Nkrumah’s ideological construction of Neocolonialism; IMF policies and their implications for development/underdevelopment; and the policies of African leaders, including Joachim Chissano of Mozambique, Thabo Mbeki o! f South Africa, and Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria. Similarly, his literary allusions range from the Classics through Shakespeare and Dickens and Conrad to Achebe and Ayikwei Armah

The joy of reading this book also comes from Yeboah’s assiduous use of satire, humor, self-invented phrases, childhood reminiscences, comparative perspectives, caricaturization, allusions, and derisive songs. As a Ghanaian writing this ? Foreword?, I must say that my ears have enjoyed the derisive songs the most. For example, Part 1, Verse 19, entitled, ?The Epiphany of Jurassic Joseph Henry ? is not only a mockery of time-worn, dinosaured public officials, but also provides some insights into the failure of the state to disengage from antiquated practices seeded in the heyday of colonial rule and at the dawn of neocolonialism. In the end, such derisive songs provide an ample relief that is at once joyous and compelling.

Rhapsodies is not all about the hopelessness of the Ghanaian situation. Interspersed with the dredges of pessimism are embers of hope and optimism for the future. Indeed, this book is not only about mountains of overt criticism of the Ghanaian political debacle. It contains oases of hope and inspiration as well as practical solutions regarding, for instance, the cassava industry, road-building, the application of science and technology to better everyday life, education, governance, and democracy. It is a book for Ghanaians who care about where they had been, where they are going, and how they plan to get there; and certainly, public officials and the elites, those indicted the most in this book, can benefit from Yeboah’s practical solutions.

Several interesting topical issues are discussed in this book. It is obvious, in some cases, that Ghanaians would rather Yeboah had not washed their dirty communal linen in public. For example, Part 1, Verse 1, entitled ?Of Underdevelopment and Human Excrement? Yeboah rubs the noses of Ghanaians in their own collective excrement. Among others, Yeboah states that ?Take the bucket latrine for instance. In this day and age, this twenty-first century of unbelievable technological wonders, and still in Ghana, people, are paid by the state to carry other people’s excrements in buckets, and on their heads.? (P. 8). Although, it is the state that is blamed here and certainly fingers can be pointed at those who are responsible, this is not a story that Ghanaians would like to tell the whole world.

But there are other verses whose filth does not besmear every Ghanaian. Yeboah’s presentation of corruption, graft, theft, and ethnicized nepotistic brokerage of national resources and wealth singles out public officials. Thus, the citizenry is granted the comfort of blaming the elites in high places for the problems facing Ghana today. Indeed, Ghanaians who read this book would not need to cover their nostrils or shift a little in their chairs of passivity all the time because elsewhere Yeboah places the problem of underdevelopment at the doors of others. In Part 1, Verse 3, entitled ?In Search of Heroes,? for instance Yeboah points to neocolonialism and dependency as the causes of Ghana’s endemic problems. But it should stressed th! at he does not belabor the forces of neocolonialism and dependency, perhaps doing so would undermine his avowed theme of jolting Ghanaians to the reality of their own engineered underdevelopment.

Although Rhapsodies may appear to the untutored eye as a shopping list of the political economy of everything Ghanaian, there are specific major themes that ring out in the verses. These include Yeboah’s favorite topics: federation versus regionalism, dependency and underdevelopment, corruption and elitism, problems of chieftaincy, education and social change, and governance and democracy. These and other topics inform the verses and provide for their composite wholeness. The thrust of this book is political. Yeboah has critically dissected the public lives of numerous Ghanaians, including heads of state from Kwame Nkrumah to J. A. Kufour. But Yeboah does! not single out any one leader for praise or vitriolic attack. Rather, he points to their respective strengths and weaknesses, hence is able to provide a superstructure of balance and objectivity for this book.

Yeboah has dealt with controversial, sacred-cow topics in an engaging way. Crisp phrases, textual brevity, and hilarity, anchored on theoretical brilliance and empirical insights would push readers toward a higher level of analytical and conceptual thinking. His epistemological insights are interesting and generous, though we cannot say that for his treatment of most of the personalities that inhabit this book. If Ayi Kwei Armah’s literary capital jolted Ghanaians to the perils of the immediate postcolonial era, Kwesi Yeboah’s work would jolt Ghanaians to move beyond passive acceptance to active evaluation in their search for the seeds of success. I have read Rhapsodies with profit and strongly believe that even those who are caricaturized and satirized within the pages of this promising book would find it intellectually stimul! ating and morally engaging. I venture to say that Yeboah has more crusading epistles for Ghanaians, therefore, we should continue to nurse our backsides in anticipation of more laughter even as we scratch our heads for answers.

PS: The book can be previewed at akoben publishing

Kwabena Akurang-Parry, Ph. D.

Department of History & Philosophy

Shippensburg University

F.L. Bartels of Mfantsipim celebrates 99 years -Book Review

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was depressed by the sombre fate?.

There’s a sorrowful satisfaction in knowing that one is not alone in these thoughts. With a maverick lending his credence, posterity might develop a thick skin to avoid a future mishap. Let’s follow Mr Bartels’s strategic sense (as a member of an initial committee of four charged to shape the new university):

?I did my best to persuade [Commissioner Hagan] to consider building the new university on, and among, the hills of Cape Coast [to] function as an enabling institution [to] give as well as take, grow and become a part of the town and learn to assist it in solving its problems. The project’s possibilities were vast. Mount Hope could be a strategic point [to] begin and mesh with the slum clearance envisaged for the town? making it imperative for university personnel [to use] local amenities [and] in their own interest demand efficient management.

?The Cape Coast Castle could be converted into a research library and flats to promote academic tourism and a university extramural programme, [to] ultimately extend to the other castles and forts along the coast. The Cape Coast churches could be university chapels. Lastly, the Victoria Park ?might be turned into an open-air theatre to promote drama and other cultural activities for town and gown?.

The Plan

The plan implied a re-invention of higher education for ?hands-on? social and economic good. It was a masterpiece, and was sold in a way in which it had to be bought. But, the Commissioner was not moved; he craved ?another Legon?a self-contained showpiece [with] a separate existence?.

To Mr Bartels, ?Another Legon, Accra, was the last thing Nkrumah fancied. But he got it.? The Commissioner’s thinking was like that of David Balme, a classics scholar of repute, the founding principal of Legon, who admitted: ?You’ve asked me to establish a university. The university I know is Cambridge.?

Mr Bartels envisaged the thrust of the sciences ?to direct the thinking of students to education for work, using the environmental resources of the area, [for example] the fishery industry that was being developed at Elmina [and] the support it would require from the interdisciplinary research in Geography, Meteorology and Refrigeration Engineering?.

The plan was ignored. A later report from an ?International Commission [with] Geoffrey Bing? came out, placing reliance on prospects ?no different basically from Legon?.

In seeking a new deal for education in Cape Coast, Mr Bartels’s ideas, perhaps, created a discomfort, or worse, fear. The colonial mindset was shaken. The new thinking implied a shift from the obsolete lecturing-and-copying format, to a preference for a purposeful re-design of teaching and learning in the wider context of a hands-on urban renewal. Without an assertive, practical access to freedom of judgement and imagination, education itself is stale.

Cape Coast, as an education capital, stood to generate a livelier, intellectual, research, and superior tourist industry, with leverage for clusters of jobs. The intellectual, the economic and the social go together. With a better quality of life, professional people who deliver important services would stay. An urban renaissance created a dynamic and capacity strengthening a wider area.

A vision-gap is a costly thing. Many university towns have blazed that trail and flourished in the midst (not on the periphery) of urban renewals; for example, the connection between the University of California, Los Angeles and the city of Westwood (in the U.S.), and the penchant of that union for creating employment, and student jobs.

Mr Bartels’s vision, alas, shunned the habit of skimping on the maintenance of existing national assets, pouring good money into newish things, and setting in train a cycle of neglect. Possibly, the disregard for the plan mirrored two puzzles: one, the na?ve assumption that, somehow, distribution of benefits is a zero-sum game; and two, the elitists’ phobia for the teeming masses, and preference for the suburban nest and rest.

For a new, independent nation, the opportunity loss was worse than a study of reflexes in the aristocratic psyche. It was hard to escape the suspicion that what was bliss for Cambridge turned out to be bale to Cape Coast. As between liberation and servitude, Mr Bartels drew the line between visions of national self-assertion and timid copies of the archaic.

The past is all very well. But why misjudge the echoes of the times? The outdated wisdom that tertiary education has to be packaged, somehow, within enclosed quarters has become as insidious as the insistence that every phone has to have wires attached. Now the times give the proof that functional illiteracy is the virus to dismantle, and purge.

The Persistence of Paradox is a must read. As a biography, the canvas is full with the texture and colour of a life spanning almost a century. It draws seamlessly on a vast repertoire with anecdotes, some highlighted with fun (and slaps) in Akan (Fanti): (Nkye mobobo n’asowa mu ma w’atse). Mr Bartels’s other books include, the 2007 latest, ?Journey out of the African Maze: Indigenous and Higher Education in Tandem? (www.lulu.com); and ?Roots of Ghana Methodism? (Cambridge University Press, 1965).

In talking with Mr Bartels, his personal takes on key historic events and people, and the details in the making of those experiences, held one glued like a bond. More grease to his years. Mfantsipimfo, the Methodist Church, and the nation at large should be geared, properly, for Mr Bartels’s 100 years anniversary, 13th March 2010. He gave so much to broaden and elevate the nation’s collective thought. [This piece, published in a different form in 2004, is revisited for the anniversary].

[Anis Haffar, the author, is the founder of Gate Institute, a consulting service for continuous teacher education in English Language skills, and Methodologies for Leadership-centred teaching for primary, secondary, and tertiary levels. Email: [email protected]. Website: www.gate.ghanaschoolsonline.com]

Do you have an article for publication? Please email it to [email protected](‘/ghanahome/includes/home/pics.asp?id=1′,’xphotos’);

BOOK REVIEW: Harmattan Rain

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“Harmattan Rain, Ayesha Harruna Attah’s first novel is set in The Gold Coast/Ghana in 1954, and tells the story of three generations of women. Lizzie-Achiaa runs away from her home in Adukrom No.2 to escape her father, Papa Yaw’s crude attempts to marry her off to any old suitor, but more urgently, to find her lover, Bador Samed who had disappeared after their first love encounter. She eventually arrives in Accra where she becomes Mrs. Mensah. Her first daughter, Akua Afriyie, walks out of Kingsley House, Achimota School just before her A-level Examinations to have her daughter Sugri, the result of a girlish escapade. Sugri, a brilliant student wins a scholarship to study Medicine at Columbia University in New York. Alone in that big, impersonal city she learns about life and grows up.

The story spans the period, 1954 to 1999, the beginning of which era the people of this country became ‘politically active’. Politics is the backdrop of Ayesha’s novel and she uses it with historical accuracy and her consummate skill as a story teller. Everyone talks politics. Even the Irish nun, Mother Constance expresses her doubts about this country’s readiness for independence.Lizzie-Achiaa visits Kumasi in the midst of an NLM rally and has a taste of the determined opposition to Nkrumah’s CPP, and throughout the novel comments and opinions on each head of state from Nkrumah through Busia, Archeampong to Rawlings are freely and, sometimes, brutally expressed wherever people gather. Ayesha’s judicious use of contemporary views and attitudes to politics and politicians greatly enhances the value and appeal of this outstanding novel.

Harmattan Rain is skillfully structured, making it very ‘reader-friendly’. In addition to the age-old style of giving each chapter a title, we are given dates to mark the passage of time, and snippets of news from the radio and newspapers to update us on events. The epilogue which is dominated by Papa Yaw mellowed by age and telling us what had happened ?back in the early fifties,? is a particularly skillful device which is both poignant and beautiful.

One of the many outstanding qualities of Harmattan Rain is Ayesha’s talent for observation. She literally ‘never misses a thing’ and this, together with her remarkable insight into the Ghanaian psyche, makes her description of real places, people and events, recognizable and unforgettable. We are compelled to be more than onlookers. We become participants. We were with the silent ring of spectators when Papa Yaw, exuding palm wine fumes and armed with a neem branch, mercilessly beats his rebellious daughter. Ayesha takes us along as Lizzie runs away from home stumbling through forest and farm, plunging into the River Nsu to get as far away from Adukrom No2 as possible. We watch helplessly as soldiers ransack Asantewa’s store, destroying valuable goods in their search for hoarded goods. We recognize the fop in the tan suit and pressed hair in the nightclub, and enjoy Ayesha’s satirical account of his crude advances to Lizzie.

Women Empowerment

Click for Full Size Ayesha Harruna Attah, author of the Harmattan Rain pix:Sefa Nkansa

I am persuaded that Harmattan Rain is really about the empowerment of women, but with a difference. This is not the empowerment that comes as a special favour from others to be dispensed in gender-sensitive morsels but the strength that comes from within each woman who has the character and intelligence to grasp each opportunity as Lizzie does, or cut their losses and move on as her daughter Afriyie succeeds in doing. A single mother at sixteen and estranged from her mother she brings up her daughter Sugri with determined dedication, sacrifice and friendship. Ayesha’s portrayal of mother, daughter and granddaughter is masterly.They have the same determined spirit and often disagree but their bonding is very clearly and delicately drawn.

The men in Harmattan Rain are somewhat diminished in stature by the women. Mr. Mensah is kind but colourless, John Barnor Afriyie’s boss, bumbles. Pastor Edem Adomza is deceitfully self-righteous and Rashid, Sugri’s errant father, belongs to a line of heartless seducers of young girls. Many years later his victim, Afriyie, dismisses him with the delightful irony, ?Have you seen that pot belly?? Bador Samed stalks the pages of the novel like a lost soul. A heroic figure, he finds his loved one never to be parted from her. This, the only real tragedy in the novel is unexpected and with a beauty that haunts.

Ama Ata Aidoo in launching Harmattan Rain called it ?a coming ?of ?age novel? And so it is, for this is Ayesha Harruna Attah’s first novel and written at twenty five. It is a novel of remarkable maturity, written in lucid and succinct prose and full of imagination, boldness and humour. We expect that these and other excellent qualities will grow and endure.”

Credit: Frances Ademola, reviewed in the Daily Graphic

Book Review: CHASING THE ELEPHANT INTO THE BUSH

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The cover of Dr. Arthur Kennedy's book CHASING THE ELEPHANT INTO THE BUSH: THE POLITICS OF COMPLACENCY The cover of Dr. Arthur Kennedy’s book CHASING THE ELEPHANT INTO THE BUSH: THE POLITICS OF COMPLACENCY

Title: CHASING THE ELEPHANT INTO THE BUSH: THE POLITICS OF COMPLACENCY

Author: DR. ARTHUR KENNEDY
Publishers: AUTHORHOUSE, Bloomington, Indiana, United States

Price: $24.99 from Amazon.com
xvi, 173 pp, Introduction, Acknowledgements and Foreword.

?There are just not enough of us? — Arthur Kennedy book review.

By COLIN ESSAMUAH
Dr. Arthur Kennedy, the director of communications in the presidential campaign of the NPP presidential candidate, Nana Addo-Dankwa Akufo-Addo, in the 2008 elections has done his party and this nation a world of good by providing us with his narrative of the most-expensive, media-heavy campaign in the history of electoral politics in Ghana. I say his party would benefit from sober reflection on the matters disclosed in this short book, although to a man, and woman, he has attracted universal condemnation from his party colleagues for his effort.

Members of the party that authored THE STOLEN VERDICT have displayed a degree of intolerance and disgust for Arthur Kennedy that is breathtaking in its viciousness. The only person who has welcomed the book publicly, did so in terms which were no less damning. Mr. Daniel Botwe who must know the author far better than the several others who have reacted to the book, praised him, but condemned the choice of title and the publication which he felt should have been kept within party ranks. Obviously, to the NPP, the rights of free expression and intellectual freedom, which they claim to have championed since 1992, are inapplicable in this instance, even to a fellow party stalwart.

Comprising twenty short chapters with a perceptive but sad foreword by Yaw Boadu Ayeboafo, General Manager of the Daily Graphic, this is a crisp, extremely reader-friendly work that will enlighten, educate, shock and entertain its readers. It is also likely to sadden a large number with its open yet careful assessment of the failings of individuals in the campaign, and the determined but enthusiastic wrongheadedness which drove many decisions. Dr. Kennedy joins a large and growing number of people and local and foreign scholars who have written on elections in Ghana since 1992. The unique perspective he offers from his participation in the NPP presidential primaries in December 2007, and his service as the communications guru of the NPP presidential campaign is his claim to fame, or notoriety, in the estimation of Ghanaians. For instance, the hagiographic work of Mr. Fred Asante, ex-Member of the Council of State, titled THE KUFUOR LEGACY, on the 1996, 2000 and 2004 elections did not attract a fraction of the interest that Dr. Kennedy has aroused in and outside his party with his far shorter narrative on the 2008 elections. The NPP must move away from demonizing party members who have different opinions from those held by the power centres in its ranks.

However, if one is not careful, one may be misled into accepting what Dr. Kennedy says as conclusive of the factors which caused the defeat of the NPP in the December 2008 presidential and parliamentary elections, even though these factors have been cited and accepted by others before him. This is another way of answering the oft-asked question about what caused the defeat of the NPP in the 2008 elections. The contribution of Dr. Kennedy to the several answers out there is that his work reflects the triumphalist mood which drove the campaign, and in so doing, enables us to deepen our understanding of the three whys in this campaign, the defeat itself, the narrowness of defeat, and the painful reception of defeat by party members.

The author lists nine reasons at the end of the book which led to defeat. They are all valid, just as the positive factors listed at the beginning of the book which should have guaranteed the so-called One-Touch victory for the NPP. What caused the defeat therefore cannot be a mere recitation of events, policies, behaviour patterns and propaganda as we all have tended to accept, but rather a massive misunderstanding of the Ghanaian electorate which, given the positive factors also engendered by the same delusions, may be forgiveable. This is the charitable position to take on the matter.

Dr. Kennedy makes clear, line after line in his book, that the NPP as a corporate body, then and now, suffered fatally from a delusional triumphalism that electoral defeat was impossible, and therefore, unthinkable. This illogical belief affected every political decision, and every propaganda step they took during the campaign. It is delusional triumphalism which produced 18 presidential aspirants, including ALL the senior ministers in the Kufuor cabinet, including his blood brother, Kwame Addo-Kufuor, plus three sojourners in Europe and America, Boakye Agyarko, Agyei-Barwuah and the author himself. It is the delusion of victory that produced the inherent belief in party ranks that the opposition NDC was no factor, even though as early as August, 2008, the NPP had been warned that the non-existent opposition NDC could force a second round, courtesy the advice of Professor Larry Gibson. I must add here rather quickly, that the figures Professor Gibson worked with were crude concoctions emanating from the same delusions of triumph that drove everything else in the NPP.

The most serious and in the end, most fatal delusion that seized and gripped the NPP was the belief that the electorate did not exist. ‘Agbenaa’ was the Ga version of that particular delusion. Hitching a tro-tro ride from Abossey Okai to Korle Bu was a farcical epiphany of the Palm Sunday procession. The campaign was not seen as a contest between the party and the unbowed NDC, but as a coronation, where the only requirement was for the crown prince to be present at the enthronement ceremony. Dr. Kennedy asserts the same when he calls into question who the target audiences were for the various campaign initiatives. Pollster Ben Ephson’s just-published work on the election reports the stunning fact that of the 500 young men and women who were polled after the Labadi Beach musical concert staged as part of the campaign, only 9 said they would vote for the NPP presidential candidate in the December 2008 polls. Ephson reports again that only 90 out of 1000 respondents said they would vote for Nana Akufo-Addo at the Believe in Ghana bash. For the lack of understanding, empathy and concern for the Ghanaian voter, Dr. Kennedy fell victim to the giddiness in the NPP campaign train when he employs the word complacency.

The truth of the matter, however, is that the NPP 2008 campaign was the most comprehensive, thorough, well-funded, staffed and motivated effort in the history of electioneering in Ghana. Let me give two pedestrian examples. How many of us can remember any NDC campaign song, but the sarcastic Lumba lyrics still gets airtime a year after the elections? I personally counted five huge Nana Akuffo Addo hoardings at the Liberation Circle alone in Accra, and wondered who were the intended audience for this advertising overkill. The NPP carpet-bombed the country with adverts, songs, rallies, concerts, and media endorsements. The problem of explaining defeat can be likened to the Rope-a-Dope strategy of Muhammad Ali in the October, 1974 Rumble in the Jungle fight in Kinshasa in which he defeated the overmighty and deadly George Foreman by systematically sapping the latter’s overwhelming strength.

But the delusions of inevitable triumph still persist even as the author joins the chorus in the party that 2012 would see the NPP back in power. The general contempt for the ability of the NDC to recapture power after two harrowing terms in opposition marked by the reckless, careless and dangerous abuse of the judicial process to jail their leading members, damnation to perpetual opposition with the pointless national reconciliation project, and a vicious, unchristian and ungentlemanly attack on their candidate, Professor Mills, should have abated by now. In the higher circles of the NPP, the repeated forays of President Mills into the Central Region were seen as proof positive of his failing health, and not of his single-minded determination to persuade his kinsmen to vote for him.

Dr. Kennedy is simply being the uncharitable NPP politician who refuses to appreciate that the present constitution and the structure of our politics, are the products of the PNDC from which the NDC was begotten, and the very least one can do as a patriot of the land, is to respect if not love them, like the converted Saul, for finally coming round to accepting civilian, democratic and constitutional rule, and not to continually mock them. Fortunately, the people of this country know better.

Dr. Kennedy rightly questions the lack of active employment of President Kufuor in the campaign, but he declines to tell us really why since his answer would be self-incriminating. The leadership of President Kufuor was never respected in the ranks of the party, and in defiance of party esprit d’corps, leading members of the party delighted in ridiculing and defying the judgement and direction of a man they had freely chosen and campaigned for, and happily accepted positions from, to run this country. But President Kufuor himself did not help matters when for the position of national chairman for the party in 2005, he backed an obvious Johnny-come-lately Stephen Ntim. Ntim who was completely apolitical during our Legon days in 1980 was an attempted imposition whose audacity eclipses the so-called Swedru declaration of President Rawlings. But in refusing to endorse Vice-President Aliu Mahama to replace him as the NPP nominee, and backing his kinsman, Allan Kyeremateng, President Kufuor was following in the footsteps of his mentor Victor Owusu, who also chose Kufuor.

It is clear therefore, that both President Kufuor and his party were embarking on a disastrous journey where the former’s choices were indefensible, and the latters’ disrespect untenable. Seen in this light, the violent disagreements and opposition to a retiring president endorsing anybody in the 2007 NPP primaries marks the party as incapable of strategizing. The other way of looking at this is that the NPP is an ethnic cult. This is one aspect of the defeat that Dr.. Kennedy declines to address, only stating the patently foolish appeal of the late Hawa Yakubu to President Kufuor not to support anyone for the top prize in the party. I fail to see the wisdom in denying President Kufuor the privileges of leadership. That the privilege was exercised wrongly is another matter. When President Reagan was asked by pressmen what advice he would give to his Vice-President George Bush, Snr, as the latter sought the Republican nomination in 1988, he replied ‘Take no prisoners.’ No one questioned or doubted Reagan’s right to back someone to replace him. It is worth attempting an answer to how the NPP came to this sorry pass.

The NPP traces its direct roots not to the genteel, aristocratic UGCC of 1947, but to the rough and tumble band of discontents of the NLM of 1954, whose politics were marked first and foremost by ethnic supremacy and the sanctification of chiefly rule in the Forest Akan areas of Ghana. The relevance of this is that the position of vice-president is seen as a token sop to the other ethnic groups in Ghana, and not as a practical stepping-stone to the presidency, as it is designed to be everywhere except in Obasanjo’s PDP in Nigeria. Nowhere in the book, or elsewhere in the public debate at the time, is the concern expressed about the suitability of any of the running mate aspirants for the ultimate job, the presidency.

Dr. Kennedy misses the point therefore when he asserts that the NPP ticket has been more inclusive than that of the NDC since 1992. Does he believe that Mills, Amidu, Mumuni and Mahama are not fit to be presidents of this country? What about Kow Arkaah who performed the political hat trick of being the running mate of two opposing parties? If the NPP ticket is more inclusive, why did Dr. Kennedy not spend his energies to persuade President Kufuor and his party to do the natural and proper thing by endorsing Vice-President Aliu Mahama?

The delusion is further illustrated when NPP members and their backers in the chattering classes cite the narrowness of defeat as evidence of the inevitable return to power in 2012. Dr. Kennedy is a passionate believer in this numbers nonsense emanating from our collective acceptance of election polls and figures which make no statistical or political sense. We have had elections in this country since 1951, and we thus have a fair idea of the shape and contours of victory, permitting us to live with the figures produced. Incidentally, it is a study of these figures which have informed my position that the NDC has taken over the CPP pattern of electoral support in this country. But the election figures of 2008, and to a lesser extent, that of 2004, seem extremely suspicious. For the author to take psychic comfort in 205,000 spoilt ballots in NPP strongholds which robbed the party of deserved victory and the fallacious reversion to ethnocentric politics where the Volta vote is condemned is regrettable, and unworthy of his fine mind. I will counsel him to read carefully the meticulously researched article on the 2008 elections by Jockers, Kohnert and Nugent, which laid the blame squarely for malfeasance in this election at the doorsteps of the ruling NPP.

The internal NPP polls which gave an 8-10% margin of victory over the NDC were all concocted from whole cloth, and designed to give evidential support to self-generated positive propaganda. Is it not striking that Larry Gibson working with these fantastic numbers, still gave victory to the NDC, albeit by a whisker? It is this particular delusion that has made defeat extremely painful for the rank and file of the NPP to bear.

The title of this essay was chosen from page 91 of the book where Dr. Kennedy lays his finger, rather unintentionally, on the structural deformity in the support base of the NPP. The party has a base in the Forest Akan areas of Ghana, but that base is not homogenous in voting patterns, or even in ethnic purity. That is why people are still rightly puzzled by the immoral fight of the party to claim victory when it won only two regions in the run-off, a move which also sought to deny that coat tail voting is the norm in this country. The problem of the NPP in confecting a durable national spread can only be addressed by following the constitutional requirement for regional balance in political leadership in this country. To Ursula Owusu, an NPP stalwart who asserted in a radio programme recently that ‘we have the numbers’, Dr. Kennedy rightly replies that ‘there are just not enough of us’ in the base of the party.

There are other juicy plums in this book which have seized our attention. The book reminds us that the NPP candidate is yet to concede defeat in this election, even after the Electoral Commission had declared President Atta Mills the victor. Professor Gibson’s recommendation to the campaign to abandon attacking the genuinely popular President Rawlings was ignored. Dr. Kennedy asserts that Nana Addo had ‘more legitimate populist credentials’ than any Ghanaian politician since Nkrumah, when the two of us in a conversation three years ago, had likened the political credentials of Nana Addo to that of the populist Mexican politician Cuanhtemoc Cardenas, who was born in the presidential palace in Mexico City when his father was president! Cardenas never became Mexican president! The reference to the Akyem Mafia reflects the disgust in party ranks and in the country at large, with the large number of family members and Kumasi hangers-on in the Kufuor presidency, which Nana Akufo-Addo seemed willing to continue with his own cabal if he had won. Their presence and access to the candidate is the problem, not the gifts and talents of some of them which Dr. Kennedy rightly argues made them an asset. In a democracy, people are right to resent the ennoblement and empowerment of family which is the norm in a monarchy.

When Kweku Baako and Gabby Otchere Darko were condemning the work, they had obviously not read the book, because the references to them were kind and generous. Gabby, in particular, seems set on a campaign to prove that indeed, he has the capacity to ‘casually offend.’ What is wrong with ‘outing’ Professor Badoe, Edward Boateng and Ahomka-Lindsay as NPP stalwarts? Preservation of the fiction of their objectivity in partisan politics is not a national good. Again, if the book contains nothing unknown to the public, why spend so much energy in attacking Dr. Kennedy? Their efforts are unlikely to disturb the confident, even-tempered and calm doctor who fought the Rawlings regime when some of them were in their diapers. The critics betray a collective low self-esteem that may mask envy of the attention that this unsuccessful presidential aspirant is getting. They predict that he has no future in the NPP, a level of vindictiveness and viciousness that does not surprise me. I have been there before, when I roundly criticized the NPP for indulging in alliance politics in the 1996 elections. Dr. Kennedy needs neither his party nor friends to be relevant in this country’s politics. He has his God, his conscience and his countrymen as his surest compass to relevance.

The delusion continues when President Kufuor seeks to correct the record on the Tain fiasco. Dr. Kennedy’s version accords with the public record. Both the president and the author would want us to believe Tain was an inevitable part of the election when we know it was called into play by the humiliated NPP after the run-off when President Mills had won with 23,000 votes. The party then briefly embraced disintegration and oblivion when it chose to go to court to estop the EC. President Kufuor and B.J. da Rocha, in public rebuttals, saved the party to enable it fight another day. What Dr. Kennedy has done is to show the NPP the mistakes to avoid in that future fight, and for that, the party ought to be deeply grateful to him.

Returnee Moses Asaga: Hard work pays

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The Minister-designate for Employment and Social Welfare, Moses Asaga, has told Citi News that it was as a result of hard work that the President of Ghana John Evans Atta Mills gave him a ministerial appointment.

An elated Asaga said on Citi Eyewitness News hours after the news broke on Wednesday that he had always wanted to serve in the Prof. Mills-led administration and feels the time has come for him to unleash what is under his sleeves for the good people of Ghana.

Hon. Asaga, who until his appointment was the chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Mines and Energy, Oil and Gas, sees his new designation as a reward from the President after having worked selflessly ever since the National Democratic Congress (NDC) assumed office in 2009.

“I’m happy because I have joined the squad,” he said. “I’m committed to work for development and Ghana as a whole. I really wanted to serve government and this is another stage. I know that hard work to mother Ghana will always be rewarded. ”

Asaga, who is the MP for Nabdam, said he will aim at establishing a good rapport between his office and the leadership of labour unions in order to keep peace on the labour front.

In 2009, Asaga was withdrawn as water resources, works and housing minister-designate for ordering the payment of the controversial ex-gratia awards without recourse to his colleagues in Parliament or the transition team of the new government then led by President Mills.

He has been a Member of Parliament since 1997.

Source: citifmonline

BOOK REVIEW: Yendi Chieftaincy Trials Of 1987

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Title: YENDI CHIEFTAINCY TRIALS OF 1987 Author: George AGYEKUM Pages: 595 The book covers two trials held in Tamale in 1987 concerning two violent incidents in Yendi and Linbunga in December 1986 and January 1987 on the aftermath of the Supreme Court decision on the Yendi Skin Affairs. The book illustrates a vivid account of events during the trial. Even though a criminal trial the cultural and traditional practices were quite eminent as if it was a trial of what were the right customary laws and usage. The introduction to the book takes the reader through a vivid simulation of what took place and causes of the conflicts and possible solutions. The revelation of the role govt played in releasing Salifu Amankwah and the intrigue and scheming is worth noting in this line the govt statement published in the Daily Graphic at page 508 is worth scrutiny. In the glossary of has several explanations of traditional titles and positions. There are several news paper cuttings in the book and what really catches the eye of the reader is on page 522 has important historical coincidences. The late Gen. F.W.K. Akuffo as a Commander is seen visiting his troops in 1969 at the conflict area. There is a group picture of Gen A.A. Afrifa, then Chairman Presidential Commission and Dr. Busia then Prime Minister at page 518, meeting some of the Chiefs and leaders of the Abudu and Andani gates in Accra. The writer of the story captioned ‘Yendi A Mini War’ was no one other than Boakye Djan then not as a soldier but a Journalist. (The historical evolution is revealing, between 1969-1979 and their new roles i.e. Akuffo and Boakye Djan. Just within 10 years) The book also has the Dagbon Constitution incorporated in full. Until I read the book little did I know that the Dagamba people had a comprehensive constitution helped to compile by the British in 193O. It traces the ancestral history of the Dagamba people and the role the drummers and drums play in the history and culture of the people. This explains the reason also why some of the conflicts arose out of festivals and drumming centred gatherings and issues. The sub title ‘Conflict Resolution Through Judicial Action’ still illustrates the challenges to the judiciary in a modern state. But is the statement correct? The decision of the Supreme Court ignited the riots as both parties asserted themselves in victory and defeat. It ended as a lose, lose situation. But the other sub title ‘A Clash between State and Traditional Norms’ sums up the basis of the whole conflict. As the facts in the book reveals it is up to opinion leaders, The National House of Chiefs and the Eminent Chiefs, who are acting as mediators to find a way of resolving the Conflict between State and Traditional Norms. The Yendi conflict is an old one but in bridging the gap between the state and traditional norms, without undermining the rich culture and historic traditions is a challenging task. For the researcher/ sociologist an even NGO operating in the Dagbon area. Knowledge of facts from the book as a background information is recommended. Schools if it could be afforded should be explored so that the youth can see the

Book Review: TREASURY OF MOTIVATIONAL QUOTES

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Treasury of Motivational Quotes, [French and English versions] by a Ghanaian journalist chronicles Ghana’s historical landscape and jubilee story in vivid colours through an array of distinguished voices.

African Statesmen, World leaders and other international dignitaries of divergent
callings, comment candidly on African unity and Globalisation.

This impressive anthology of Quotes, put together by J. Kofi Yeboah Tuafo, is richly historical, immensely relevant and places deep focus on the African condition.

As Nelson Mandela states in this densely researched collection, ‘After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are more hills to climb’. But victory and success are inevitable.

?TREASURY OF MOTIVATIONAL QUOTES? IS A MUST READ FOR THE CREATIVE MIND AND BELIEVERS IN
UNFETTERED FREEDOM AND HIGHEST DEMOCRATIC VALUES.

Medical waste scandal at 37 Hospital

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Investigations by The Globe newspaper have uncovered at the 37 Military Hospital near the Flagstaff House in Accra a massive medical waste scandal, the type of which has led to health authorities losing their jobs in other countries, with others serving severe jail terms for endangering public health.

For more than a year now, highly infectious liquid medical waste from 37 Military Hospital has been flowing freely into Accra’s main gutters, with authorities at the hospital making no attempts to reverse the trend.

Residents who live around the immediate surroundings behind the Hospital— who are at risk of contracting HIV, tuberculosis, and hepatitis and from the liquid medical waste — say they have been getting ill often these days and blamed “the hazardous medical waste from the Hospital”.

The free online dictionary defines medical waste to mean, “Any discarded biologic product such as blood or tissue removed from operating rooms, morgues, laboratories, or other medical facilities. The term may also be applied to bedding, bandages, syringes, and similar materials that have been used in treating patients and to animal carcasses or body parts used in research. Medical waste is regulated at the state and local levels. ” There are different types of medical waste management systems in countries around the world. Even though, medical waste disposal systems are not completely risk-free, the dangers can be drastically reduced with care, using treatment plants.

Experts say improper disposal of medical waste may result in damage to humans by sharp instruments, deadly diseases transmitted to humans by infectious agents, and contamination of the environment by venomous and perilous chemicals.

International standards therefore require proper management of medical waste to reduce the environmental and public health risk such wastes pose.

But The Globe’s investigations found that the main pipeline that transports liquid medical waste from the 37 Military Hospital got damaged over the year ago during what one insider called “a site clearing exercise by contractors who have been engaged to develop a huge parcel of land lying between the hospital and the only treatment plant serving the facility. ” “Since then, we have not been able to restore the pipeline. What it means is that liquid waste from mortuary, the hospital’s theatres, maternity ward and many more have been moving freely into the capital’s main drains,” an official of the hospital — who blew the lid on the scandal to this reporter — said on condition of anonymity.

“In fact Management of the hospital is aware of the problem but they have either pretended not to know or are doing very little or nothing at all to address it,” the source said.

“Again, what this situation means is that people who eat fresh vegetables like garbage, carrots, tomatoes, onions, etc produced along the main drains in Accra using water from those drains are in danger of contracting all kinds of deadly diseases, including HIV, tuberculosis, hepatitis. The reason is that the water the vegetable growers use has millions of very deadly gems in there,” another source added. As at the time of going to press, the Public Affairs Unit of the 37 Military Hospital said it was investigating the matter and could therefore not immediately comment. This reporter had previously placed a series of calls and text messages to the unit, but got no response.

This reporter’s investigation revealed that the only treatment plant that serves the hospital is in perfect working condition. However, it has been lying idle for more than a year now. Damage to the pipeline that transports waste water from the hospital to the plant for treatment means the treatment plant can no longer process perilous liquid waste from the hospital before they are released into the nation’s drains.

When The Globe visited the site, our reporter saw a wide expanse of stagnant water sitting on the large track of land cleared for a major construction project the hospital intends to put up behind the long line of bungalows that house workers and soldiers of the hospital. The water, some of which flow strait into the capital’s main drains, is from the hospital mortuary, theatres and the hospital’s labour wards.

Apart from the liquid waste, The Globe saw other forms of general waste, including used medical gloves, syringes and blood samples blood stained bandages in drains around the area. Alhassan Iddi, 35, an unemployed man from Nima, who regularly scavenges for metal and plastic objects at the site, told The Globe “the problem has persisted for more than a year now. ”

“I am a scrap dealer. I often come here looking for metal and rubber objects discarded by the hospital because I am unemployed,” he told The Globe.

“At times I find objects such as discarded syringes in the drains,” he said, adding “Sometimes you see children running after each other with these needles. On Many occasions, I sacked them from here buy they mostly come back to play with these used syringes”.

Speaking to The Globe, US trained Medical Practitioner and Lecturer, Dr Kwabena Arthur Kennedy, said “if it is true that liquid medical waste from the hospital is being discharged directly into Accra’s drains without treatment, then we have a looming heath disaster”.

“People are in danger of contracting Hepatitis A, Cholera and other serious diseases because the waste cater we are talking about is loaded with pathogens and disease causing gems and when recycled into the water we drink can be very lethal,” he said.

In September 2011, a human rights investigator for the United Nations said nearly to a quarter of the world’s garbage from hospitals, clinics, labs, blood banks and mortuaries is hazardous and called for a lot more international effort to regulate it.

Calin Georgescu, a U. N. special rapporteur, said few countries are developing the rules needed to cope with the growing mountains of medical waste that pose a hidden risk of infection and could expose people to low levels of radioactivity and needle-stick injuries. In a report to the U. N. Human Rights Council, he said nations pay “too little attention” to their tons of waste each year — waste that contains pathogens, blood, low levels of radioactivity, discarded needles, syringes, scalpels, expired drugs and vaccines. In many poorer nations, unwanted chemicals and pharmaceutical wastes go straight to city dumps, down hospital toilets into water systems, or are burned in cement kilns that just add to dioxide emissions.

Advanced countries typically generate some 6 kilograms of hazardous medical wastes per person a year, according to the World Health Organization, whereas lower-income countries make up to 3 kilograms.

According to the WHO millions of cases of hepatitis and tens of thousands of HIV infections could be prevented each year if syringe needles were disposed of safely instead of getting reused without sterilization.

1998 radioactive medical waste killed four people in Brazil in 1988, and similar accidents occurred before then in Algeria, Mexico and Morocco.

Source: The Globe

Book Review: ‘Fourth Phase of Enslavement’

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In his new book, ‘Fourth Phase of Enslavement: Unveiling the plight of African immigrants in the West’, the generalist, Emmanuel Sarpong Owusu-Ansah (aka Black Power) conscientizes and enlightens the world particularly Africans about the realities of life in Europe and other industrialized countries as an African immigrant, and provides a foundation for further informed engagement with Africans’ mass migration to the developed world and its consequences.

He argues that ‘one of the major elements that distinguish humans from animals especially mammals apart from the former’s ability to think and reason, is their right to live their lives as free beings.’ These in other words, are the key components that ‘make humankind superior to any other form of creature existing on the surface of the earth’. Sadly however, Black Africans have constantly been subjected to ‘terrible enslavement perpetrated initially by foreign powers and currently by their own leaders and the West combined; and their plight does not seem to end anytime soon’.

He maintains that the enslavement of Africans by the West commenced around the mid 15th century; a couple of decades after the arrival of the first Europeans on the shores of the continent many of whom claimed to be missionaries. By the close of the 20th century, the people of Africa had already endured at least three different eras and forms of enslavement, orchestrated mainly by Western Europe. Lamentably, the enslavement of Africans continues unabated as they come face to face with yet another form of this injustice, born out of incompetence on the part of leaders of the continent and neo-colonialism. This new form of slavery which he calls the ‘fourth phase of enslavement ? has put on a brightly coloured garment, delightful to the eyes of the African, and enticing him to get closer only to be trapped in a world of pain, depression, stress and almost unbearable discomfort.’ He contends that this most contemporary form of enslavement ‘relies heavily on mass migration to the industrialized world, and hence seemingly self-imposed.’

Drawing on volumes of relevant literature, media reports, personal experience and observation, eye witness accounts and other authentic sources, the first part of the book does not only establish the meanings of freedom and enslavement, but also touchingly reflects on the first three eras of the enslavement of Africans which he identifies as: the transatlantic slave trade era, the era of colonialism (colonial rule or imperialism), and the age of neo-colonialism referred to by Dr Kwame Nkrumah as ‘the worst form of imperialism’. The issue of mass migration to the West and the possible causes of this ?scourge? are also explored. It retraces the African migrants’ perilous journeys to the industrialized world making very shocking and extraordinary revelations about the journey ? revelations capable of turning the driest eye into a mighty waterfall. It vividly describes with tear-jerking examples the three main illegal means of migrating to western countries, namely: aircraft stow-away, ship stow-away, and the Sahara-Mediterranean journey. It draws attention to milliards of Africans who meet their untimely death in their desperate attempt to reach ?Canaan? (the Whiteman’s land). He does not spare pastors many of whom he claims serve as promoters of the emigration of Africans. He criticizes some materialistic pastors who quite ridiculously gladly offer to pray for the fulfilment of the dreams of someone planning to go to a place as dangerous as the Kosovo of old, Afghanistan, or Iraq.

The part two which is perhaps the most important and exciting aspect of the book describes and discusses the colossal tribulation and ordeal that many Black Africans go through in the western world. It touches on the difficulty in getting a job and treatment at the workplace, accommodation problems, access to health facilities, socio-cultural life of Black African immigrants, abuse from fellow Africans, racism and discrimination, and several other injustices. It however attempts to justify why many suffering immigrants are still in what he calls ‘the Lion’s Den’ and are not returning home despite the hardship.

He proclaims that the dreadful belief among some Whites that Black Africans are semi-human, irrational, dregs of society, etc, are formed thanks to corrupt African leaders, as well as the western media who persistently portray only a very negative image of the African continent and its people. He supports his proposition with a number of factual examples including a narration of an extraordinary encounter with and the shocking confession of a Swiss lady who right from infancy had been deceived by the media and her family into believing that Black Africans are probably nothing more than evolving apes.

The prolific and indomitable writer, Owusu-Ansah, also identifies and critically analyses some of the possible causes of Africa’s economic woes. The continent’s economic misery according to him has been blamed by different people on different factors. For some, colonialism and/or neo-colonialism are the chief culprits; for others, all citizens of African nations are guilty (call it collective culpability); some people also maintain that no one has done anything wrong ? the continent is just destined to remain in economic predicament ? massa damnata; and there are those who believe that corrupt leaders are the cardinal offenders. He vehemently discredits the first theory; he questions the second proposition; he ferociously challenges the third school of thought; and holding them firmly by their tails, he identifies political leaders and people in positions of authority as the chief culprits.

He cautions that until a positive change is made and the broken African economy is mended, defeating the fourth phase of enslavement by controlling mass migration of Africans to the industrialized world will be a fruitless endeavour; and the colonial representation of the continent’s sons and daughters as irrational, barbarians, and inferior, will continue to remain.

The book concludes that through the intensification of formal education; determination; the exhibition of the spirit of integrity, transparency and accountability; the employment of suitable economic and trading models; the demonstration of considerable respect for democratic governance and the principle of the rule of law; the avoidance of nepotism and ethnocentrism; and the preservation of indigenous culture while welcoming relevant external ones, African countries will achieve politico-socio-economic success. It expresses optimism that the chain of enslavement being suffered by Africans will be a thing of the past when the handsome ones do surface.

The author is noted for coining or constructing rich and thought provoking phrases in his written works, and this book is no exception. One never gets bored reading the works of authors like the invincible Black Power.

The xiv + 186 paged book, Fourth Phase of Enslavement (ISBN: 978-0-9568296-0-3) is available in a number of bookshops the world over. It could also be ordered online via Amazon, WHSmith, Ebay, Nielsen Books, and all major online bookshops.

By: Kennedy Opoku-Yeboah is a lecturer and the project director of the soon to be published work, TRAVEL AFRICA: DESTINATION GHANA. ([email protected])

Jumah: I’ll sue gov’t for the creation of illegal districts

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Maxwell Kofi Jumah

The minority spokesperson on Local Government, Hon. Maxwell Kofi Jumah, has threatened to sue the Mills administration in a bid to derail the government’s moves to create some 40 new districts across the country.

The former deputy local government minister under the Kufuor rule issued the threat in an interview with Citi News on Tuesday when MPs resumed sitting after a three-month break.

The government announced the creation of over 42 new districts last year, prompting speculations that the Electoral Commission was also planning to create 30 new constituencies.

Late last year, the government, however, failed to secure Parliamentary approval for the Legislative Instruments it sent to the House to give legislative backing to the new local authorities, after objections from the minority side.

After Tuesday’s sitting, Hon Jumah, without providing proof, told Citi News he has evidence to prove the Mills-led administration is colluding with the electoral commission to rig the December general elections.

“I have the figure that some of those new districts don’t have the required numbers set by law – the 75,000. Some are as low as 4,000 for them to qualify to be districts,” Jumah argued.

He added: “By so doing, forcing the hand of the Electoral Commission to create constituencies to favour the NDC government, so my anger is first to the government for attempting to gerrymander the constituencies and secondly the Electoral Commission for being part of that grand scheme to manipulate census figures to create phantom constituencies.

“It wouldn’t happen because I’ve done my research for all the 42 [districts] that they are attempting to put up and I’ve gone through the constitution, Act 462 and all the other relevant laws and none of them qualify to be. I’ll take all of them to court and throw all of them out. ”

Source: citifmonline

Three ministers lose their jobs in ministerial reshuffle

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The much anticipated ministerial reshuffle has finally been done with three ministers losing their jobs.

Health Minister, Joseph Yieleh Chireh, Central Regional Minister, Ama Benyiwa Doe and Information Minister John Tia have lost their jobs.

Acting Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Dr Benjamin Kunbour has been made the substantive AG, while Works and Housing Minister Alban Sumana Bagbin takes over the Health Ministry.

ET Mensah goes to the Works and Housing Ministry while Mr Lee Ocran is taking over the Education Ministry.

Mr Fritz Baffour is heading to the Information Ministry with Mr William Kwesi Aboah takes over from Dr Kunbour as Interior Minister.

The Upper West Region gets Alhaji Amin Sulemana as the new regional minister while Mr Dominic Azembe Azumah goes to the Presidency as a Minister of State.

The Member of Parliament for Mfatseman West, Mr Thomas Aquinas is the Deputy Central Regional Minister-designate and MP for Babdam, Mr Moses Asaga replaces ET Mensah as Employment and Social Welfare Minister-designate.

Ama Benyiwa Doe

The president also made a number of Deputy Ministerial appointments.

Deputy Information Minister Baba Jamal swaps places with Deputy Tourism Minister James Agyenim Boateng.

Dr Omane Boateng is heading to the Ministry of Youth and Sports as a deputy minister while Mr Henry Ametepey has been appointed the Deputy Volta Regional Minister.

Dr Mustapha Ahmed replaces Dr Omane Boamah as the deputy minister with Nii Nortey Dua going to Water Resources, Works and Housing as a deputy minister.

Messrs Steven Ackah and Isaac Vanderpuije are going to the Local Government Ministry and Greater Accra Region respectively as deputy ministers.

Alhaji Siad Sinare has been appointed Ghana’s Ambassador to Egypt. He replaces Alhaji Amidu Sulemana.

Source: myjoyonline.com

Govt donates to familiies of Tema rain disaster victims

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The Tema Metropolitan Assembly (TMA) has donated an amount of GHC 5,000 on behalf of government to the families of victims who met their untimely death when an uncompleted church building at Tema New Town collapsed on them.

Tema Mayor, Mr. Robert Kempes Ofosu Ware, said the money must be shared equally among both families to fund funeral preparations for their dead.

Wife of a 52-year-old security man, Frederick Quansah and mother of a 6-year-old Matilda Jackson received the money amidst tears. The two were crushed to death by a fallen wall at Tema New Town in last Sunday’s heavy downpour.

Mr. Ofosu cautioned developers to ensure that the right things are done when putting up such structures.

“Our taskforce and building inspectors are not many and cannot be everywhere so we are appealing to the communities to help by reporting these structures at the assembly so that the bylaws can be enforced”, the Mayor told Adom News.

Meanwhile, Pastor of the collapsed church building has been arrested and the New Town Police have started investigations into the issue.

Families of late Frederick Quansah and Matilda Jackson expressed their gratitude to government for the support.

Meanwhile, four other persons, including a 7-month-old baby who sustained various degrees of injury are responding to treatment at the Tema General Hospital.

Source: myjoyonline.com

Betty must explain her resignation – Prof. Ocquaye

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The opposition New Patriotic Party is mounting pressure on the former Minister of Education Betty Mould-Iddrisu to give reasons for her resignation.

Mrs Betty Mould-Iddrisu’s resignation on Monday comes barely a week after Martin Amidu was fired as the Attorney General for what the Castle said was “misconduct” in the midst of his determination to retrieve over GH¢50 million paid to an NDC financier, Alfred Agbesi Woyome, as judgement debt.

Madam Iddrisu was the Attorney General during the controversial arrangement that led to the payment. The NPP minority MPs had called on the president to fire her.

Even though she has resigned on her own, the minority in parliament are not satisfied. Second Deputy speaker of parliament Professor Mike Ocquaye is demanding detailed explanation.

He told Joy News’ Parliamentary Correspondent, Sammy Darko that Mrs Mould-Iddrisu must explain her exact role in the payment of the huge amount.

“A resignation does not absolve from either legal or moral liability. A resignation does not answer all the questions that the public needs to know.”

Prof. Ocquaye suspects that certain disclosures were made in the meeting held at the Castle, where Mr Amidu was reported to have misconducted himself in the presence of the president.

He said it would be “farcical and it would be a joke” for the former Education Minister to keep the reasons from the public and wait till she is invited by a mandated body before making any disclosures.

Meanwhile, a pressure group, the Progressive Nationalist Forum, is demanding the prosecution of Betty Mould Iddrissu and Finance Minister Dr Kwabena Duffour prosecuted for causing financial loss to the state.

The PNF accuses Mrs. Iddrissu of committing an offence by facilitating the payment of the money to Alfred Woyome.

It also wants Deputy A-G Ebo Barton Odro removed and Martin Amidu reinstated within 17 days to pursue the legal process to recover the sum of 51 million cedis to the state.

For the time being, Dr. Emmanuel Akwetey, the Executive Director of the Institute for Democratic Governance, told Joy News’ Dzifa Bampoh that there was merit in the call by Prof. Ocquaye.

“Yes I think there is merit. First of all on grounds of accountability to the public, the public has the right to know and this is a matter of great interest.”

Source: myjoyonline.com

QPR AND CHELSEA ISSUE FANS WARNING IN BID TO LOWER TENSIONS

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Terry is expected to start for Chelsea in the FA Cup tie at QPR

QPR and Chelsea have said they will take action against anyone using discriminatory language during their FA Cup tie on Saturday.

The match will be the first time the two clubs have met since Chelsea’s John Terry was charged with racially abusing Anton Ferdinand in October’s derby.

A QPR and Chelsea joint statement said: “Discrimination has no place in football or society.”

On Tuesday, QPR encouraged Ferdinand to shake hands with Terry before the tie.
Continue reading the main story

A local derby is always a special occasion and this weekend’s FA Cup tie is a unique opportunity to show the world that hatred has no place in our game, our clubs, or our communities
QPR and Chelsea joint statement

Blues manager Andre Villas-Boas has appealed for calm ahead of the game at QPR’s Loftus Road ground.

The statement added: “Both clubs enjoy fantastic support. However we would remind fans that, while we want to hear their passion, it’s a fact that hatred and abuse is not what being a fan of QPR or Chelsea is about.

“The clubs will work together with the police to ensure that anyone using discriminatory or inflammatory language is identified and that the strongest possible action is taken against them.

“We would urge fans witnessing any form of abuse to report it to a matchday steward.

“Let’s make Saturday’s match a celebration of football.

“A local derby is always a special occasion and this weekend’s FA Cup tie is a unique opportunity to show the world that hatred has no place in our game, our clubs, or our communities.”

The Chelsea skipper was charged after his side’s 1-0 league defeat at Loftus Road on 23 October.

The England captain, who denies the allegations, is due to attend a hearing at West London Magistrates Court on 1 February.

Saturday’s fourth-round game will kick off at noon, partly on the advice of police.

WEST MEMPHIS THREE OSCAR DOCUMENTARY NOD SPARKS ROW

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West Memphis Three Oscar documentary nod sparks row

Filmmakers Joe Berlinger (left) and Bruce Sinofsky (right) with West Memphis Three member Jason Baldwin

The parents of two of three boys who were murdered in 1993 in the US have said they are “disappointed” that a documentary about the killings has been nominated for an Oscar.

Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory tells of the murders of 8-year-olds Michael Moore, Stevie Branch and Christopher Byers.

Todd and Diana Moore and Branch’s father and stepfather said it glorified the men convicted of the killings – the so-called West Memphis Three.

They called the film “a fraud”.

Expressing their “sadness and outrage”, the parents added, “This film should be exposed as a fraud, not rewarded with an Academy Award nomination,” in a three-page open letter to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

The Moores had previously asked the Academy to not consider the film for a prize.

Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory is the third in the series of HBO documentaries following convicted Arkansas men Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley who have always maintained their innocence of the killings, which the prosecution asserted were part of a satanic ritual.

Alford plea

The first film in the series was screened in 1996 and immediately raised doubts about the case.

One of the issues the documentary questions is whether Stevie Branch’s stepfather, Terry Hobbs – who co-signed the Moores’ letter along with Branch’s father – could have been the killer.

The three maintain their innocence though they pleaded guilty to win their freedom

The trio spent 18 years in prison, with Echols – who was 18 at the time – sentenced to death, and Baldwin and Misskelley – both aged 16 – sentenced to life imprisonment.

They were released last August after they pleaded guilty under a so-called Alford plea that allowed them to maintain their innocence while acknowledging prosecutors had enough evidence to convict them.

Over the years, celebrities such as Johnny Depp, Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder and the Dixie Chicks’ Natalie Maines joined the effort to free the men.

Christopher Byers’ family and Stevie Branch’s mother have also since come to believe the men are innocent.

The film’s director, Joe Berlinger, said he was sympathetic to the victims’ families.

“We believe that the pursuit of the truth has been the best way to honour the memories of the victims of this unimaginable crime and our hearts go out to those who are criticising us,” he said in an email to the Associated Press.

Berlinger said he thought he was making a film about guilty teenagers when he first went to West Memphis in 1994, but that spending eight months covering the case and watching the trials “convinced us that the West Memphis Three did not receive a fair trial”.

However the Moores said of the directors: “They now claim to be ‘searching for the real killers’ of our sons, but it seems unlikely they will be able to do so while directing movies, travelling the globe, and partying with rock stars.

“Our sons, meanwhile, remain dead in their graves.”

The Academy has so far not made a comment on the issue.

Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory is nominated for best documentary feature along with Hell and Back Again, If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front, Pina and Undefeated.

EQUATORIAL GUINEA V SENEGAL

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Coach Gilson Paulo leads Equatorial Guinea in training in Bata before the game
Africa Cup of Nations 2012
Venue: Estadio de Bata Group: Group A Date: Wednesday, 25 January Kick-off: 1900 GMT Coverage: Watch live on Eurosport; live text commentary and full report plus reaction on the BBC Sport website and mobiles

TEAM NEWS
Regular Equatorial Guinea captain Rodolfo Bodipo is set to miss out again as the forward continues to be affected by injury.

Limping before the first match with an ankle injury, he came on as a late substitute against Libya but was stretchered off with an injury to his left leg.

Attacking midfielder Randy is one booking away from a suspension, as is Senegal’s Guirane N’Daw.

Teranga Lions coach Amara Traore has been tipped to drop Mamadou Niang to the bench after the captain was relegated to the B team in a training session.

MATCH PREVIEW
Equatorial Guinea are on the verge of reaching the Nations Cup quarter-finals despite being tournament outsiders just days ago.

The National Lightning – who are the lowest-ranked team at the finals – earned an opening day 1-0 win against Libya but face a tougher challenge from Senegal.

Stand-in captain Juvenal Edjogo, deputising for Bodipo (who could make his return in the final group game, say team doctors), believes the Libya win can lift the co-hosts to even greater heights.

“It was so important for us to begin the competition with a win and the future is looking bright,” said the midfielder.

Senegal, meanwhile, have work to do if they are to get their Nations Cup back on track.

Highly-fancied thanks to a wealth of attacking talent, the Teranga Lions’ defence belied its reputation when ripped to pieces by Zambia’s Chipolopolo in their surprise 2-1 defeat.

“We must go back to fundamentals like passing, working together and being aggressive,” said Traore, whose side were ramshackle at times on Saturday.

Winger Issiar Dia will fancy his chances of starting for the West Africans after impressing as a second-half substitute against Zambia.

CARLOS TEVEZ’S MANCHESTER CITY DISPUTE COSTS STRIKER £9.3M

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Carlos Tevez’s Manchester City dispute costs striker £9.3m

By David Ornstein
BBC Sport

Tevez has now lost out on £9.3m in earnings from City

Carlos Tevez’s dispute with Manchester City has cost the Argentine striker £9.3m in wages, fines and lost bonuses.

It is understood he has not been paid his salary, estimated at £200,000 a week, since the end of November.

And he has also been fined £1.2m for gross misconduct over his refusal to return from South America.

Meanwhile, City chairman Khaldoon al-Mubarak has criticised AC Milan for their conduct in trying to sign Tevez, suggesting they are out of the running.
Tevez monetary factfile
28 October: Fined two weeks’ wages for breach of contract related to Bayern game (£400,000)
7 November: Tevez flies to Argentina without permission. He has been there since
22 December: City charge Tevez with gross misconduct for his actions since 7 November. (Six weeks’ fine: £1.2m). Given until 7 January to appeal, which he did
11 January: Appeal heard by directors and dismissed. Given until 30 January to appeal to Premier League
Tevez has not been paid since the end of November (£1.7m)
Shortly before the Bayern match he was formally informed £6m in loyalty bonuses for the remainder of his contract were being rescinded for repeated transfer requests
Total loss of earnings: about £9.3m

Tevez’s preferred choice would be AC Milan but Al-Mubarak criticised both the club and their vice-president Adriano Galliani, saying the Italians’ discussions with Tevez and his advisers had been “premature”.

“As things stand, AC Milan are not an option for Carlos,” said Al-Mubarak, who will only let Tevez go for £25m, plus add-ons.

Speaking publicly on the subject for the first time, Al-Mubarak told the National newspaper in Abu Dhabi: “If they want to be a consideration in this transfer window, they would do better to stop congratulating one another and begin to look at how they would meet our terms.

“Unless we receive an offer we deem appropriate, the terms of his contract will be enforced.

“Inter Milan and Paris Saint-Germain approached discussions with us in good faith. It is always a positive experience to deal with people with a professional approach.”

The current saga began when the 27-year-old was fined two weeks’ wages after boss Roberto Mancini alleged the striker refused to come on as a substitute during City’s tie against Bayern Munich in a Champions League tie in September, although Tevez claimed there had been a misunderstanding.

He left for South America and his refusal to return saw him fined six weeks’ wages (£1.2m).
Continue reading the main story

Carlos has said many times before that money has never been a motivation
Tevez spokesman

That fine is currently the subject of an appeal to the Premier League after Tevez’s initial challenge was rejected by Blues directors Marty Edelman and Mohamed al-Mazrouei on 7 January.

Prior to the Bayern match, Tevez forfeited £6m in loyalty bonuses because of his previous requests to leave City.

Tevez’s current deal does not expire until June 2014, but the Argentine has not played for City since 21 September and is currently in his home country.

“Carlos has said many times before that money has never been a motivation,” said a spokesman for Tevez.

“We reached an agreement with Manchester City in terms of his wages when he returned to Argentina and nothing has changed on that front. Now all Carlos wants to do is get back to playing football again.”

City and Tevez want his departure to be confirmed before the end of the January transfer window but the club are unwilling to reduce their fee or let him leave on loan.

Betty Mould wants to kill me – Minority Leader

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Mrs. Betty Mould Iddrisu

The Minority Leader in Parliament, Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu, has alleged that the former Education Minister, Betty Mould-Iddrisu has threatened to kill him.

According to Mensah-Bonsu, some close confidants of Mrs. Mould-Iddrisu heard her say that she was going to deal with him by ending his life.

Speaking on Eyewitness News on Citi FM on Tuesday, Hon. Mensah-Bonsu, who doubles as the Member of Parliament for Suame constituency stated that he is not perturbed by the threat from the former Attorney General stating that Mould-Iddrisu is incapable of carrying out such a move.

Mrs. Mould-Iddrisu resigned from her position as Education Minister on Monday which was accepted by President Mills this Tuesday.

Hon. Mensah-Bonsu has stated that he may file an official report with the police on the alleged threats by the former A-G on his Life.

“She spoke to some people who came to tell me that this is what she has told them that if I do cross her path… I should consider myself dead,” the legislator alleged. “I don’t believe she is capable of executing it… however, we are all human so we have to thread with caution.”

“I will discuss it with my colleagues and if we have to go to the police, we will do that,” he said.

Mrs. Mould-Iddrisu had been under pressure by the minority led by Hon. Mensah-Bonsu to resign over her handling of the payment of about GhC58 million to Mr. Alfred Woyome, while she was attorney general.

The former A-G has been accused of failing to defend the case brought against the state by Mr. Woyome resulting in the payment of such whopping sum in judgment debt paid to the NDC financier.

Source: citifmonline

Controversy as Bukom Banku lays claims to Azonto

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The debate over who is the originator of the popular “Azonto” dance is far from over as boxer cum comedian, Braimah Kamoko aka Bukom Banku is claiming ownership of the dance.

The origins of Azonto, which has become the hottest dance in Ghana today and has even gone international, have been hotly contested.

While one school of thought believes that it is a neo-traditional dance of the Ga people in the Greater Accra Region such as “Apaa” or “Gombe”, others say it emanated from the creativity of some Ghanaian dancers which was taken onto the world stage by Ghanaian striker Asamoah Gyan, who dances Azonto whenever he scores a goal.

But Bukom Banku has challenged those stories claiming that he originated the dance and last Saturday put up quite a show at the T-Havana Park at Tema Community Nine to prove that he is the king of Azonto.

While speaking on Adom FM’s entertainment programme, Adom Billboard, two weeks before, Bukom Banku contested the name Azonto being used for the dance saying its original name is “Tso Ye Osee” which in the Ga dialect literally means “there is a tree behind you so watch your back” and that was when he issued the challenge that he was ready to battle whoever believed could dance better than him.

True to his words he displayed a high sense of creativity, artistry and flair as he danced his version of Azonto to the admiration of the patrons who had gathered at the park.

His dance was characterized by movements such as washing, driving, ironing as well as boxing.

Patrons of the show shouted and applauded with joy as they watched the talented boxer do his own thing with some of them. Young and old, male and female, who believed in their dancing skills gave him stiff opposition as they also exhibited marvelous moves.

Speaking with Adom Entertainment News later, Bukom Banku said that he was impressed with the talents he saw in Tema.

“There are great crop of dancers in Tema but their style of Azonto is more of a formation dance and not the original Azonto,” he said.

Source: Kwaku Adu Kumi/Adom Entertainment News/Ghana

PORTSMOUTH ISSUED WITH HMRC WINDING-UP PETITION

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Portsmouth issued with HMRC winding-up petition

Portsmouth are currently searching for new owners

Portsmouth have been issued with a winding-up petition by HM Revenue and Customs over unpaid tax.

A source at HMRC confirmed to BBC Radio Solent that the petition against Pompey over unpaid tax has been published.

Chief executive David Lampitt confirmed on Saturday that Pompey had failed to meet two payments to HMRC.

Portsmouth are searching for new owners after parent company Convers Sports Initiatives (CSI) entered administration in November.
Continue reading the main story

We still have a significant number of parties interested in acquiring the club who are actively pursuing their respective interests
Portsmouth FC statement
Read the full club statement

“Ensuring tax is paid on time should be at the centre of a football club’s business strategy just as it should be for any other enterprise,” said a HMRC spokesman.

“It is only fair to those clubs and to other taxpayers who do meet their obligations that HMRC enforces payment of tax debts owed – and if need be, issues a winding up petition or seeks to appoint an administrator.”

Italian businessman Joseph Cala pulled out of a deal to buy Pompey on Friday.

There is an urgency to complete a deal with fresh backers, as investment is needed if Portsmouth are to meet ongoing costs.

CSI’s administrator Andrew Andronikou revealed on Friday that Pompey have missed two tax payments of £800,000 to HMRC, totalling £1.6m.

We are in a difficult position and will remain in a difficult position until the ownership is sorted
Portsmouth chief executive David Lampitt

In a statement issued on Tuesday, Portsmouth said the winding-up order was the result of the failure of owners CSI to provide promised funding to support the club financially from November to January.

“One of the reasons for this is that the administrator has not generated expected funds from the sale of other CSI businesses that might have assisted the club’s position,” the statement said.

It went on to say that the situation may well result in player sales while new owners for the club are sought.

“We still have a significant number of parties interested in acquiring the club who are actively pursuing their respective interests,” it added.

“We therefore remain positive that a solution will be found before some of these difficult choices have to be made.”

BBC South understands that any purchaser would need to provide £12m as proof of funds, and assurances they could meet another £20m in repayments to former creditors, Balram Chainrai and Alexandre Gaydamak.

The club also said they were still waiting to learn whether they might be docked league points.

“The league are finalising their report on the club’s position following the administration of CSI and we are expecting to receive the outcome shortly,” the statement said.

“However, we understand that the league may delay their decision until the club’s current ownership situation is closer to being resolved.”

MARIO BALOTELLI COULD BE FORCED OUT OF ENGLISH FOOTBALL – AGENT

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Balotelli scored a match-winning penalty after tangling with Parker

Mario Balotelli’s agent has warned the striker could quit English football if he continues to receive what he sees as unfair treatment.

Balotelli, 21, is facing a four-match ban after being charged with violent conduct by the Football Association.

The City forward appeared to stamp on Scott Parker before scoring a late penalty to secure Manchester City’s 3-2 win over Tottenham on Sunday.

“I think he feels persecuted; he cannot go on like that,” said Mino Raiola.

He didn’t do anything on purpose, he was clearly pushed and was out of balance and put down his feet
Raiola on Balotelli’s Parker challenge

Agent Raiola added on BBC Radio 5 live: “We had a very clear image of his career at the beginning and I told the press openly Mario will have to stay at Manchester City for at least three of four years, helping the club on this important project and grow as a man and a player.

“Obviously if he’s being banned every three or four games for one reason or another we cannot go on like that and there needs to be an end to that.

“So if that’s the case and English referees and the English FA would like Mario to go out of England then we would take that seriously in consideration, even if that’s not and was not our intention.

“He [Mario] is very disappointed about the decision. He loves playing in England. He keeps asking ‘why always me, why does it always come back to me?’ He loves playing in England and I think he feels persecuted.”

Balotelli joined City in a £24m deal from Inter Milan in the summer of 2010 but has been involved in a number of controversies on and off the pitch.

He has been sent off three times, was unable to continue after suffering an allergy to the grass in Kiev, threw a dart at a reserve team player and escaped injury after a firework was let off in his house.

Raiola is adamant that his player did not deliberately hurt Parker in the win against Spurs, insisting that TV replays back up his claim.

“He didn’t do anything on purpose, he was clearly pushed and was out of balance and put down his feet,” said the agent.

“That’s also clear in the slow-motion replays.”

Raiola had earlier suggested he felt there might be a conspiracy against foreign players such as Balotelli and City team-mate Vincent Kompany, who was also suspended for four games earlier this month.

He told Italian reporters: “I want to be balanced but I’m worried because when English players are involved in more serious things, nothing happens, whereas when foreigners are involved, such as Balotelli or Kompany, they were treated harder.

Appeals are futile – Platt

“If I find that there is something strange against Balotelli, my duty is to protect and then take him away.

“In this case I would speak with City, I’d ask them Balotelli’s price and would look for the best team for him, as there are only six or seven teams he can play for.”

Manchester City have yet to decide whether to appeal against the violent conduct charge, but first-team coach David Platt hinted on Tuesday that the club would reluctantly accept the decision.

Balotelli has until 1800 GMT on Wednesday to respond to the charge.

Earlier this month the FA rejected City’s appeal against Kompany’s controversial sending-off in their FA Cup third-round defeat by Manchester United.

Kompany was handed a four-match ban for his second red card of the season.

LIBYA V ZAMBIA

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Libya v Zambia

Heroic qualifiers Libya could face an early exit if they lose on Wednesday and the Equatorial Guinea vs Senegal result goes against them
Africa Cup of Nations 2012
Venue: Estadio de Bata Group: Group A Date: Wednesday, 25 January Kick-off: 1600 GMT Coverage: Watch live on Eurosport; live text commentary and full report plus reaction on the BBC Sport website and mobiles

TEAM NEWS
Libya welcome back Mohamed El Mughrabi after the defensive stalwart missed the Equatorial Guinea defeat through suspension.

The Morocco-based player’s return enables coach Marcos Paqueta to choose from a full squad for a match his side cannot afford to lose.

Three Libyans – Abubakar Suiueuinei, Abdalah Al Sherif and Ahmed Osman – are a booking away from suspension while only Zambia goalkeeper Kennedy Mweene was cautioned against Senegal.

French coach Herve Renard has a full squad to choose from as the Zambians look for a second successive victory to nudge them towards the quarter-finals.

MATCH PREVIEW
These two teams know each other well after meeting twice during the qualifiers for these finals.

Libya won the first meeting 1-0 at home, before holding their Zambian hosts to a goalless draw in the return leg – a result which qualified both teams for the tournament.

Chipolopolo coach Renard is keen to point out that the failure to beat the Libyans came under previous coach Dario Bonetti, whom the Frenchman replaced after qualification was assured.

He has also brought in a handful of different players and with Saturday’s stunning opening win over Senegal in the bank, Zambia will be a different proposition.

“We are confident of going very far with the coach demanding nothing less than a semi-finals place,” said midfielder Isaac Chansa.

Libya, meanwhile, are looking for their first victory at a Nations Cup since beating none other than Zambia on home soil 30 years ago.

The Mediterranean Knights struggled to make any impact on the Equatorial Guinea defence on Saturday, with Ahmed Zuway toiling alone up front for little reward.

They will need improved performances across the park if they are to avoid the prospect of an early exit after the feat of qualifying for the finals against a backdrop of civil war.

MARK LAWRENSON ON LIVERPOOL V MAN CITY

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By Mark Lawrenson
BBC Sport football expert
Carling Cup semi-final, second leg
Venue: Anfield Date: Wednesday, 25 January Kick-off: 1945 GMT Coverage: Watch live on Sky Sports 1 and highlights on The League Cup Show (BBC1, 2325 GMT); listen on BBC Radio 5 live, BBC Radio Manchester and BBC Radio Merseyside; text commentary on the BBC Sport website

Gerrard penalty gives Liverpool edge

Liverpool’s Carling Cup semi-final game against Manchester City is pivotal for Kenny Dalglish’s side because they could be back at Wembley for the first time in 16 years.

As poor as they were against Bolton on Saturday, I don’t think they will play that badly again and I think Kenny identified the problem that one or two players already had their eyes on the semi-final.

He has made his point, saying to them: ‘That’s not how it works in this place, you play every game as if it might be your last’.

The second leg will be completely different to the first game at Etihad Stadium. I have seen City live a lot this season. In the first leg, that is the worst I’ve seen them. They were a bit rudderless, but David Silva wasn’t playing, and he’ll be back.

Also, Roberto Mancini’s hand is a little bit forced because his team have to score. I think he might play an extra attacking player, although they usually play with four anyway.

Liverpool might be five points off the Champions League spots but I think their fans will accept a cup win and Europa League qualification. They have a great chance of doing that if they beat City, because they would start as favourites against Cardiff in the League Cup final.

I said at the start of the season I didn’t think Liverpool would qualify for the Champions League because they are a little bit short and I think that’s exactly how it’s going to be.

Liverpool fans are a little bit different in so far as the ones who have been going week in week out for years know when they have a really good side.

They also know when they have a side which is a work in progress – which I think this one is. It is still short in one or two positions. Most Liverpool fans will look at this side and think, ‘If we get in the Champions League we will have done brilliantly’.

On Saturday against Bolton, Liverpool were poor defensively and normally that’s the real strength of the team.

They had a bad day so you can write that off. The problem with their attack and Andy Carroll in particular is that he played in a Newcastle team that played to his strengths. Liverpool don’t play that way.

I think Liverpool see Carroll as another option for them and, without the suspended Luis Suarez, they look really short up front. The problem is that Carroll needs to play every week to get his strength but at the moment he is just not the same player that Liverpool thought they signed from Newcastle. You cannot hide that.

I don’t think the £35m price tag would put Kenny under any additional pressure to pick Carroll, he just picks his team and that’s it.

I am a bit surprised that Dirk Kuyt hasn’t played that many games, especially when Suarez has been unavailable. Liverpool are a striker light in terms of somebody who can play off Suarez or someone who can play on his own up front when the Uruguayan is not around.

Steven Gerrard is back now but the other problem Liverpool have is that the midfield players aren’t weighing in with goals.

Regardless of Saturday’s result, there will be a reaction tonight. Manchester City are the top team in the league and Anfield will be coliseum-like.

Night games like this seem to cultivate a real spectacle at Anfield. Liverpool won’t be hungry to win, they will be starving.

Mark Lawrenson was talking to BBC Sport’s Alistair Magowan

ROYAL BALLET ‘IN SHOCK’ AS DANCER SERGEI POLUNIN QUITS

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Royal Ballet ‘in shock’ as dancer Sergei Polunin quits

Sergei Polunin and Lauren Cuthbertson at The Royal Opera House, London, 2011

Principal dancer Sergei Polunin has surprised bosses at the Royal Ballet by resigning from his post, less than two years after he was promoted.

In a statement, Royal Ballet director Dame Monica Mason admitted his decision had been a “huge shock”.

Polunin joined the ballet in 2007 and was promoted to principal at the end of the 2009-10 season, aged just 19.

He had been due to appear in The Dream next week, but has stepped down from his role with immediate effect.

Arrangements are now being put in place so the show can still premiere on 1 February. It is likely that Steven McRae, a Sydney-born dancer who has been with the Royal Ballet since 2004, will replace him.

In a statement, Dame Monica said: “This has obviously come as a huge shock. Sergei is a wonderful dancer and I have enjoyed watching him tremendously, both on stage and in the studio, over the past few years.

“I wish him every success in the future.”

Polunin commented on his decision on Twitter, saying: “Just have to go through one night!!! then will make my next moves.”

He also updated his biography to say: “Principal Dancer of ?”

On New Year’s Eve he posted the comment: “2012 it’s going to be controversial.” Five days later, he added: “Who wants to live forever anyway??? really.”

Despite his resignation, he is still expected to dance in Ivan Putrov’s Men in Motion, which opens at Sadler’s Wells on Friday.

A spokeswoman for the London dance house said in a statement: “I am pleased to confirm that Sergei is still performing in Ivan’s Men in Motion this weekend. His resignation from the Royal Ballet is not in connection with the show.”
Strict regime

A bout of pneumonia as a child helped Polunin decide to become a dancer.

In an interview with the Independent newspaper last November, he explained how he gave up gymnastics for ballet because the dusty halls had affected his health.

“I’d always been one of the best in my gymnastics school, so I transferred to trying to be the best dancer, without knowing anything about ballet,” he said.

He also revealed that he struggled to follow the strict diet and exercise regimes that professional dancers adhere to.

“I’m not good. I don’t do many classes. Sometimes I don’t eat all day, then have four meals between 8pm and 4am. I go to bed really late – if I just sleep I won’t have a life outside ballet.”

4Syte’s Jeremie: I am Still A Virgin

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Jeremie Van-Garshong

Jeremie Van-Garshong of YFM and co-host of 4Syte TV, who will turn 28 in June, had made it public that she has never had any sexual intercourse in her life and that her virginity is still perfectly intact.

Jeremie is one of the few persons whose voices have won the hearts and minds of many people in Ghana, and she over the weekend made some interesting revelations about her personal life during a television interview with Delores Frimpong Manso on the Delay Talk Show.

Jeremie said she had never had sex and that she considered virginity as something that should be preserved, especially when she is the daughter of a Man of God and has strong Christian principles. She put to rest the long speculated controversy on whether or not she and her co-host Jay-Foley had dated were dating or would soon be dating. “Jay Foley is not my lover. You are not the first person asking this question but let me explain it to Ghana. People started to put us together because they often see us together.

We live in the same hood, we do radio and advertising people together, we work together for 4syte and we work together at YFM. “We have never dated or gone out. But we are very good friends and we do everything together. But seeing two people together all the time does not mean they are lovers…I am not dating and I am a virgin. It is something that you have to keep – I am a pastor’s daughter and I don’t play with God,” Jeremie noted.

Explaining why she had a foreign accent, Jeremie said it was because of the type of schools she attended and the fact that she stayed outside Ghana for a long time. `“I attended Morning Star and that was where I started school. So from the basic level, I was already speaking good English.

Then I continued to Aburi Girls and then I travelled outside the country. I went to France but I attended an international school there, Lycee George Clemenceau, so though the school was in France, our course content was in English so I was speaking English and that was where I picked it up,” Jeremie revealed. She denied faking the accent or rehearsing before going on radio. “No I don’t pretend, I don’t fake it and I don’t rehearse it. When I seat behind the console, I flow naturally.”

Jeremie also explained that though she wanted to study International Relations, she ended in Journalism by chance. “I started radio from Vibe FM.

I was sent there to do my attachment after journalism school and I was assigned as a receptionist but people started to ask questions to find out who I was because I guess I sounded nice. “My boss came to me one day and said there was something about me so he wanted to put me on radio. Actually, it was not something that I really wanted to do because my aim was to do international relations and I would still do it. So there was a time the person who was asked to read the news did not report for work and I was asked to read it. It was like I should just read it and I was not given time to rehearse or anything…I read it and they said it was good. I stayed with Vibe FM for five to six years.

Source: News one

CARDIFF 1 – 0 CRYSTAL PALACE

News Ghana
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Cardiff   1 – 0   Crystal Palace (agg 1 – 1)

Cardiff goalkeeper Tom Heaton celebrates after his penalty heroics

Cardiff City keeper Tom Heaton proved the penalty shoot-out hero to inspire the Bluebirds to the Carling Cup final.

Heaton saved Crystal Palace’s first two penalties from Jermaine Easter and Sean Scannell to book the home team’s fourth trip to Wembley in as many years.

Cardiff trailed 1-0 from the first leg but Palace’s Anthony Gardner headed into his own net to level the tie.

The home team then dominated but failed to turn it into goals, even when Eagles captain Patrick McCarthy was sent off.
Cardiff City’s Wembley run
Continue reading the main story
2008 FA Cup semi-final: Barnsley 0-1 Cardiff
2008 FA Cup final: Cardiff 0-1 Portsmouth
2010 Play-off final: Blackpool 3-2 Cardiff
2012 Carling Cup final: Cardiff v Man City/Liverpool

Palace defended bravely after McCarthy’s dismissal for a second yellow card on 78 minutes, holding firm during extra time.

But, having been denied by the woodwork three times, Cardiff held their nerve in the penalty shoot-out to reach their first League Cup final and book a Wembley meeting with either Liverpool or Manchester City on 26 February.

They got off to a bad start in the shoot-out when Cardiff top scorer Kenny Miller blazed his side’s first kick over.

But Heaton, Cardiff’s second-choice keeper who has been preferred to David Marshall throughout their Carling Cup run, turned the tide back in the home side’s favour.

LAST FIVE SECOND-TIER TEAMS IN LEAGUE CUP FINAL
2001: Birmingham lost 5-4 on penalties to Liverpool
2000: Tranmere lost 2-1 to Leicester
1998: Middlesbrough lost 2-0 after extra-time to Chelsea
1995: Bolton lost 2-1 to Liverpool
1991: Sheffield Wednesday beat Manchester United 1-0

He brilliantly saved from Easter and then read Scannell’s effort too, after Craig Conway had slotted Cardiff’s second spot-kick.

Rudy Gestede and Peter Whittingham put Cardiff 3-1 ahead, either side of Mile Jedinak firing into Heaton’s bottom right corner to get Palace going.

But Jonathan Parr’s nerve failed him, as he too missed the target to ensure that a tense all-Championship semi-final between Malky Mackay’s third-placed Cardiff and Dougie Freedman’s 14th-placed Palace went to form.

Having started with attacking intent, Cardiff levelled the tie after just seven minutes.

Mackay delighted with Cardiff display

Darcy Blake played the ball into the right channel for the onrushing Don Cowie, the Scottish midfielder wrapped his foot around the ball to send in a dangerous cross and Gardner, Palace’s goal hero from the first leg, instinctively lunged at the ball but headed into his own net.

Palace keeper Julian Speroni then beat away a fierce shot from Whittingham, before Aron Gunnarsson ballooned a header over and Miller slid just wide before going even closer in time added on at the end of the first half, controlling with his back to goal at the edge of the area before spinning in one fluid movement to crash a left-foot shot against the post.

Palace came out hard after the break but it was the same story, Whittingham again firing wide before bringing the best out of Speroni, who tipped over his free-kick.

PENALTY SHOOT-OUT
0-0: Cardiff’s Miller fires over
0-0: Palace’s Easter’s shot saved
1-0: Cardiff’s Conway scores
1-0: Palace’s Scannell’s shot saved
2-0: Cardiff’s Gestede scores
2-1: Palace’s Jedinak scores
3-1: Cardiff’s Whittingham scores
3-1: Palace’s Parr shoots over

McCarthy then came to the Eagles’ rescue moments later, clearing off the line when Anthony Gerrard peeled away to head a free-kick past Speroni.

But the Palace skipper was to get his marching orders 12 minutes from the end of normal time when he scythed through the back of Miller, his second yellow card, having already been booked for an earlier foul on the same player.

Cowie had a late chance to win it in normal time before being sacrificed when Mackay opted to take advantage of the extra man.

He brought on another attacker in Gestede, who laid the ball off perfectly in the second period of extra time for Filip Kiss, only for the Slovakian midfielder to clip the top of the bar with his rising shot.

Freedman lauds Palace desire

Then came the best chance to avoid going to penalties when Gunnarsson lost his marker but, from four yards out, he somehow contrived to head against the bar with the net gaping.

Heaton had the final word, however, to ensure that Cardiff would not regret all their missed chances, allowing the Welsh side to go through to contest their third major Wembley final in five years.

Poor human resource bogs local content

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Despite a much-touted local content policy, little has been done to develop the indigenous human capital required to manage the national oil and gas resources, Brigadier Nii Armarh Tagoe of the Ghana Army has observed at the New Year School lectures.

A draft local content bill — submitted and subsequently approved by cabinet and currently awaiting parliamentary scrutiny and passage into law, envisages up to 90 percent local content and participation in the oil and gas sector within the next decade.

Experts, including Trinidadian consultants engaged to help develop a local content policy, have noted that government’s expectations were overly ambitious — pointing out that the global best-case of local content in the hydrocarbons industry is about 75 percent.

Government officials in the oil sector are however adamant that such a high local content expectation will encourage speedy action towards Ghanaian control of the nascent oil sector in the shortest possible time.

A recent contract with Chinese state-owned Sinopec for the development of Ghana’s gas infrastructure — which had the Chinese contributing a minimum of 60 percent of the labour force, with only up to 40 percent coming from Ghana — has sparked debate about government’s commitment to promoting high local content and participation in the industry.

A growing consensus among experts point to a need to match local capacity to the local content policy, thus; highlighting the need to invest in education and development of the human capital required by the sector if Ghanaians are to control the sector anytime soon.

Tagoe said discovery of off-shore oil and gas in commercial quantities in 2007 gave the nation a wake-up call.

“Various private training institutions sprang up from 2008 and beyond. Each of these training institutions advertised various training programmes for specific trades or vocations required in the industry.

The large army of unemployed youth in the country was enticed by these advertisements and accordingly enrolled. Other professionals such as accountants, lawyers and engineers enrolled for specialisation programmes in the oil and gas industry,” Tagoe disclosed.

He explained that as a result of the void created in the formal educational sector for training the human resources for the oil and gas industry since the 1970s, the private educational institutions have seized the initiative from the public educational institutions and by extension the Ministry of Education.

Policies governing standards and accreditation for institutions in the educational sector for the oil and gas industry have thus lagged behind the national requirements.

“The situation is the same when it comes to policy-direction for the development of the requisite human resources for the oil and gas industry,” Tagoe said.

He noted that an overview of the various categories of functional groups required to operate and manage the oil industry — including field-workers, operators, trades, technicians, technologists and geo-science professionals, as well as, engineers, marine and nautical services, and business and operations support — indicated there is a big deficiency in the human capital requirement of the sector.

“The deficit of professional, vocational, technical and business entrepreneurs, will take about two to five years to train, to enable them fill much of the gap.

“The best way to facilitate addressing this shortfall is through Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) programmes,” Tagoe observed.

He pointed out that it is necessary the Ministry of Education to take immediate steps to give policy-direction to such a programme.

“This can be facilitated through the inclusion of the relevant subjects at the various levels of the educational ladder in the public institutions, starting from the Senior high schools. Specialisation or specific knowledge-based skills acquisition can be offered at the tertiary level,” Tagoe said.

He proposed that the bulk of technical and vocational skills acquisition courses be offered at the polytechnics, whilst the engineering courses and other specialist fields are studied at the Universities.

At the same time, the private educational institutions should be accredited by the National Accreditation Board to offer courses in which they have the capacity and requisite resources including lecturers.

Tagoe noted that in addition to training programmes to develop the human capacity directly required in the oil exploration and production industry, there will also be need to build the capacity of the Security Services to enable them manage the threats likely to confront the Nation as a result of the development and growth of the Oil and Gas industry, in the most efficient and effective manner.

Perceived threats to national security arising out of the oil industry, Tagoe noted, include border disputes, acts of terrorism, hostage taking, hijacking, kidnapping, abduction, illegal bunkering, stealing of oil, piracy, conflict of interest within the safety zones, environmental degradation, natural disasters, and security of land installations among a host of others.

“Each of these threats require specialist training to contain or eliminate whenever they occur. It thus behooves Government to allocate enough funds to the various Security Services to build the capacity to effectively and efficiently manage these threats before the crime occurs.

“The cost for maintaining sound peace and tranquility within which the desired National Socio-economic Development can thrive is priceless,” Tagoe said.

Source: BFT

National Cocoa Rehabilitation Programme takes off

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The National Cocoa Rehabilitation programme by the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) has taken off.

The programme which started in the second quarter of 2011 seeks to increase and sustain cocoa production in Ghana through rehabilitation and replacement of old and diseased cocoa trees with improved hybrid varieties.

It has been observed that about 23% of cocoa tree stocks nationwide are above 30 years and thus unproductive. Also most farms are heavily infested with mistletoes and diseases thereby reducing the potential yields of cocoa in those farms.

The programme is therefore intended to ensure sustainability of cocoa production and also augment the income of farmers through increased yields in the short to medium term, provide jobs for, especially the youth in cocoa growing communities and encourage them to take to cocoa cultivation.

This initiative ties in with the announcement by Dr. Kwabena Duffour, Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, in the 2012 budget statement to Parliament that government had allocated funds for the supply of 20 million hybrid cocoa seedlings free of charge to farmers in 2012.

The Scheme is being implemented under two main components – Revival of moribund cocoa stock or unproductive farms/abandoned cocoa farm lands and replanting with approved high and early yielding hybrid variety; and removal and replanting of diseased cocoa farms with hybrid cocoa variety

Activities of the scheme is expected to cover six years and shall involve cutting out unproductive cocoa trees (farms) using chainsaw machines and applying aboricides and replanting with hybrid cocoa variety; assisting farmers with technical support to raise part of their seedlings requirement through the establishment of community nurseries; and among others, Control of parasitic plants-mistletoes, nationwide

Farmers who are interested in the rehabilitation programme have been asked to pick up forms from district offices of the Cocoa Swollen Shoot Virus Disease Control Unit (CSSVD-CU) of COCOBOD for registration.

“We wish to make it clear to all, especially farmers, that establishment of new cocoa farms in forest reserves is strictly not part of the rehabilitation programme”

Source: myjoyonline.com

Shell Ghana to rebrand as VIVO Energy by March

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Shell Ghana is hoping to be rebranded as VIVO Energy by end of March this year. The move which is subject to management approval will however affect only its corporate-brand and offices but exclude the service and commercial stations.

The rebranding has been necessitated by changes in the shareholding structure of Shell’s businesses in some 21 countries in Africa. Such developments usually come with job-losses and management changes but this is not expected to happen at least in Shell Ghana.

Managing Director, Omar Benson tells JOY BUSINESS there will rather be more recruitment and investments in the business. “It very different from what has happened so far in the same industry. Shell is not leaving Ghana. For example at the staff and management level there would be very limited or no change. Throughout the company no change is anticipated at this stage. We are rather anticipating growth in the company because the new shareholders are coming with resources for that” he said.

Shell P.L.C last year entered into a joint venture agreement with Vitol Group and Helios Investment Partners for 1 billion dollars. This saw the company dispose some of its interest in its retail fuel and lube business as wells as marketing in Africa to the two firms. Shell will however continue to have some significant holding in the new arrangement.

Mr. Benson adds the rebranding would also lead to no change in its service delivery and marketing strategies. He noted “With respect to the consumers and customers, there would be almost no change. They would go to the same place, buy the same products and use them in the same way. We have not planned to change anything in terms of pricing and marketing strategy. All our products and services would continue to be available and the only change our customers and partners could expect is a company that will grow at a faster rate compared to some years back”.

Source :Myjoyonline.com

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