I had no plans of writing this week but I guess I have been prompted by a programme that run yesterday morning on BBC Network Africa programme to put down these few words.
There is this saying in Akan which goes like this: “if you don’t have money you claim black magic (for money) is bad”. I heard one of the candidates of the December 7 election in Ghana: Edward Mahama say that in Ghana we practice “Moneythocracy”. Don’t mind my spelling I am yet to ask him how it is spelt since he coined that term. One will ask what is His reason for saying that? He claimed that in Ghana, the political parties with enough funds at their disposal win election and for that matter we do not practice democracy but “moneythocracy”.
I will want somebody to tell me one country in this world where political parties don’t need money to win elections. Did I hear during the democratic primaries Barack Obama raise so much money than his fellow contestants? Did I hear and see him win the primaries and subsequently the presidential elections in USA?
Per chance are they practicing “moneythocracy” in America too? I don’t know why people always want to find faulter with things related to Africa especially when they are at the losing end. Don’t misunderstand me I don’t mean any other people but Africans. If you read this and you know of any political party which won election without spending money, and lots of it, let me know so that I can go learn from them because I want to aspire to the office of the president of the republic of Ghana and I don’t have money to do so, so I will opt for the alternative way to win election and not through the barrel of the gun.
I am disappointed in my name-sake’s comment and I believe he should think carefully about his comments before he makes them especially when it has a large listening audience as BBC has. Probably, my friend Dr. Mahama should start looking for ways to raise enough money to win political power so that he can come and help transform our economy but if he wants to sit back and lose all the time and claim we don’t practice democracy in Ghana, I am afraid he is ridiculing himself.
Ghana is practicing a democratic system which is maturing by the day and which is the envy of our fellow African nations and nothing whatsoever any body says can change my mind.
Let assess these facts, but for this year’s election that the USA had a massive voter turn up, Ghana had been recording a much better voter turn than they had at least during the 2000 and 2004 elections. Our basic human rights records keep improving by the day. There is rule of law, the basic freedom of expression is working at least at the minimal levels, , yes, there are a few questions, but these questions border more on “over liberalization” than suppression of mass media.
These I believe are some of the important measures of the democracy. Therefore if anyone wants to say something about the governance system in Ghana, the fellow should check the facts first of all before he or she commits a serious scholarly blunder.
With all apologies to Edward Mahama, he could have said something else.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
NOEL
People always are waiting for times such as these to show love to others and to set up visions and target for their lives. I love one song by a musician who i am not fond of but she always gets my sympathy when i hear that song "don't save it all for christmas day, find a way to show a little love everyday."
That is very true, if we show a little love everyday this world will be a better place but we always save it up for christmas.
A man lost his job and was very sick at that time from the circumstances surrounding his loss of job. He had a friend who was well to do enough to help this sick man but didnot. During a family meeting with his wife and kids about what to do for christmas, the daughter suggested he paid his sick friend's hospital bill as his christmas gift to the sick friend.
Unfortunately, the night before christmas, his friend who was sick at home passed away. His christmas gift was never to be. What if we could do that little everyday, wouldn't we move forward together.
In another vain, peoples' christmas list a made up of people the know very well and people they know will give them something back even if not this year, the next year or in the course of the year. That i am sorry to say is not giving, it is bating. Bating someone to give you something by doing it first.
We need to share the things we have with those who don't have so that the world will be a little bit more balanced. What can you give to someone who has that will be of value, it is the act itself not the thing. what difference will what you give make in the person's life?
To he who has not, whatever you give is worthy of being received and valued and treasure. whey wait till christmas, why wait that long enough till you gift is not needed.
Just give a little Love everyday.
Merry Christmas!
That is very true, if we show a little love everyday this world will be a better place but we always save it up for christmas.
A man lost his job and was very sick at that time from the circumstances surrounding his loss of job. He had a friend who was well to do enough to help this sick man but didnot. During a family meeting with his wife and kids about what to do for christmas, the daughter suggested he paid his sick friend's hospital bill as his christmas gift to the sick friend.
Unfortunately, the night before christmas, his friend who was sick at home passed away. His christmas gift was never to be. What if we could do that little everyday, wouldn't we move forward together.
In another vain, peoples' christmas list a made up of people the know very well and people they know will give them something back even if not this year, the next year or in the course of the year. That i am sorry to say is not giving, it is bating. Bating someone to give you something by doing it first.
We need to share the things we have with those who don't have so that the world will be a little bit more balanced. What can you give to someone who has that will be of value, it is the act itself not the thing. what difference will what you give make in the person's life?
To he who has not, whatever you give is worthy of being received and valued and treasure. whey wait till christmas, why wait that long enough till you gift is not needed.
Just give a little Love everyday.
Merry Christmas!
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
CHANGE
You know the kind of people who make the world move in the right direction, Mathematicians. I love them! If you want to play very good football, you must like matchs because that is all the coaches talk about! 4 4 2, 5 3 2, 4 3 3, 4 3 2 1, and many more. You can't understand that? You can't play good football.
I guess it is one of the reasons i liked mathematics. When i entered the university, i was studying political science and Kiswahili as my majors after studying business in High school. One thing i like about swahili was that i could always do mathematics with the grammar so it wasn't so much work for me. Anyway, enough of my deviation. I like maths, and change as my theme, what correlation is there between these two?
I always here people say.... "CHANGE IS THE ONLY CONSTANT THING IN LIFE". then again you here people complain that human beings don't like CHANGE. I am going to try to show how this assession is wrong with this little bit of maths and logic.
Supposing the statement; CHANGE IS THE ONLY CONSTANT THING IN LIFE, is true, then it means change is CONSTANT.
Mathematically stated
CHANGE = CONSTANT
Thus if human want change, it means the want CONSTANT which we know is not change because;
CHANGE = CONSTANT
thus
CHANGE ≠ CHANGE
Thus we can argue that
CONSTANT (which is not wanting Change) = CHANGE.
Thus by not wanting change as human beings, we actually want change. we don't want constant things. If we argue that humans fear change, it means humans fear constant things. Thus in effect Humans donot fear change but constant things.
I guess I am getting back in my controversial things again. Well you can't blame me, it is just mathematics. I bet someone I know very well will be bitting the teeth saying auhh! this boy is going to drive me crazy cos She hates maths but I just LOVE maths and want to apply it, but i Love her more!
You might disagree with my arguement but you may not be able to disapprove it mathematically!
I guess it is one of the reasons i liked mathematics. When i entered the university, i was studying political science and Kiswahili as my majors after studying business in High school. One thing i like about swahili was that i could always do mathematics with the grammar so it wasn't so much work for me. Anyway, enough of my deviation. I like maths, and change as my theme, what correlation is there between these two?
I always here people say.... "CHANGE IS THE ONLY CONSTANT THING IN LIFE". then again you here people complain that human beings don't like CHANGE. I am going to try to show how this assession is wrong with this little bit of maths and logic.
Supposing the statement; CHANGE IS THE ONLY CONSTANT THING IN LIFE, is true, then it means change is CONSTANT.
Mathematically stated
CHANGE = CONSTANT
Thus if human want change, it means the want CONSTANT which we know is not change because;
CHANGE = CONSTANT
thus
CHANGE ≠ CHANGE
Thus we can argue that
CONSTANT (which is not wanting Change) = CHANGE.
Thus by not wanting change as human beings, we actually want change. we don't want constant things. If we argue that humans fear change, it means humans fear constant things. Thus in effect Humans donot fear change but constant things.
I guess I am getting back in my controversial things again. Well you can't blame me, it is just mathematics. I bet someone I know very well will be bitting the teeth saying auhh! this boy is going to drive me crazy cos She hates maths but I just LOVE maths and want to apply it, but i Love her more!
You might disagree with my arguement but you may not be able to disapprove it mathematically!
Sunday, November 16, 2008
I am back
There are so many graduate on the job market looking for jobs today but i guess the claim is that there are no job. Or just maybe people are reserving the jobs for their relations or to get into innocent girls' panties.
What really get to me today in Ghana is the so-called job agencies and the so-called career development training programmes organised by consults or something of that sort. The idea does not disgust me so much as to the huge sums of money they take from job seekers before they help them find jobs or train them for the job market.
First of all if there is so much need for those trainings they seem to purport to offer, i think that the various universities and polytechnics should be closed down because they are a waste of peoples' time and money and not giving them the training they need for the job market.
If a person has those huge sums of money demanded for these training and placement programmes, why will they bother to look for work in the first place. I wouldn't! i might as well start my own thing!
It brings me to my big worry all the time. Ghanaians can copy but do not know how to copy to benefit us. We take everything we see in its totality and try to force it down on ourselves.
No wonder a former president of this nation went for a loan to buy snow ploughers.
I hope I didn't start on too high a note.
Let see what comes next.
What really get to me today in Ghana is the so-called job agencies and the so-called career development training programmes organised by consults or something of that sort. The idea does not disgust me so much as to the huge sums of money they take from job seekers before they help them find jobs or train them for the job market.
First of all if there is so much need for those trainings they seem to purport to offer, i think that the various universities and polytechnics should be closed down because they are a waste of peoples' time and money and not giving them the training they need for the job market.
If a person has those huge sums of money demanded for these training and placement programmes, why will they bother to look for work in the first place. I wouldn't! i might as well start my own thing!
It brings me to my big worry all the time. Ghanaians can copy but do not know how to copy to benefit us. We take everything we see in its totality and try to force it down on ourselves.
No wonder a former president of this nation went for a loan to buy snow ploughers.
I hope I didn't start on too high a note.
Let see what comes next.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
STAND UP AND SPEAK OUT!
People has sort to associate poverty with Africa and Asia for a very long time. Though this association to some extent is true, it is not entirely so. I believe a lot of people will be chastising the West for their role in the underdevelopment of Africa and the as a result poverty in Africa especially on this day. However, I will like to use this day to actually call on African leaders and Africans as a people to make our own effort to eradicate poverty not totally depending on the west.
When we take issues like traffic jams in the streets of Accra, we can see at least two way by which we lose resources;
1. productive hours are lost to traffic jams in the streets of Accra and the other regional capitals and;
2. at the same time, the amount of fuel wasted in these traffic jams each day, (I don’t want to think about that), will be enough for each one of those cars for another day.
These traffic jams also make the cost of transport high. If we do away with these unnecessary traffic jams, we will be able to save so much for national development agenda. This does not pertain to Ghana only talk about Ubungo - mwege road, ubongo - posta, Ubungo - gongo la moto in Dar es salaam, Tanzania. We see it on television in other place in Africa. In effect we can enrich ourselves by cutting our wastage and managing our things effectively.
For many years there have been talks of eradicating poverty in Africa by the west and believe you me, they have done their share. Imagine someone living in “financial crisis” stricken America paying huge tax and the money being sent down to Africa and Asia to eradicate poverty each year, tell me they haven’t done their bit? Yet we who receive these aids and grants do not use them well. We mismanage them and go asking for more (Oliver Twist).
I will not say we should accept aid or grants or even ask for them, NO! What I want us to do as a nation and a continent associate with poverty, disease and conflict is that we make conscious efforts to eradicate poverty ourselves. We learn to manage well our resource, we learn to plan with the future in mind, we learn to increase productivity and cut wastage, we implement measure that will check waste in our economies.
I believe if we do these and do them well. Implement them to the letter, we will eradicate poverty from African and Asia in the next 10 years but if we want to continue with our wastage, broken pipelines with treated water gashing out, huge traffic jams from three to five hours, producing under capacity in our industries and offices, using official hours to run private business and its likes, then even if all the money in the world is given to us, in the next two months, we will be poor again.
Let us stand up and be counted, let’s stand up and speak out against poverty not just in Africa and Asia but in the world as a whole.
When we take issues like traffic jams in the streets of Accra, we can see at least two way by which we lose resources;
1. productive hours are lost to traffic jams in the streets of Accra and the other regional capitals and;
2. at the same time, the amount of fuel wasted in these traffic jams each day, (I don’t want to think about that), will be enough for each one of those cars for another day.
These traffic jams also make the cost of transport high. If we do away with these unnecessary traffic jams, we will be able to save so much for national development agenda. This does not pertain to Ghana only talk about Ubungo - mwege road, ubongo - posta, Ubungo - gongo la moto in Dar es salaam, Tanzania. We see it on television in other place in Africa. In effect we can enrich ourselves by cutting our wastage and managing our things effectively.
For many years there have been talks of eradicating poverty in Africa by the west and believe you me, they have done their share. Imagine someone living in “financial crisis” stricken America paying huge tax and the money being sent down to Africa and Asia to eradicate poverty each year, tell me they haven’t done their bit? Yet we who receive these aids and grants do not use them well. We mismanage them and go asking for more (Oliver Twist).
I will not say we should accept aid or grants or even ask for them, NO! What I want us to do as a nation and a continent associate with poverty, disease and conflict is that we make conscious efforts to eradicate poverty ourselves. We learn to manage well our resource, we learn to plan with the future in mind, we learn to increase productivity and cut wastage, we implement measure that will check waste in our economies.
I believe if we do these and do them well. Implement them to the letter, we will eradicate poverty from African and Asia in the next 10 years but if we want to continue with our wastage, broken pipelines with treated water gashing out, huge traffic jams from three to five hours, producing under capacity in our industries and offices, using official hours to run private business and its likes, then even if all the money in the world is given to us, in the next two months, we will be poor again.
Let us stand up and be counted, let’s stand up and speak out against poverty not just in Africa and Asia but in the world as a whole.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Lack of creativity and Ideas
Do you know the single person with the most cars in Ghana? I bet you will want to know this statistics. (watch out when you pronounce the last word because a statistician who was interviewed on television in Ghana could not pronounce it well). It is.........................................
I won't provide that answer for free. I need to earn something for my hard work. However for your loyalty and cdfedication to my blog, i will tell you this for free. The few who read my blog will have this for free, the rest will have to pay to get the information. (Don't think about it they won't read, if it is on tv they will watch but read? IMPOSSICAN'T)
It is ......
"FOR SALE"
Whoever he/she is, own the most cars in Ghana. Not the government. ... (You wish!!)
'For sale' own most of the car in Ghana and to make us see that he owns them, he write his name on it; For sale.
But because we as Ghanaians luck creative and ideas, for sale's younger sister (also Ghanaian)has decided to follow in his footstep and also start writing her name on her cars
'BUY ME'
and then adds her numerous telephone numbers. How can one person own sooooo many telephone number? huh?
Enough of this uninteresting nonsense. The core of what i want to say is that, in Ghana a thing get in vogue and everybody wants it and after sometime it passes out and everybody is after the next thing in vogue .
I remember when i was a boy, all the kids but myself, wanted to be doctors ('but I' because i have never known what i want to be). In Junior High, they all wanted to be Bank Managers; i wonder what they were going to manage and whose money? when i enter High school, everybody wanted to be an accountant including science students. In the university, almost everybody was turning to IT because that was where the money was. Now, nobody talks about these careers with that much passion anymore. Everybody wants to work in a Bank not manage it but work there.
When one thing booms in Ghana, everybody wants to do it. we leave the rest to wither and die. Then when something new comes, we all rush for the new and leave what sustained us.
I don't know much about life but i know that it takes a football team to win a match and not an individual player. If all the defender of a team move forward with the goalkeeper to each score his/her own goal at every point in time, what do you think will happen to that team?
Let us be balanced and not all follow the same line. If we are not careful, we will all fall in the same pit. For a change may be i wll introduce the third sibling of For Sale and Buy Me, which will eventually become the largest ownern but i need to register the copyright first. Before i do i wouldn't mind sharing my creativity with you..... it is ......
"GET ME CHEAP"
I won't provide that answer for free. I need to earn something for my hard work. However for your loyalty and cdfedication to my blog, i will tell you this for free. The few who read my blog will have this for free, the rest will have to pay to get the information. (Don't think about it they won't read, if it is on tv they will watch but read? IMPOSSICAN'T)
It is ......
"FOR SALE"
Whoever he/she is, own the most cars in Ghana. Not the government. ... (You wish!!)
'For sale' own most of the car in Ghana and to make us see that he owns them, he write his name on it; For sale.
But because we as Ghanaians luck creative and ideas, for sale's younger sister (also Ghanaian)has decided to follow in his footstep and also start writing her name on her cars
'BUY ME'
and then adds her numerous telephone numbers. How can one person own sooooo many telephone number? huh?
Enough of this uninteresting nonsense. The core of what i want to say is that, in Ghana a thing get in vogue and everybody wants it and after sometime it passes out and everybody is after the next thing in vogue .
I remember when i was a boy, all the kids but myself, wanted to be doctors ('but I' because i have never known what i want to be). In Junior High, they all wanted to be Bank Managers; i wonder what they were going to manage and whose money? when i enter High school, everybody wanted to be an accountant including science students. In the university, almost everybody was turning to IT because that was where the money was. Now, nobody talks about these careers with that much passion anymore. Everybody wants to work in a Bank not manage it but work there.
When one thing booms in Ghana, everybody wants to do it. we leave the rest to wither and die. Then when something new comes, we all rush for the new and leave what sustained us.
I don't know much about life but i know that it takes a football team to win a match and not an individual player. If all the defender of a team move forward with the goalkeeper to each score his/her own goal at every point in time, what do you think will happen to that team?
Let us be balanced and not all follow the same line. If we are not careful, we will all fall in the same pit. For a change may be i wll introduce the third sibling of For Sale and Buy Me, which will eventually become the largest ownern but i need to register the copyright first. Before i do i wouldn't mind sharing my creativity with you..... it is ......
"GET ME CHEAP"
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
WAKE UP MEDIA COMMISSION!
Today, I am in a bit of a fix as to what i should write. I am sad that as a tax payer, my money and that of others is being used to pay people who do not do the work they are assigned to do. I makes me feel violated like a young girls who has been violated by an oldman, old enough to be her great grandfather.
Supposing we are told that our tax are being used to pay people who are unemployed, it is understandable and makes sense but if people take up responsibility for something and they do not do it why should they be paid? some one please tell me!
Let me give you two of the complains I am making.
Do you ever listen to BLACK RASTA? I hope you don't and if you do be careful what you listen to. This dude permit me to call him that is just a diviant. A "social misfit" who has been given the power of radio to bug our earss with socially unacceptable remarks for which society just listen and laughs or ignore.
Do you also know that there is an institution called the National Media commission, who are tasked to regulate the media in Ghana? So do they mean to tell me they haven't heard what this "social misfit" has been saying? If they have, don't they feel it is wrong for anybody to promote smoking of anything especially marijuana on the airwaves?
Should the members of the media commission be paid then at the end of the month if
1. they have not heard such unacceptabel comments from the said presenter?
2. they do not see anything wrong with such comments?
Let me divert a little. Now to the management and owner of the station where this dude works do they see nothing wrong with what he says? Are they a bunch of loose cases or what? (pardon my words).I believe one of the basic things that differentiate humans from animals is the use of common sense and as such when humans fail to use common sense, we loose our sense of humanity.
I hope someday GTV or TV3, show this documentary "Geldof in Africa" and we get to see his opinion of the media in Ghana, which i am sorry to say is TRUE. Get to the news stands and all you see is sexually explicit magazines and on our radios people who do not know what it means to use the radio to educate people and promote peaceful coexistence of people bombarding us with their "IGNORAMUS".
I should say that I am also disappointed in the so-called schools of journalism and broadcasting in Ghana. They claim to teach well but if what they teach is what those who work on our airwaves do then they all need to be closed down.
My apologises to the few who have distinguished themselves in the work on the airwaves. I don't listen to Abeko Santana's drive programme on radio because he usually shouts and i don't like noise on my radio except if it is sports and i can't get it on TV. However, i think last friday, he really spoke very well. I don't want to believe it was because he had returned from America that day. I almost had goose bumps from what he said. Speaking like he did, educates people and give them a sense of humanity. Preaching peace, tolerance and togetherness is very important at this time but if we permit some "social misfits" and deviants to use the airwaves to divide us and teach immoral and socially unacceptable values, then we should be careful.
The media commission should act and act very fast to stop this bad picture being painted of our nation by our own people through our mass media or we should not blame the western media for painting a dark picture of Africa.
I will take the second part later but like they say
"A word to the wise is enough..."
Supposing we are told that our tax are being used to pay people who are unemployed, it is understandable and makes sense but if people take up responsibility for something and they do not do it why should they be paid? some one please tell me!
Let me give you two of the complains I am making.
Do you ever listen to BLACK RASTA? I hope you don't and if you do be careful what you listen to. This dude permit me to call him that is just a diviant. A "social misfit" who has been given the power of radio to bug our earss with socially unacceptable remarks for which society just listen and laughs or ignore.
Do you also know that there is an institution called the National Media commission, who are tasked to regulate the media in Ghana? So do they mean to tell me they haven't heard what this "social misfit" has been saying? If they have, don't they feel it is wrong for anybody to promote smoking of anything especially marijuana on the airwaves?
Should the members of the media commission be paid then at the end of the month if
1. they have not heard such unacceptabel comments from the said presenter?
2. they do not see anything wrong with such comments?
Let me divert a little. Now to the management and owner of the station where this dude works do they see nothing wrong with what he says? Are they a bunch of loose cases or what? (pardon my words).I believe one of the basic things that differentiate humans from animals is the use of common sense and as such when humans fail to use common sense, we loose our sense of humanity.
I hope someday GTV or TV3, show this documentary "Geldof in Africa" and we get to see his opinion of the media in Ghana, which i am sorry to say is TRUE. Get to the news stands and all you see is sexually explicit magazines and on our radios people who do not know what it means to use the radio to educate people and promote peaceful coexistence of people bombarding us with their "IGNORAMUS".
I should say that I am also disappointed in the so-called schools of journalism and broadcasting in Ghana. They claim to teach well but if what they teach is what those who work on our airwaves do then they all need to be closed down.
My apologises to the few who have distinguished themselves in the work on the airwaves. I don't listen to Abeko Santana's drive programme on radio because he usually shouts and i don't like noise on my radio except if it is sports and i can't get it on TV. However, i think last friday, he really spoke very well. I don't want to believe it was because he had returned from America that day. I almost had goose bumps from what he said. Speaking like he did, educates people and give them a sense of humanity. Preaching peace, tolerance and togetherness is very important at this time but if we permit some "social misfits" and deviants to use the airwaves to divide us and teach immoral and socially unacceptable values, then we should be careful.
The media commission should act and act very fast to stop this bad picture being painted of our nation by our own people through our mass media or we should not blame the western media for painting a dark picture of Africa.
I will take the second part later but like they say
"A word to the wise is enough..."
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