Angry African Voices

- "Half-starved people are being daily admonished to tighten their belts, members of the Ghanaian aristocracy and their hangers-on who tell them to do this, are fast, developing pot bellies and paunches and their wives and sweet-hearts double their chins in direct proportion to the rate at which people tighten their belts." -- Victor Owusu in 1961.


"The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership. There is nothing basically wrong with the Nigerian character. There is nothing wrong with the Nigerian land or climate or water or air or anything else. The Nigerian problem is the unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to the responsibility, to the challenge of personal example which are the hallmarks of true leadership . . . We have lost the twentieth century; are we bent on seeing that our children also lose the twenty-first? God forbid!" -- Chinua Achebe (in The Trouble With Nigeria. Enugu: Fourth Dimension Press, 1985; p.3).


"It is true God's children in Africa suffer because there is less freedom in their countries than during the colonial times. African leaders need to be reminded that there is totalitarianism and despotism nearly everywhere in Africa. When your people are free, you can also walk freely and you will not need huge security to protect you." -- Bishop Desmond Tutu (The Daily Nation, Nairobi, March 26, 1990).
"African dictators are some of the most hypocritical leaders anywhere. They condemn oppression of black people by apartheid, yet they organize widespread massacres of their own black people. More than 2,000 Kenyans were killed in cold blood by Moi's security forces at the Wajir massacre in Kenya." -- Koigi wa Wamwere, former member of parliament in Kenya and now in jail (Index on Censorship, July 1990; p.22).


"It has become trendy for enlightened writers on Africa to put all the blame for Africa's backwardness on the West. I think the West should not be blamed anymore for Africa's predicament...I may ask, what is our goal as Africans? It sounds funny that a country like Nigeria cannot boast of any significant supply of good drinking water even after 30 years of independence. One is tempted to think that the goal for Africans is to drive a flashy car, and own a house in Britain, US or France. This is very common among our leaders, some of who think it is a mistake not to have a Swiss bank account or a castle in France.It is not a shame to admit our failures, set our priorities right and forget about blaming the West always for our woes. In fact it is a lazy society which puts all the blame for its troubles on its neighbors.Let our leaders set clear-cut goals for our countries, and not Swiss bank accounts. I don't think George Bush would set himself a goal of owning a bank account in Ghana or Nigeria." -- Osa Kingsley in New African, August, 1990; p.45)


"Three decades of dictatorships, phoney and misunderstood political ideologies have left a legacy of fear, poverty, refugees, outright political thuggery and theft. The systems which have been in place for the last three decades in Africa have produced the likes of Amin, Bokassa, Nguema and the remaining political sphinx which strangle the African continent and its people.Since assuming political power in their countries, these leaders have held their citizens hostage, have run national economies like private chicken-runs and created a national mentality of siege and a state of hopelessness" -- George Sono (New African, Jan 1991; p. 41


If you steal, do not steal too much at a time. You may be arrested. Steal cleverly (yiba na mayele), little by little." -- President Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire in an address to party regulars in 1991.

"Crisis, chaos, famine, diseases, civil wars, coups, dictatorships, social disorder, corruption and legitimising military regimes seem to be the most outstanding elements of post-independence Africa. The mood of optimism, hope and high expectation has today been overtaken by frustration and pessimism." -- Kofi Adusei-Poku (West Africa, March 1-7, 1993; p. 320).


One of the most urgent matters for Nigerians to address when they settle down to debate the National Question is the issue of collaboration by professionals and technocrats with corrupt and repressive regimes. We must devise effective sanctions against our lawyers and judges and doctors and university professors who debase their professions in their zealotry to serve as tyranny's errand-boys, thus contributing in large measure to the general decay of honesty and integrity in our national life. Chinua Achebe in African News Weekly (1 October 1993, 32).


"I believe the worst form of civilian government is better that the most benevolent military regime." -- Chuba Okadigbo, former chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of Nigeria's dissolved Senate (The New York Times, Dec 2, 1993; p.A3

"We have incessantly been hounded and harassed. What have we not seen? Grenades, tear-gas, bullets -- you name it! But if anytime the regime intimidates me and I get scared, then we can as well say goodbye to democracy! Even though death is a daily reality, I can't be subdued by the fear of death. The reason why I am not afraid of death is simple: since 1990, we swore to hand power to the people, and until that goal is achieved, no grenades, bullets, assassination plots can deter us from that noble goal. Take this message from me: We're not afraid of death because with the people's support, prayers and solidarity nothing -- I repeat nothing -- can dampen our unflinching resolve to bring veritable democracy to Cameroon." -- Fru Ndi, Chairman of Social Democratic Front (Cameroon Life, Jan 1994; p.10).


"Africa's biggest problem today lies with the leadership. They are so removed from the people that they are looked upon as foreigners. They are driven by self-interest, so excessive that their peoples' interests are forgotten -- hardly different from the colonial masters" -- John Hayford (New African, April, 1994; p.7).

"The problem in Africa is precisely that there is no state to speak of. What exists are ramshackle gangs, presided over by political thugs and military adventurists, generals who have never been to war, and rickety old men who lack vision, who simply pretend to be governing, talk less of ruling, a society. In no African social formation has this body, by whatever name it goes, been able to operate as a state." From "Pan-Africanism: Agenda for African Unity in the 1990s" by Nigerian scholar, Julius O. Ihonvbere, now at Ford Foundation, in a Keynote address at The All-African Student's Conference, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada, May 27, 1994.


"In my view, Ghana's economic malaise is not the result of lack of opportunities or of resource. Ghana, like the rest of Africa, with the possible exception of South Africa and a few others, suffers from the affliction of dishonest leadership . . . I have put the emphasis on bad and corrupt leadership as the root cause of our economic woes. I make no apologies for this because we all know what is going on. On my part, I am quite disappointed that we in Parliament have not been courageous to say nay when this way is necessary" -- Hon. Hawa Yakubu-Ogede, former MP, Bawku (The Ghanaian Voice, Feb 12, 1995; p.8

"Nigerians must realize that colonialism has nothing to do with the color of the colonizer and the colonized. Any group of people that uses the advantage of power -- military or material -- to oppress, exploit, and inferiorize another group of people can be justifiably described as a colonizing group." -- Ropo Sekoni (The Isokan News, Spring, 1995; p.19).


"Three decades after independence, uncertainty and fear still rule the African continent. The freedom and justice that many people sacrificed their lives for have been replaced by tyranny and oppression. And the promises of a decent living has been betrayed by misgovernance and corruption. Most Africans fought so hard to liberate themselves from colonial rule only to be used and abused and their nations ruined by their own leaders. Today Africa has very little to show for its independence because of inhumane and incompetent leadership" -- Steve Mallory, publisher (The African Observer, May 2-15, 1995; p.3).


"Nigeria, the comatose giant of Africa, may go down in history as the biggest country ever to go directly from colonial subjugation to complete collapse, without an intervening period of successful self-rule. So much promise, so much waste; such a disappointment. Such a shame. Makes you sick" -- Linus U.J. Thomas-Ogboji (The African News Weekly (May 26, 1995; p.6).

"Apart from the corruption, the army under Captain Valentine Strasser government (of Sierra Leone) has become totally incompetent, and is conducting a war against the people. The countryside is nothing but destruction, upon destruction. Whole towns and villages have been destroyed" -- Ibrahim Ibn Ibrahim, a Sierra Leonian journalist in Akasanoma, July 31-Aug 6, 1995; p.38).


A critical look at contemporary African military would bring one's eye closer to tears, and one's mind nearer to insanity. The caliber of people found in the military is an obloquy to the belated institution. Today, soldiers of most African countries are known as brutes, bullies and buffoons. Soldiers are always supposed to be in the barracks, either training or doing something profitable. But in Africa, the case is totally different and appalling. Come to Accra and you will see soldiers moving about, wielding guns, pistols, harassing citizens and causing needless trouble. Go to Lome and you will see them. Go to Burkina Faso. To Lagos. To Kinshasa. O! what a degradation of the military! Ghana has seen varied types of uncouth and indisplined soliders" -- Prince Oduro (Free Press, Aug 4-10, 1995; p.4).


"No military coup in Africa has produced a vibrant economy to replace the bankrupt one it set out to redeem. In almost every case, the army boys have imbibed the ways of the corrupt politicians they pushed out of office and even taken their crookedness to a higher level" (African News Weekly, Sept 1, 1995; p.7).


"I have written this article to register my protest and revulsion at the way leaders of African nations have been disgracing the black race.

Just look at the way Ken Saro-Wiwa and co. were hanged like pigs without even the benefit of an appeal . . . In all hue and cry, what is both infuriating and irritating is the speed with which African countries together with their leaders are quick to blame all that go wrong on the continent on our supposed "Enemy" - the West. This sad culture is what has propelled me to protest with all the venom that I can muster . . . Why can't we accept our responsibilities as a race (black race), face the music for our deeds and always tend to pass the buck?

It is not only on the political field that our good-for-nothing so-called teachers blame the Western World for our own mistakes. Take the case of Ghana, for example. We always hear of the often quoted phrase "the unjust world economic order" being the cause of all our problems. Don't we use the same economic textbooks as the Western world? . . .All that I am saying is, we don't deserve to be treated like beggars, because we we are not using our brains at all (that is, if we have brains anyway). The sage says charity begins at home." Kwesi Obeng, UST university student (The Ghanaian Chronicle, Jan 21, 1996; p.4).



All symbols of military authority must be removed from our midst. Those arrogant photographs that desecrate public spaces, schools, hospitals, offices, even courts of justice. Street names, also, change them all. Remove them. Remove them by stealth, remove them openly, by cunning, remove them by bribery, remove them forcibly, remove them tactfully, use whatever method is appropriate, but remove them. I call on all who are resolved to play a role in our mutual liberation to participate in this exercise of psychological release, or mental cleansing and preparedness... Wole Soyinka (1996, 59).


"It is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between the Nigerian armed forces and the Nigerian armed robber. They both use the same operational tactics, resorting to fear, intimidation, and violence to achieve their objectives." -- Stephen Okoye (African News Weekly, July 15-21, 1996; p.22).


"The [Nigerian] military has perfected the use of intimidation and disinformation to keep a passive population calm. In the process, a timid population became quiet and in some cases conspiratorial and accomodating of dictators for too long. The result is what you see today: a bunch of idiots terrorizing the nation, intimidating opponents and harassing dissidents. It is an equivalent of gangs taking over a whole town. Imagine John Gotti or Al Capone as President of the United States. Well, welcome to the reign of thieves and vagabonds, welcome to our Nigeria today, a gangster's paradise." -- Ikenna Anokwute in African News Weekly (Sept 16-22, 1996; p.6).


How safe is the state of Ghana in the hands of Rawlings and his gangsters at this critical moment when they are seeking the mandate of the people to continue their corruption, misrule, contempt for public opinion, and disregard to public property. Indeed, the record books are overflowing with evidence of Rawlings' wanton misuse of state property and abuse of power.-- Editorial, Free Press (4-10 October 1996, 6).