Nigeria police hold 'robber' goat

Have you laughed yet today? Or at least grinned? Oh, dear, I did all of the above after reading the report in Nigeria that a car thief took shapes of different animals in order to carry out his nefarious duty. A Nigerian vigilante group arrested a goat for planning to steal a car! How does that sound? Shape shifter not in fiction, but in raw factual reality, or at least, what is supposed to be factual reality.

I am taken back to my days growing up in my village, Orji, near Enugu, hearing and believing such tales. I used to believe, as did my parents, that human beings could take the shapes of animals. Some powerful juju man could transform you into a snake, a goat or a fly. This is however a fraction of the larger mythological world that strongly shapes the average African mind. It is the belief that magic controls African existence as much as the "pursuit of of happiness" does the average American. This is further exacerbated by the the spread of the message of miraculous healing among different Christian denominations, including Western educated priests, who rather than enlighten people, claim to possess the power to counter the evil of juju doctors. That, of course, implies granting the existence of these magical powers.

A number of people have been lynched for allegedly stealing some other person's vital parts such as scrotum, by mere looking at the potential victim.

I am not subscribing to what some eighteenth century philosophers said about Africans: being prelogical, prescientific, but given the abundance of such instances, I am often tempted to rethink this assertion. Or at least to believe that African intellectuals have not yet undertaken as much effort as the European Enlightenment thinkers such as Immanuel Kant did, to encourage Africans to embrace critical, scientific thinking. I heard sometime ago that a certain South African leader believed that you could avoid contracting AIDS if you took a quick shower shortly after having sex with a potentially HIV positive person. Good luck, bro.
This is of course, no longer funny when such persons occupy policy-making positions. Not funny indeed.

By the way this is the LINK to the original news. Enjoy.

Zimbabwe Is Dying

The well-regarded African-American New York Times columnist, Bob Herbert, declares in his opinion column that Zimbabwe is dying. He goes on to discuss what many of us who have either been in that country or have friends there, have always known for a long time. Zimbabwe is dead and the murderer is no other than Mugabe. Dambudzo Marechera, obeying his poetic/prophetic instincts, noted this as far back as in 1978 in his novella, House of Hunger. Yvonne Vera did the same in her Stone Virgins. Yet Mugabe has always succeeded in fending of any criticism of his dictatorship and total lack of care by attacking the West and colonialism and imperialism and globalization and, what else?
When shall we put Mugabe on trial? And with him everything that he represents. And, hell, he represents a lot. Indeed, he stands for all that has gone wrong in African governance. He stands for the old guards of African liberation movement whose logical or discourse trump cards have always been to attack the West and, in doing so, remind the West of its guilt on the one hand, and, on the other, bring new generations of African thinkers and leaders to silence, for they dare not criticize those who are criticizing the West. This abysmal form of self-deceit has been going on in the African discourse for quite a long time. I dare say that it is the one most powerful cause of African moral and political decadence.
By the way here is the LINK to Bob Herbert's essay. Enjoy.

Senegal's Fashion Victims

Sorry, friends. I forgot to share this one with you. I remember growing up in and around Enugu in the early eighties and wondering, with others, why some otherwise glowingly dark-skinned people suddenly became as yellow as ripe bananas. We came to know that, in spite of the vaunted black pride slogans, many Africans fell victim to abysmal forms of self-loathing, or race-loathing as was exemplified in their flight from their skin color. Many of my friends did. I, too, tried a skin-bleaching soap if only to see what it would do. I discarded it nearly as promptly as I began to try it. It wasn't because I had some extra love of my dark color; it was just uncomfortable. At some point it was like rubbing pepper on your skin. I totally understand (though I do not wholly agree with) a person undertaking something to comply with the beauty standard of the time. I don't however understand why people would inflict lasting pains to themselves in order to appear beautiful, as this story shows. I try as much as possible to put myself in the position of women who go this length. Perhaps if I were a woman, constantly under the fierce gaze of society and men, wanting me to comply with their often undefined and undefinable standards and demands, I might succumb to that undefined and undefinable temptation.

Why great Igbo family businesses fail

Just read an interesting essay by Pat Utomi on why Igbo businesses tend to fail. I thought this was a successful, largely thought-provoking essay. It is successful in many ways especially given that it could be seen as a prologue to Igbo discourse or philosophy as some might choose to call it. Any people that wishes to thrive must understand itself and never veer from the continuous search for self-understanding.
Thanks, Pat.
Here's the essay. Enjoy!

Nigeria bikers' vegetable helmets

This one is good. Just laugh it off lest you be weighed down by inanities and banalities.
Good luck.

Ghana, beacon of hope in Africa

This is really good news. The opposition party in Ghana has just won a tightly contested general election. I really feel like wanting to be a Ghanaian. In short, I am Ghanaian. Forget that that I was born and bred in Nigeria. Call me Chielozona Akufo.
Well, read more of this from the BBC news. Enjoy!

New Works in African Literature

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's short story, A Private Experience explores the fate of two women caught up in one of the many Nigeria's ethnic and religious crisis.
It's becoming a pattern in Adichie's works that most of her Igbo characters are necessarily sophisticated, educated and have connections to Europe or America. This collection of short stories from which this one was taken will be published in April this year. I look forward to it.