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Notable & Quotable

“Africa can feed herself. Even without using any modem farming techniques such as pesticides and with only the most casual approach to maintaining the soil, the 51 countries of Africa presently have the potential to feed a population three times as large as that now living in the continent, even allowing for the fact that 47 percent of the land surface is useless for crops.”

n A Food and Agricultural Organization study cited in a West Africa editorial Dec 14, 1981; p. 2959.

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“Despite noises being made about the exploitation of the people, it is the STATE, as the Chief Vanguard, and her so-called Public Servants, Civil Servants which actually exploit others in the country. The money used in buying the cars for Government officials, the cement for building estates and other Government bungalows which workers obtain loans to buy, the rice workers eat in their staff canteens, the soap, the toothpaste, textiles cloth which workers buy under the present distribution system all come from the farmers' cocoa and coffee money.

This STATE-MONOPOLY CAPITALISM has been going on since the days of the colonial masters and even our own Governments after independence have continued the system.

The farmers realizing this naked exploitation decided unconsciously that they would no longer increase cocoa and coffee production, they would not increase food production and any other items which the State depends on for foreign exchange. In effect, there will be no surplus for the State to exploit.”

Yaw Amoafo (The Daily Graphic (Feb 17, 1982; p.3).

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"Despotism and kleptocracy do not inhere in the nature of African cultures or in the African character; but they are now rife in what was once called British colonial Africa, notably West Africa."

n Lord Peter Bauer, the late and famous British Economist. Reality and Rhetoric: Studies in Economics of Development. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984; p.104.

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"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!"

n Chinua Achebe (in The Trouble With Nigeria. Enugu: Fourth Dimension Press, 1985; p.3).

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“When, if ever, black people actually organize as a race in their various pulation centers, they will find that the basic and guiding ideology they now seek and so much need is embedded in their own traditional philosophy and constitutional system, simply waiting to be extracted and set forth.

n Chancellor Williams The Destruction of Black Civilization. Chicago: Third World Press, 1987; p.161)

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“Abuse of black people by Arabs, especially Syrians and Lebanese, has been ignored for too long. The painful fact is that this abuse occurs under our noses in African towns and cities where they have come to enjoy our hospitality. It is high time Arabs were made officially aware of this and reminded of the black solidarity they have enjoyed for years in their conflict with Israel.

In the late 1970s, it was an open secret in New York that Arab diplomats never invited their black counterparts to their receptions.

Kwaku O. Sarpong of Ghana (West Africa, March 7, 1988; p.27).

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"Here in Lesotho, we have two problems: rats and the government," said a tribal chief in a rural farming community.”

n A tribal chief in a rural farming community in Lesotho (International Health and Development, March/April 1989; p. 30).

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“Those who feel that the citizen should not continue to fight against monolithicism, political Illiberalism, tribalism, patrimonialism, bureaucratic inefficiency, public graft and corruption are at the end of the day the true enemies of Kenya (and indeed all of Africa). And they probably need to learn the lesson, often too bitterly learnt elsewhere, that those who do not accept the force of argument have often had to give in to the argument of force.”

n Wachira Nzina and Chris Mburu in The Nairobi Law Monthly, No. 31. March 1991.

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“Most African regimes have been so alienated and so violently repressive that their citizens see the state as enemies to be evaded, cheated and defeated if possible, but never as partners in development. The leaders have been so engrossed in coping with the hostilities, which their misrule and repression has unleashed that they are unable to take much interest in anything else including the pursuit of development. These conditions were not conducive to development and none has occurred. What has occurred is regression, as we all know only too well.”

n Claude Ake, Nigerian Scholar in). "How Politics Underdevelops Africa," in The Challenge of African Economic Recovery and Development, ed. Adebayo Adedeji, Owodumi Teriba, and Patrick Bugembe. Portland, OR: Cass, 1991; p.14.

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“To solve Zaire's economic crisis, we send three sacks of angry bees to the governor and the president. And some ants which really bite. Maybe they eat the government and solve our problems."

Amina Ramadou, a peasant housewife (The Wall Street Journal, Sept 26, 1991; p. A14).

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“Foreign aid has done more harm to Africa than we care to admit. It has led to a situation where Africa has failed to set its own pace and direction of development free of external interference. Today, Africa's development plans are drawn thousands of miles away in the corridors of the IMF and World Bank. What is sad is that the IMF and World Bank "experts" who draw these development plans are people completely out of touch with the local African reality.”

n Dr. Joshat Karanja, a former Kenya member of parliament, in New African, June 1992, 20.

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“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.

n Chinua Achebe in African News Weekly (1 October 1993, 32).

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"I believe the worst form of civilian government is better that the most benevolent military regime."

n Chuba Okadigbo, former chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of Nigeria's dissolved Senate (The New York Times, Dec 2, 1993; p.A3).

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"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"

n John Hayford (New African, April, 1994; p.7).

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1“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.”

n Julius O. Ihonvbere, in a Keynote address at The All-African Student's Conference, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada, May 27, 1994.

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"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."

n The Late and Hon. Hawa Yakubu-Ogede, former MP, Bawku (The Ghanaian Voice, Feb 12, 1995; p.8).

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"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).

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“Your modern politics [in Africa] is dictated by personal greed, power and suppression of thought. Our forefathers believed in participatory democracy. They saw politics as a way to liberate and build nations . . . The "modern" school [in Africa] taught us to read and write but not where we came from or where we are going to. The schools again teach us how to acquire money but not how wealth is created. We want to bring people's awareness back to their roots . . .

The chief represents the people. Without the people there is no chief. They have one goal. The people make the rules and the laws and both the chief and the people adhere to the same rules . . . We as a people have deserted our traditions in favor of [foreign ones]. We need to go back in time and learn every aspect of our traditions that served our forefathers well.”

n Nana Osei-Bonsu, Asantefuohene, a traditional chief in African Monthly, July, 1995; p.10.

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“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."

n Ibrahim Ibn Ibrahim, a Sierra Leonian journalist in Akasanoma, July 31-Aug 6, 1995; p.38).

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“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 undisciplined soldiers."

n Prince Oduro (Free Press, Aug 4-10, 1995; p.4).

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"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."

n Editorial, African News Weekly, Sept 1, 1995; p.7.

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"I have written his 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 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).

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“We have had to go back to our roots. We have to go back to our traditional ways of solving our problems, traditional ways of working together. Otherwise, Boosaaso a port in war-torn Somalia would not have peace.”

n Gen. Mohamed Abshir, Boosaaso's de facto administrator in The Washington Post, March 3, 1996; p.A29.

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“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.

n Wole Soyinka – in The Open Sore of a Continent. New York: Oxford University Press.1996; p.59).

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“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 accommodating 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).

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“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).

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"Many a time we have wondered if the so-called African leaders sometimes lack the capacity to think and understand the ramifications of their actions . . . After all the bloodshed in Rwanda you would think we have learnt a lesson but no! Idiocy of our power-hungry leaders seems to triumph over pragmatism and common sense. The rationale for the current fighting defies any logic . . . The world must be getting tired of us (Africans) giving our self-inflicted tragedies galore. We seem to lack any sense of urgency to handle problems in an expedient manner devoid of bloodshed. Lord Have Mercy!”

(Ghana Drum editorial, November, 1996; p.2).

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“African Renaissance demands that we purge ourselves of the parasites and maintain a permanent vigilance against the danger of entrenchment in African society of this rapacious stratum with its social morality according to which everything in society must be organized materially to benefit the few . . . The call for an African Renaissance is a call to rebellion. We must rebel against the tyrants and the dictators, those who seek to corrupt our societies and steal the wealth that belongs to the people. We must rebel against the ordinary criminals who murder, rape and rob, and conduct war against poverty, ignorance and the backwardness of the children of Africa."

Thabo Mbeki, former president of South Africa in The Nigerian, October 1998; p.2).

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“The turmoil in Africa today – famine, military coups and so on – is partly the result of African leaders who fought for independence but then enjoyed the fruits of their power and forgot about the people.”

n Tony Yengeni, chief whip of the African National Congress (ANC) of South Africa, The Washington Times, May 6, 1999, A14).

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"Your murderous military campaigns and strong-arm tactics have robbed African children of their youth, robbed African countries of hope and, in many instances, sentenced African people to lives no better than those of animals.” Wiping tears from her eyes, she said: “I don’t care what they do to me. The truth had to be told.”

n Anne-Marie Kabongo from Congo DR (The Washington Post (Sept 6, 1999; p.A21).

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“I heard we have a new government. It makes no difference to me. Here we have no light [electricity], we have no water. There is no road. We have no school. The government does nothing for us.”

Simon Agbo, a farmer in Ogbadibo, south of Makurdi, Benue state capital in Nigeria in The Washington Times, Oct 21, 1999; p.A19.

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“Most educated Nigerians, who are good copycats of foreign behavioral patterns, will like to flaunt their Euro-American amoral (and in fact immoral) tendencies in our face. Not even the decadence of those societies, despite their wealth and technologies, will make our elites have a rethink about those systems.

The quality of our elitism is so appallingly apelike that they are quite unable to distinguish a substance from a label. Whatever is out there is simply repeated here root, stalk and leaf. It is a shame today that we are being taught by Europe to breast-feed our babies. Today, almost every Nigerian woman wears a bleached skin and the curly hair strand of another race group.

It is time that we have a rethink. And we ask our elites to ship in or ship out."

Reverend S.J. Esu, a Nigerian pastor (Vanguard, Lagos, Aug 5, 1999. Web posted at www.allafrica.com).

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"The Winds of Change has blown and gone, and, at the end of the century, not a single African country is in bondage to any power. But hundreds of millions of Africans have been in bondage since the first day of uhuru (freedom)."

n Jon Qwelane, a black South African journalist, (The Sunday Times, Nov 1999; p. 24).

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“Billions of dollars of public funds continue to be stashed away by some African leaders – even while roads are crumbling, health systems have failed, school children have neither books nor desks nor teachers and phones do not work.”

Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (The African-American Observer, April 25 – May 1, 2000; p.10).

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"Africa today is politically independent and can be said to have come of age but apart from Thabo Mbeki and Yoweri Museveni, we are sorry to openly admit that most of our leaders have nothing to offer except to be effective managers for the IMF and serve as footnotes to neo-colonialism. Most of the leaders in Africa are power-loving politicians, who in uniform or out of uniform, represent no good for the welfare of our people. These are harsh words to use on men and women who may mean well but lack the necessary vision and direction to uplift the status of their people.”

n Editorial, The Independent, Ghana, July 20, 2000; p.2.

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“We Americans are so desperate for good news on the continent of Africa that it is almost irresistible when we find a good man in Africa. The only way we seem to be able to identify success in Africa is through personalization.”

n Edward P. Brynn, the former American Ambassador to Ghana quoted by Blaine Harden, “The U.S. Keeps Looking for a Few Good Men,” The New York Times, August 27, 2000, Section 4; p.1)

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“Are we hanging too much on Obasanjo? That is clearly a danger we face. We have to invest in institution building – the military, the legislature, getting a handle on corruption. But we cannot do any of this stuff on the cheap. It has got to be sustained beyond this president and beyond Obasanjo.”

J. Stephen Morrison, who worked at the State Department quoted by Blaine Harden, “The U.S. Keeps Looking for a Few Good Men,” The New York Times, August 27, 2000, Section 4; p.1)

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"What baffles me is that even the money recovered from the late General Sani Abacha has been stolen. If you recover money from a thief and you go back and steal the money, it means you are worse than the thief."

Uti Akpan, a textiles trader in Lagos The New York Times, Aug 30, 2000; p.A10.

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"When I listen to African leaders at international gatherings I cannot but feel ashamed at their quickness to blame the whiteman for all the woes of Africa. This, to my mind, is nothing but a childish case of passing the buck.

They blame the whites for the impoverishment of Africa outwardly to the hearing of the world and go indoors to cabinet and presidential offices to negotiate lopsided agreements with these foreigners. I am sure Europeans amuse themselves in their drawing rooms with how big-mouthed but small-brained African leaders are.

It will be funny if, in this millennium, we continue to blame the whiteman for our woes when we are actually the ones responsible for our backwardness."

Adedeji Adeyemi of Kaduna (Nigeria), inThis Day, Vol.6, No.1900, July 5, 2000; p.13).

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"For many years, the continent’s problems and position as the poorest on Earth have been attributed to colonialism and the exploitative and repressive trade between the developed North and yet to be developed South. However, these excuses have become obsolete in the recent times and as Kofi Annan pointed out to the Heads of states at the Lome Summit (July 2000) that most of the problems can be placed at the doorsteps of its leaders who have failed over the years to pursue policies that would engender development. Mr. Annan was only giving credence to an opinion which many open minded analyst of the African political scene have long held, but which have been suppressed for good reasons by those who wield political power in the continent."

Editorial, The Mirror, July 15, 2000; p.12.

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“If the twentieth century taught us anything, it is that large-scale centralized government does not work. It does not work at the national level, and it is less likely to work at the global level”.

Kofi Annan, U.N Secretary-General (The New York Times, Sept 13, 2000; p.A12).

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"If you had told me a year ago that I would be in the streets rioting, I would have said you were insane. But then again, if you told me I would be praying to God to deliver us from [President] Robert Mugabe a year ago, I would have said the same thing. I am not a violent man; I am not an especially religious man. But whatever it takes for Zimbabwe to finally be rid of this man, I am willing to do."

Josiah Makawa, a 24-year-old warehouse worker in Harare (The Washington Post, Nov 23, 2000; p.A45).

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“My family has not eaten meat in months. Sometimes we eat only raw vegetables for supper because we have no money to buy [fuel] for cooking. This government has had 20 years to do something about the land problem and they did nothing. Now that's all they want to talk about. No one is listening."

Josiah Makawa, a warehouse worker in Harare, Zimbabwe (The Washington Post, November 23, 2000; p.A45).

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“Nigeria's foreign debt profile is now in the region of $25-$30 billion, but the president of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria, ICAN, Chief Jaiye K. Randle, himself an eminent accountant and social commentator has now revealed that individual Nigerians are currently lodging far more than Nigeria owes in foreign banks. With an estimate he put at $170 billion it becomes immediately clear why the quest for debt forgiveness would remain a far fetched dream.”

Laolu Akande, a veteran Nigerian freelance journalist, (http://nigeriaworld.com/columnist/laoluakande/articles.html)

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“Africans want change because there is so much suffering here. But Africans are above all else devoted to their ancestors, and they do not want to betray that by becoming something that they are not.”

Patekile Holomisa, an inkhosi (chief) and head of the Congress of Traditional Leaders in South Africa in the The Washington Post, Dec 18, 2000; p.A1.

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“The ANC [government of South Africa] wants to transplant customs from other countries here, and that will destroy the Zulu nation and all that we value. We are poor, but do you see any beggars in the streets like you do in the cities? The inkhosi (traditional chief) makes sure that we are all provided for. The municipality will make beggars of us. When I have a problem, I can go see the inkhosi any time, day or night. I don't need an appointment. They can have their civilization, brother.”

Benjamin Makhanaya in The Washington Post, Dec 18, 2000; p.A1.

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"How can a politician decide what is right for my people better than myself or my son, who has been preparing his entire life for the moment when he must lead? I am not running for re election. This is not my career. It is my duty. I have served my people for 48 years and will continue to serve them until I die."

Mzunjani Ngcobo, tribal chief of Quadi in South Africa The Washington Post, Dec 18, 2000; p.A1.

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"People cannot eat slogans, rhetoric or history; liberty must bring tangible benefits to the oppressed . . .This is also relevant in South Africa, (describing Mugabe's government as a "promising transformation project turned horrible." In the sharpest condemnation of recent developments in Zimbabwe by a South African leader, Mr. Vavi placed the blame for Zimbabwe’s troubles on the repression of critics and "near-dictatorial governance."

n Zwelinzima Vavi, head of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, at a seminar in Johannesburg, assessing the lessons of Zimbabwe for its neighbors (The New York Times, Feb 25, 2001)

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"As hopes wither and economies flounder, a new generation of Africans are turning their backs on the continent's old guard political leadership. From Zimbabwe to Uganda, Angola to Kenya, post colonial leaders and pre-independence political parties are falling from grace. Desperately holding onto power by political manipulation and old western-bashing slogans of the 1960s, they blame their nation's financial ills on foreign exploitation rather than on their own failings -- but with a new generation of educated African citizens, such transparent rabble rousing rings increasingly hollow.

Milan Vesely, in African Business, April 2001; p.41.

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"How can we allow these MMD crooks to come to our villages to ask for more years to complete their destruction of our mother Zambia? . . . How can I lend my support to state-propelled hooliganism, vandalism, corruption and scandals? I ask Zambians to effect citizen's arrest, manhandle and cage all MMD big corrupt thieves into places designed for crooks and dangerous national law breakers because the police had failed to arrest them. All of them must be placed under wanted list by the people as the police have failed the nation lamentably."

Chief Bright Nalubamba of the Ila people of Namwala (The Post, Lusaka, May 29, 2001).

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"You have a president who is a retired military man, a director of national security who is a retired military man, a defense minister who is a retired military man and a director of the State Security Service (SSS) or national intelligence, who is an ex-military man. Apart from the president and all the key office-holders in the land being of military background, we don't have enough elbow room to begin to talk about subordinating this system to civilian control."

Rev. Matthew Hassan Kuka, a member of the Oputa Commission set up to investigate past human rights abuses (The Washington Times, Nov 1, 2001; p.A18).

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"We have been in terror for 10 years. We have destroyed our towns. We have killed each other. We have used all sorts of weapons against each other, except perhaps airplanes."

Abdiqassim Salad Hassan, President of Somalia's transitional government (The New York Times, Nov 4, 2001; p.A4).

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“The more you read about Africa, the more it becomes evident that African leaders are a strange lot. These guys are worse than space aliens. And somebody wants me to believe our problem is the white man. Rubbish. I posit that colonial rule was better. Obasanjo, the Nigerian leader regards himself as the best black leader in the world today. Maybe Mandela is white. This is why Obasanjo gallivants all over the globe. Let's concede that perhaps he is. Then Africa is really in trouble. If the best rules like they are doing in Nigeria today, frittering away our poor income on nonsensical projects, you begin to wonder what hope the African?"

Horace Awi, a member of a Concerned Professionals Group and drilling engineering manager with a multinational oil company in Lagos, Nigeria, on naijanet,a discussion forum on November 16, 2001.

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"Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe seems to have gone bonkers in a big way. It is very dangerous when you subvert the rule of law in your own country, when you don't even respect the judgments of your judges . . . then you are on the slippery slope of perdition. It is a great sadness what has happened to President Mugabe. He was one of Africa's best leaders, a bright spark, a debonair and well-read person."

n Archbishop Desmond Tutu in Saturday Star, January 12, 2002.

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"Afrcan leaders are the continent’s worst enemies . . .Which African leader can stand up today and say he/she did not know about Mobutu Sese Seko or Hastings Kamuzu Banda’s personalisation of their countries’ monies or the vast and obscene opulence they lived in while the natives in Kinshasa and Lilongwe, the centres of government that are supposed to reflect the country’s wealth or lack thereof, wallowed in dire poverty?"

Marko Phiri, a Zimbabwean student of journalism in The Financial Gazette, May 3, 2002.

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“Ghana was the first sub-Saharan nation to win its independence from a colonial power in 1957. Yet the average per capita income of my people is lower now than in the 1960s, four decades after independence. Some of the blame for this we Ghanaians must accept. My country must acknowledge that corruption has been a canker on our public and economic life and must be contained.

One hundred years ago, our trading was limited to the supply of raw materials, mainly gold, timber and cocoa. One hundred years later, our trading consists of raw materials, mainly gold, timber and cocoa.

I must admit that Ghana's path towards self-reliance has not been smooth. I am painfully aware that our past can be characterized by one step forward and two steps backward.”

President John A Kufuor of Ghana (The Financial Gazette, May 3, 2002; p.5).

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At the United Nations Children's Summit held in May 2002 in New York, youngsters ripped into their African leaders:

"You get loans that will be paid in 20 to 30 years... and we have nothing to pay them with, because when you get the money, you embezzle it, you eat it," said 12-year-old Joseph Tamale from Uganda (BBC News website, May 10, 2002).

"We must put an end to this demagoguery. You have parliaments, but they are used as democratic decoration," said Adam Maiga, from Mali: (BBC News website, May 10, 2002).

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"All these people (African leaders) do is talk, talk, talk. Then if they do get any money from the wazungu (white men), they just steal it for themselves. And what about us? We have no food. We have no schools. We have no future. We are just left to die.".

Mercy Muigai, an unemployed Kenyan woman (The Washington Times, June 28, 2002; p.A17).

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“In Biya's corrupt Cameroon, a ministerial appointment is not an opportunity to, as John F. Kennedy stipulated, serve your country; rather, it is brief and interrupted moment to savor the pleasures of what your country can do for you. A ministerial appointment is a letter of credit signed by Biya, the chief executive officer and mercenary overseer of France's Cameroon Incorporated, the French plantation of a corporation or micro state, for you to loot the national treasury of the banana republic and placate your tribesmen to support the exploitation of your country's resources. There is no jingoism or nationalism about it. It is the politics of satisfying the physiological needs of the stomach: `You chop and I chop.'

Claude Berri, a Cameroonian journalist (The African Nation, September 2002; p.33).

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“It's however, also a fact that after the attainment of independence, many of these "heroes" grew into quarrelsome old men. They could not understand why their rabble-rousing speeches no longer elicited the same awe, or never had the selfsame electrifying effect on the masses. They also refused to understand why the people could not identify with their desire to die in power (and many actually did realize that desire). They were caught in a time warp. Most of these old politicians failed to move with the people. The people, after independence quickly wanted to get to the next stage from liberation that the independence struggle was all about, while the leaders continued to bask in the euphoria of kicking out the colonial master. For them, it was a continuous party that could only end with their death. So, when talk of popular revolt against them begun to waft through the air, their only response was to become repressive - hoping they could suppress the clamor for change. They failed."

Henry Ochieng in The Monitor (Kampala), Jan 22, 2003.

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"The people being starved to death (in Zimbabwe) are not white; the majority of those killed by the regime's killing machine are not white; those who languish in jail as I speak to you and are subjected to incessant torture and sub-human conditions are not white; those in the rural areas who are daily subjected to brutal treatment are not white. It is therefore despicable and cheap for anyone to reduce such a tragedy to an issue of race for the sake of a fake African brotherhood and political expediency."

Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in The Independent (Harare), Jan 24, 2003.

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“The men haven’t done a good job of running our countries, so maybe now we are looking for a Big Woman, not a Big Man, to do the job. The list of corrupt, incompetent and just foolish male leaders is a long one.”

Chipo Lungu, Executive Director, Zambia National Women’s Lobby Group (The Herald-Tribune, June 8, 2003; p.1F).

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“This is a vibrant, diverse country. Hardly anyone wants to see it homogenized into a pseudo-Gulf state. We are not Arabs”.

Nima El-Bagir, a Sudanese journalist in The Economist, June 28, 2003; p.48.

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“People have noticed that some of the governors who have adopted sharia have no real interest in social justice. Rather, they want to harness religion to win or hold on to power, with all its perks. Not long after the first thieves had their hands cut off, people started to grumble that the big-time crooks in high places were going unpunished."

n Professor Abubakar Saddiq, of the Center for Democratic Development in Zaria, Nigeria, (The Economist, June 28, 2003; p.50).

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“It is really difficult to ask foreign investors to come and invest on our continent when our own leaders are not investing here. There is no better factor to convince foreign investors than for them to see that our own people, both those based at home and those in the Diaspora, invest in Africa.

Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, President of the African Business Round Table on business partnership with New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) at the Commonwealth Business Forum on December 3, 2003 in Abuja, Nigeria, This Day, Lagos, Dec 4, 2003.

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“Our leaders are incapable of being criticized without feeling rancor. When people say it is alien to our African culture to criticize leaders, they forget that in our traditional past even chiefs or kings were the subject of satirical orations and ribaldry. Even the ruthless Zulu dictator Chaka could be criticized openly. Now try to make some of our leaders the subject of satirical orations and ribaldry and see what happens to you. In their mistaken belief, it is “Western” to have freedom of the press and freedom of expression, which leaves us stuck in a culture of zealous leader worship – a culture which would look primitive is the eyes of our ancestors.

The acceptance of criticism implies the highest respect for human ideals, and its denial suggests a conscious or unconscious lack of humanity on our part. Intolerance must surely rank as one of the worst forms of immorality in human affairs, yet our modern African societies have established a reputation for intolerance that is difficult to match.

Until our leaders redress the imbalance between selfish pursuit of power and concern for the human lives they are elected to protect, between arrogance and self-respect and humility, between intolerance and mutual tolerance, we will forever be marching backwards in very long strides.”

Fred M'membe, editor of The Post, Lusaka, Zambia (Jan 5, 2004. Web posted at www.zamnet.zm/zamnet/post/)

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“Each and everything they [the African National Congress] promised us is not materializing. This country is going to the dogs.”

Raphael Mohlala, 22, Johannesburg, quoted in the The Washington Times, April 15, 2004; p.A15.

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"The average African is poorer (now) than during the age of colonialism. Whereas colonialists had developed the continent, planted crops, built roads and cities, the era of uhuru had been characterized by capital flight as the elite pocketed money and took it outside their countries. Among them were the late Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha. The money Abacha had plundered had been discovered in Switzerland . . . In the 1960s African elites/rulers, instead of focusing on development, took surplus for their own enormous entourages of civil servants without plowing anything back into the country. The continent's cash crops, like cocoa and tobacco, were heavily exploited by the state-run marketing boards with farmers getting little in return.”

Moeletsi Mbeki, Chairperson of the South African Institute of International Affairs, and brother of President Thabo Mbeki (The Mercury, Sept 22, 2004. Web posted: http://www.themercury.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=283&fSetId=169)

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"When this government first came, they had their own project" to build an Islamic state. But eventually it became survival politics -- to remain in power at any cost. If that means dropping an Islamic agenda and kicking out bin Laden, then fine. If that means making peace in the south, then fine. If that means reversing themselves on Darfur publicly, then fine. As long as they stay in power, they are willing to appease the international community and do just enough to maintain control"

Mahjoub Mohamed Saleh, editor of Al Ayam, an independent newspaper in Khiartoum, Sudan (The Washington Post, May 3, 2005; p.A14).

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From Afrikan Insight, June 2005; p.11.

“I am astonished that anyone would use the words “statesmen” and “leadership” in describing these (African) rulers, given the level of suffering they have imposed upon our helpless people. Why is the BBC (and the BBC is the best news organization in the world in my view) always so reluctant to use the correct terminology? These rulers are no better than gangsters and scoundrels” UE, UK/Nigeria From Afrikan Insight, June 2005; p.11.

.“The fact that the continent of Africa has so few surviving presidents says a lot about the personalities of African leaders. The pathway of African Leadership usually starts off as revolutionary, corrupt, greedy, manipulators of the law to prolong power and eventually political death. As a young African, I am hopeful that we can reclaim our legacy if more African presidents consider “LIFE” after office.”

K.P. Sherman, Liberian in the U.S. From Afrikan Insight, June 2005; p.11.

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"Our government is hopeless. If we don't have petrol, everything stops. Everything stops. What can we do?"

Arnold Mapfumo, a welder waiting in a line for gasoline in the suburb of Chitungwiza in Zimbabwe (The Washington Post, July 25, 2005; p.A15)

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“I am often saddened by the leadership situation I see in Africa and also pained for the situation that sometimes, the populations are placed in because of errors of leaders. I think I was the first to go to the OAU summit to say that they should not encourage people who come to power through the barrel of the gun and they should not welcome in their midst with open arms and smiles people who have taken up power through a coup d'etat.

At that time, quite a lot of people were surprised and shocked. But several years later, they took the decision that they would not welcome them into their midst. And that also implies that we need to play by the rules. We need to accept and respect the constitution, we need to accept electoral laws, we need to accept the results of elections and we should not tamper with the constitution to perpetuate our rule.

What worries me is that, if this trend continues where leaders are able to change the constitution... the constitution is never written for an individual, it is written for a nation and must stand the test of time... if you change (it) to suit individuals and they extend their mandate in office, we may face the situation where the soldiers who are now in arracks will come back and say, since we cannot go through change in the normal democratic way, this may be the only way to do it. We don't want that.

Kofi Annan, U.N. Secretary-General, in an interview with the Guardian, Nigeria, (May 11, 2006).

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"I am just a working man, I don't know why the government doesn't help us . . . I don't know where the oil money goes. We become angry but we don't know what to do."

n Vieira Muieba, a construction worker in Luanda, Angola. (The New York Times, June 16, 2006; p.A14).

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“What I want to talk about is the uncritical belief -- especially by African leaders -- that somehow Africa's salvation and development will come from outside. This state of affairs has in turn led to the development of a number of industries in Europe and North America to reinforce and sustain that belief . . . You would always hear of a conference on Africa, for Africans but not by Africans, to discuss this or that issue, being held in places like Paris, London, Stockholm, Washington, Toronto and, of course, Brussels. And as you are reading this piece now, there is one going on in Brussels - termed EU-Africa Week. This conference will discuss a range of issues such as (good) governance, social rights, corruption, inequalities and vulnerable groups and the role of the media in development among others.

Now most of these issues don't need a rocket scientist to actualize them and thus there is no need for these endless conferences. To make things even worse, the very same people who are supposed to implement most of the good practices in their countries and who are either unable or unwilling to; are the ones frequenting these conference halls. For them, of course, it's just another short holiday and opportunity for shopping and a bit of extra cash through S&T (per diem).”

Alexactus T. Kaure (The Namibian, Nov 24, 2006; web posted-- http://www.namibian.com.na)

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“They only think of getting richer; they ignore us”

Phumnani Dlamini of Soweto. (The Washington Times, July 15, 2007; p.A7).

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In 2003, the weekly newspaper Angolese Samanario published a list of the wealthiest people in Angola. Twelve of the top 20 were government officials; five were former government officials . . . Many Angolans take it as a given that those who shop at Luanda’s new upscale mall or tool about in Land Cruisers are state officials or their friends. One car dealership manager, who caters to government officials, said he ordered only the costliest luxury cars. “They want to be first with the latest model,” he said, speaking anonymously so as not to lose customers/”

(The New York Times, Oct 14, 2007; p. WK4).

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“The Nigerian political elite to a large extent are like maggots . . . They are creatures that enjoy the presence of corruption and stench.”

n Sola Adeyeye, a former member of the House of Representatives. (The New York Times, Oct 31, 2007; p.A8)

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