Obama Strikes the Right Tone on Africa
President Obama’s speech Ghana was televised across the African continent and in it Mr. Obama delivered the message that Africans have needed to hear for many decades, that after all of the history between the people of the continent and the outside world – western exploitation, remuneration, and billions in foreign aid – it’s up to Africans themselves to bring stability and hope to their own countries.
He delivered a strong and at times even stern message in words that, had they come from any of his predecessors, might not have been received the same way. Instead, it was cast by the White House as hard truths from a loving cousin who could say what no one else could.
Excerpts:
We must start from the simple premise that Africa’s future is up to Africans
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It is easy to point fingers and to pin the blame for these problems on others. But the West is not responsible for the destruction of the Zimbabwean economy over the last decade, or wars in which children are enlisted as combatants
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No country is going to create wealth if its leaders exploit the economy to enrich themselves, or police can be bought off by drug traffickers,” he said. “No business wants to invest in a place where the government skims 20 percent off the top, or the head of the port authority is corrupt. No person wants to live in a society where the rule of law gives way to the rule of brutality and bribery. That is not democracy, that is tyranny, and now is the time for it to end.
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Africa doesn’t need strongmen. It needs strong institutions.
Mr. Obama’s record at home has been mixed, to say the least. But on the issue of African progress he’s right on the mark – it is up to the African people to put aside obsolete tribal prejudices and band together to demand just, representative government and an orderly society in which prosperity has, if not a guarantee of success, at least the chance of being achieved.
Hopefully Baker’s interpretation is correct and Africans will catch fire using Mr. Obama’s words as the spark needed to bring a wildfire of hope and change to what has been for decades a violent, self-destructive continent.
Mr. Obama was right in saying the ills in Africa. Corruption, victimization, nepotism and bribery are the daily food in Ghana. The only enterprising venture in Ghana is politics. In Ghana, the ambition of every college student is to become a politician one day in their life. The police are extorting money from drivers in the full glare of everybody, and yet the police authority has been foolishly denying knowledge of this.
The reason is that the money the police unlawfully take from the drivers is shared among the top brat of the police administration. Ordinary constables have to bribe their bosses in order to get the chance to stand on the roads.
Once , a driver threw me from his car for asking why he was giving too much money to the police on the road from Wa to Sunyani.
The police are giving sophiscated weapons to armed robbers so that they will get part of the booty.
You don’t need to report a robbery case to police in some parts of kumasi and Accra.They will help the robbers to kill you.
The ports are even the worst places in Ghana. Everyday port workers steal goods being sent home by Ghanaians living abroad.If you don’t bribe port officials, you don’t get your goods cleared from the ports.
The ills in Ghana are many and that is why people are dying of hunger. Government officials only think about their bellies and not about the poor masses.If the country doesn’t get God-fearing people to lead, we will be poor even after million years.