Man and woman, the age long struggle in A Husband’s Wife

In the African contemporary plays, feminine characters are inscribed in a complex sphere of multiple meanings, partly derived from the ancient myth of the “Big African Mother-Earth”, and partly referred to an idea of difference which is very distant from the European notion of “Other”.

In literature, a typical feminine conception has been theorised by the movement known as “Motherism”, whose suggestions have been followed by many African writers. The creation of a new literary woman’s typology refers, therefore, to philosophical, historical, sociological and psychological perspectives, showing new routes to develop the European epistemological system.
It is this emerging modern woman that Tyrone Terrence tries to recreate in his play A Husband's Wife that is currently staging by Theatre@Terra at Terra Kulture. Directed by Sola Roberts Iwaotan and produced by Wole Oguntokun the play chronicles that experience of the protagonist, Tomi who suspects her husband of infidelity and seeks to confirm her suspicions. She struggles to accommodate the fact that her husband is looking for excitement after 20 years of marriage. However, when the truth is discovered, it is much more than either husband or wife could have imagined.

A Husband’s Wife could be classified as a tragedy although it’s highly satirical. It closely resembles William Shakespeare's comedies. The play concerns itself with the inborn, unargued ‘stupidity’ of couples as they grow older leaving behind the life-affirming gaiety and resourcefulness of their youth. After years of threading their way through obstacles set up by middle aged vanity and impercipience, Tomi is on the verge of being dumped by her husband, Femi, for another woman of their daughter’s age. After moments of quietness, Tomi decides to break the norm of silence which women are known for when she confronts her husband on his infidelity.

Tomi symbolises the modern woman who has refused to be given a lower status than his husband, as it is the norm in a patriarchal society. The feud between Tomi and Femi reinforces or undermines the economic, political, social and psychological oppression of women. Femi pushes all the traditional gender roles deeply-rooted in patriarchal ideology on Tomi. And he thinks Tomi’s concentration throughout their 20 years of marriage has been her job and housekeeping. Through the play, Terrence tries to show the loopholes in a patriarchal society where culture privileges men by promoting traditional gender roles. Traditional gender roles regard men as rational, strong, protective, and decisive while it sees women as emotional (irrational), weak, nurturing and submissive. “Marriage is work,@ says Femi. “A woman did not devout time for her marriage.” Femi compares the tears of women to a ceaseless flowing river, a weapon. But Terrence creates a strong and formidable character in Tomi who refuses to be seen as the ‘other.’

“Marriage vows do not expire with age,” says Femi. “The most pathetic thing a woman can do is to hold on to a man who does not want her any more.” And so, Femi thinks his object of affection has become his object of affliction. As with most patriarchal societies, women are subjected to the pains of domestic violence which in this case takes a form of verbal abuse from both parties.

Male promiscuity is accepted to be natural, but a woman can suffer great repercussions if she is found to be unfaithful. Refusing sex or asking money from her husband (hence challenging her husband’s authority as the controller of finances) can have disastrous effects. Cultural factors place males at the head of their households, and when their position is challenged, just as when any male animal feels that his territory has been invaded, they will strike out to deter the invader. Through, Tomi’s replies to his words, Femi feels his territory has been invaded and he has a right to find solace in the bosom of a younger woman. Thus the plays shows that the traditional mindset that women are property of men does not help.

...and Sizwe Bansi is a Woman

In the on-going play, Sizwe Bansi Is Dead, being staged at Theatre@Terra, written by Athol Fugard, John Kani, and Winston Ntshona, Sizwe Bansi, the protagonist, is stranded without a work permit in Port Elizabeth. The only solution to his dilemma is summarised in Kafkaesque terms by his benefactor Buntu, analysed the rigours he has to go through in other to secure a Residence Permit in New Brighton.

Sizwe Bansi opens with a now famous improvisation by the character Styles, a photographer, on themes provided by whatever news is topical in the newspaper. There is an improvisation on this part of the play compared with what his in the printed version which covers about fifteen pages.

Styles’ narration is a political satire and its dramatic significance lies in its contribution to the definition of the character, Styles, and his history. The play opens in the here and now of Styles' photographic studio, where he finds himself, facing his audience, waiting for a customer to turn up. From this point Styles returns to his beginnings, his first job as a worker in the Ford Factory in Port Elizabeth, and traces the vicissitudes of his life along the route which will bring him back to this studio. There is indeed, in Styles’ seemingly light hearted a tale embedded in both past and present pain a search for identity. The interaction of time past and time present establishes a base and a model for the further evolution of the play.

Styles' account of his life's journey is metaphorical. Upon first acquiring his studio, he faces a problem of infestation by cockroaches, and the first remedy he reaches for is an insecticide. Clearly, in this scene, the cockroaches become a metaphor for the black masses infesting the white capitalist's condemned premises. This becomes most evident in the failure of the attempt to "doom" the "pests" in Styles’ words. But for the metaphor to work, Styles himself becomes, at least temporarily, allied to the forces of white repression. An even more convoluted situation arises when the failure of the first attempt to evict or kill the cockroaches is followed by a much more efficient method: a cat called Blackie does the job. Even if one resists the temptation to tread much further through this particular labyrinth of metaphors, Styles' appropriation of the strong-arm tactics that traditionally characterised the apartheid regime sends some unexpected signals.

Undoubtedly, Styles’ story contains a strong and explicit political text---- the lack of choices available to him as a black worker in a white-owned factory; the dreary realities of job reservation, of group areas, of the whole complex of laws that define apartheid as a system; the futile pleasure derived from a momentary reversal of white and black roles (when Styles makes a fool of ‘Baas’ Bradley by saying in Xhosa what cannot be said in English, by standing erect while the foreman is "kneeling there on the floor," by "wearing a mask of smiles," by changing the customary order of perception as a key to the racial power play at work in the scene—("We were watching them. Nobody was watching us"); the process of transformation into a self-made man with his own studio.

The problem is that Sizwe Bansi knows no white man to start with. In the circumstances, Buntu’s evaluation of the situation is straightforward when he says: “There’s no way out, Sizwe. You’re not the first one who has tried to find it. Take my advice and catch that train back to King William’s Town.”

However profound the personal implications for Sizwe Bansi may be, the problem as formulated by Buntu appears to be a purely social one. Within moments, however, another dimension grows from it. When Buntu suggests, as the only other ‘way out,’ a job on the mines, which Sizwe refuses point-blank. The statement is echoed in Antigone's acknowledgment in The Island that: “I know I must die”, and in the resignation to: “a susceptibility to death” in Statements after an Arrest under the Immorality Act.

Much of the impact of this moment in Sizwe Bansi derives from the way in which it represents an interface between the play’s two key dimensions: the socio-political and the existential. Sizwe Bansi has long been recognised as an indictment of the wickedness and brutality of apartheid.
In the present post-apartheid era it is perhaps time to take a more dispassionate look at some problems illuminated by Sizwe Bansi Is Dead: not only the interaction between socio-politics and theatre within a given text, but the dilemma of the writer as a person with both artistic integrity and a social conscience. Or, in terms of Fugard’s own explanation of his improvisational technique in his preface to the play.

The basic device in the play has been that of challenge and response, the problem of reacting to an ideological or political challenge, that is apartheid and the struggle for liberation; with a response on a different level altogether --- theatrical, existential, and moral.
What marks the Styles circle above all else is his resort to role-playing, which is, interestingly enough, a strategy in any number of resistance plays by black writers in South Africa. Much more than a mere device to resolve the problem of tedium presented by straight narrative, role-playing operates within several systems of signification. In the first place, role-playing extends the scope of the character's involvement in the narrative. Instead of being merely this individual implicated in this situation (a photographer and ex-factory worker in his township studio), Styles becomes a crowd, reaching beyond the twenty-seven members of an extended family who turn up to have their photograph taken to a whole community, a whole society, the blacks in South Africa.

In the second place, role-playing makes it possible to represent the all-encompassing yet invisible apartheid system on the stage. The representation of the objects and victims of the system is inevitable and inescapable --- that is what the play is about.
However, the attempt by the producer/director, Wole Oguntokun to a female as the lead character, Sizwe (played by Kemi Lala Akindoju), is not completely a success as there are lapses by character to fully play the role. Some aspects of the script should have been changed to suit the new perspective. For instance, when Sizwe tries to explain her predicament of loosing her identity by changing her name from Sizwe Bansi to Robert Zwelinzima to Buntu. She could not understand how she will explain her transformation to her husband or children in her letter. Of course, the change of name may not completely affect her husband, but for her children, it may be a big dilemma because they cannot afford to change their last name from Bansi to Zwelinzima. In the original text, Sizwe is a man transformed from being Sizwe into Robert Zwelinzima and he finds himself at a crossroad in his letter to his wife about his sudden change of identity. The message of hopeless which Athol tries to pass across in the original text is not clearly portrayed; it is not forceful. Oguntokun’s attempt is quite commendable although, the fact that Sizwe is dressed in a three-piece suit at the beginning of the play before she changes her costume shows the difficulty in using a female to play such a lead role.

...and the man died

I could not believe that Gani Fawehinmi was dead when I got wind of the news last Saturday. Although he had been ill for some time now, it’s unbelievable he’s gone.

Fawehinmi, popularly known as Gani, has passed on. Some sources said he had succumbed to a long drawn battle waged against him by cancer, which had lasted for about 2 years. The news of his sad demise had flooded in during the early hours of the morning.

Before now, Fawehinmi was one of the most famous figures in Nigeria. Fondly referred to as "the people's lawyer" and "Senior Advocate of the Masses," he used his legal training and resources in fighting for justice for the Nigerian people.

Like Wole Soyinka, Fawehinmi was the loud conscience of millions of Nigerians. For him, silence was never an option. In fact, I will greatly miss his husky but firm voice on TV. I love Fawehinmi because he believed there were no tyrants too big to be challenged.

For most of the years he lived, he endured imprisonment, harassment and the climate of assassination created by the different military regimes. He battled causes, he took on the corruption of civilian governments while highlighting their illegitimate means of coming to power.
He was not everything to everybody, there were people who liked or hated him. He was liked and hated because of the endless energy with which he tenaciously pursued what he believed in. He protected the fundamental human rights of the ordinary Nigerian, and had respect for the hopes and aspirations of the masses who were victims of bad governance.

I could recall how much he fought the government of Ibrahim Babangida after the death of Dele Giwa, who died through a parcel bomb in 1986. Fawehinmi openly accused Babangida of being complicit in the journalist's murder. He later took the case to the Supreme Court, but lost. For this, Babangida tried to humiliate him publicly when he was arrested.

The story was the same when Sanni Abacha came to power in the early 1990s. Fawehinmi led the fight against the cancellation of 12 June 1993 presidential election and the subsequent detention of Moshood Abiola. His international passport was seized on many occasions; his residence and chambers were ransacked several times.

He was beaten up repeatedly and was confined to one part of the country in order to prevent him from being listened to by the masses. Some of Fawehinmi’s books which Abacha did not like were confiscated and one of his Lagos houses, where his law books were kept, was about to be set ablaze when the perpetrators were caught and apprehended by neighbours.
In spite of it all, he was undaunted. Even till he died, he continued to take on the ruling class, and filed a law suit against the current civilian administration.

For some of us, Fawehinmi was more than an activist. He was also a humanitarian with an uncommon legal mind. I could remember that he gave scholarships to many poor students in the county and revolutionised law reportage with the establishment of the Nigerian Weekly Law Reports in the late 1980s. What else can I say, but adieu to a man who fought for the masses.

Women behind the wheels

On a rainy Saturday morning in August, I had an appointment to meet hence I was somewhat in a hurry. By the time I hit the roads, the entire area was already water logged and traffic logjam was beginning to build up.
Since I was running a little late for the meeting, I drove a little faster than I normally would. But no matter how fast I moved, I was still conscious of traffic rules and not to swerve the car into an on-coming vehicle.

After being schooled in driving rules, at least the Highway Code has become another Bible for me (the fear of Federal Road Safety Corps and LASTMA is the beginning of wisdom); I made sure I did not overtake wrongly in order not to put the lives of other road users in danger.
That morning, there was a driver who tried to overtake me wrongly, because he saw I was a female. The man’s attitude underscored the impatience of most Nigerian drivers. But for the careful driver that I am, I stopped on my track when I realised the man deliberately swerved his bus in my direction.

At this point, I tried to manoeuvre the car, making sure he didn't pass me. But on a second thought, I decided to stay calm to avoid any dent on my car.
I realised too that the man like any other Danfo driver was just another crazy, impatient driver who loved to make trouble. Despite the fact that I did not struggle with him for right of way, he tried all he could to scare me off the road, but I didn't budge. “You be woman o, why you no wan comot for road? You no fit drive like a tasin drifa” he jeered wickedly.

The behaviour of some drivers in the Lagos metropolis has never ceased to amuse me, and at a point it became a cause for worry. I don’t understand why some drivers are so careless about the safety of other road users. Most times while driving, I've seen and heard other male drivers taunting female drivers with comments like 'E no sabi, na woman o, no wonder,' or 'I must drive myself, you no go tell your husband to give you driver?' or 'Na so woman dey drive?,’ are very common comments on our road.

The question then is: are there really that few or no good female drivers on our roads or it’s just that the male drivers are just being sexist? It annoys me on end though, when I see a woman who has no business driving, being a nuisance on the road.

I feel women like that make the male drivers generalise that most women are bad drivers. However, if it is a man, no one says anything, they'd just write it off as one of those things, maybe he's having a bad day, but if it is a woman it becomes a problem.
There is another side to it, when some male drivers realise that a woman is behind the wheel, it’s at that point they will begin to flex their muscles by offering to give instructions on how to ‘turn your hand,’ especially if you are reversing.

Even the most ignorant of them will still offer to help. Hence, at the slightest issue, every man on the road feels he must help you drive or give you directions. I think it's mostly a sexist thing.
And so, I believe there is no woman driving a car on the road that doesn’t know where she is heading. Yet, there are some men who are bad drivers than women. They only try to cover up their inadequacies with ego.

The 21st Century mum

The morning of last Saturday is one I will not forget in a long time to come. When I set out of the house, I never had an inkling of what to expect from the meeting I was going for. Some days before, I got a call from Adebola Williams of Future Awards concerning the meeting, yet I could not figure out what to expect from Oby Ezekwesili, World Bank vice president for the Africa region, who called for the informal meeting.

Since I was unsure of what to expect, I looked forward to the meeting with great expectation and curiosity. The meeting was scheduled for 8.30 am, but did not begin until 9.30.
When I arrived the Civic Centre, it was few minutes past eight. Uche Unaji of Ouch, the Igwe of style, as he is fondly called, with Dele Odufuye, were at the lobby waiting for the others to come. “We are the early birds,” Ouch said, as a way of welcome. “We arrived before those who live on the Island,” he added. “Yes, that’s true. It was difficult getting a place to park,” I answered. We walked back into the meeting room together just before Oby walked into the room.

“I am happy to be with you all,” she said, as she settled into a seat away from the high table, a sign of humility I suppose or she simply wanted us to feel free interacting with her. She told us how much she looked forward to meeting the 2009 winners of the Future Awards and how elated she was about the award. But what I found striking about Oby as she spoke that morning was her poise, humility and the fact that she exuded life.

I saw in her a woman who is in touch with this generation. She understands the needs of this generation and she feels its pulse. She knows the old’ school music, she knows the latest music, she tweets, as she is even on Facebook. She is a part of the Facebook and Twitter generation, making her is a 21st Century mum!

“I am so excited about your generation. No matter what people say, I am always happy about the opportunities of your generation. Many of you would have fallen by the way side but you choose not to. I am happy to know that you are by no means held back by any region. You are a citizen of the world and you are able to set a standard of excellence for yourself,” she declared.
“We are on the move,” she stated with a sting of pride, that she considered herself lucky to be a part of a generation that is resilient and internet savvy. “Let nothing stop you, you can rule the world. I want to do better than I have done; whatever you think I have done should be your start-off point. You must destroy every stereotype,” she charged.

As expected, she had a word for everyone, as she joked about her sons being good dancers, and however expressing her joy over Mosun Umoru’s interest in agriculture. She is a woman who believes strongly that agriculture has the propensity to grow the economy more than any other sector, and it will be a good way in tackling poverty in a continent that is still very agrarian. Of course, Obi never failed to let us into her private dream.
“One of the dreams,” she revealed with a giggle, “I have is to see the Nigerian fashion industry grow. In it, I can see an industry that can rule the world. The finesse of Nigerian designers is great. Nothing stops them from aspiring to becoming well known labels like Christian Dior, Armani, Gucci, among others.”

Undoubtedly, those words were for Ouch who expressed his displeasure about the ban on the importation of textiles. Oby’s last words were really striking and like a mother who understood needs of the internet generation and the tendency for it to be a copycat, she did not fail to highlight the importance of self discovery.

“In all of you, there is something deposited in you that is great. Share knowledge with one another, dig deep into yourself and discover what you have on the inside. In Nigeria, we don’t have the capacity to share but what we don’t know is that when we share knowledge it may trigger something in someone else that will be helpful,” she disclosed.
What I would have loved to ask Oby that morning was how she manage in checking her Facebook and Tweet, but Emili asked when she said: “I am sure someone updates them for you.” A statement Oby could not refute!

Sakawa: Ghana’s new rave in crime

Sakawa: Ghana’s new rave in crime
As global economic downturn takes it toll, many young people in Ghana are turning to get-rich-quick schemes. Most of these schemes are hatched and executed on the internet.
Evelyn Tagbo, Accra

For Asamoah, a 22 year-old resident of Accra, the good days are here. At least, so it seems. Until April last year when the United States embassy refused him visa for the fourth time in three years, Asamoah (not real name), dreamt about nothing but going to live in the United States. The mere thought of New York fascinated the high school leaver from the Ashanti region of Ghana. His uncle and his family live there. The stories his younger cousin tells him of the city thrilled him. But that was then. Things have changed.
Asamoah is no longer desperate to go to the United States. Not for now. Though he might not be living in the United States right now, he does live on the States and many other countries in Europe. (He only accepted to speak to The Business Eye, after a good friend of his assured him his identity would not be revealed.) He is presently building a four-bedroom bungalow in Dodowa, a suburb of Accra. For those who care to ask, he identifies himself as a businessman. “I am into IT (information technology) and systems installation. That’s what I do,” he says. He started identifying himself as such, after his first ‘deal’ came through and he opened a small cyber café. But that is not what is building his new home for him, he admits. “I do the obroni business,” he tells the magazine.
‘Obroni’ is a local parlance for a white person, much the same as ‘oyibo’ in Nigeria. What Asamoah refers to as ‘the obroni business’ is what is popularly known in Ghana as ‘sakawa’. It is not possible to be in Ghana since last year without knowing what sakawa means. It is the rave of the moment. In the last 12 months, the act has gained notoriety as one of the pastimes of many Ghanaian youths eager to make quick money. No day passes without a newspaper, a radio station or television carrying news on the latest act of sakawa.
Sakawa is Ghana’s equivalent of yahoozee in Nigeria – the act of defrauding people via the internet. In international criminal circles, it goes by different appellations. Computer crime, cybercrime, e-crime, hi-tech crime or electronic crime, whichever you choose to call it, it generally refers to criminal activity where a computer or network is the source, tool, target, or place of a crime. According to Meshack Opoku Afriyie, a crime analyst, sakawa which literally means ‘how to make money’ in Hausa, started in Swedru,( a suburb an hour drive from Accra) where young people and even adults enticed foreign nationals with pictures of nude girls who claim to be searching for other nationals to marry.
As the magazine learnt, the modus operandi has not changed much. Essentially, Asamoah’s tactics, is to impersonate beautiful ladies through social networking sites like facebook, yahoo and msn. In each of these sites, he poses as a white lady. He scoops pictures from facebook and pornographic websites to illustrate his false identity. His pranks first paid off when a victim, a 44 year old businessman in New Jersey, United States, fell for his lies and sent him $5,000. Posing as a beautiful 24 year old lady, (whose picture he had in the fake facebook and msn chat identity he created), Asamoah lied to his victim that he was a post-graduate student from a prestigious university in the U.S, who had come to Ghana for research, but was robbed and is stranded. He gave him false campus address, agreeing that the New Jersey businessman visit ‘her’ on campus on return from Ghana. Delighted at being able to help a stranded girlfriend, the man transferred the money to ‘her’ through Western Union.
Since June last year when Asamoah got that first ‘breakthrough’, he has swindled several other victims through similar means. He confesses he has made up to $80,000 through sakawa, an amount that even bank managers in Ghana do not earn as annual income. He owns a 2002 Toyoto Corolla car which he bought 4 months ago, and as he told the magazine, hopes to complete his building in two months time.
News about young people like Asamoah acquiring fortune through sakawa, has dominated media reportage in Ghana in the last few months. “Ironically, the more the media talk about it, the more youths you see go into it. I think government needs to come out with a legislation that gives serious punishment to sakawa, otherwise, we are likely to be overwhelmed,” said Mensah Dankyi, communication officer of a local NGO.
Nima, Kotobaabi, Madina and Maamobi, all underprivileged suburbs of Accra, are most notorious for sakawa. Last Tuesday an Accra Circuit court remanded four young men: Michael Ivan Kesty, Stephen Dadzie, Godwin Aborge and Julius Nutsukpo, for defrauding a Briton of 4,000 pounds. They allegedly assured their victim that they could facilitate the purchase of 5,000 acres for a fee of £100,000. They then requested for £10,000 from their victim for the documentation covering the parcels of land. They were also alleged to have informed their victim that the remaining £90,000 was to be paid over nine years in £10,000 annual instalments.
Two of the boys, Michael and Stephen, then sent a letter via the Internet purportedly signed by the Registrar of the High Court. According to the prosecution, the victim then sent £1,400 to them through the money transfer system. The prosecution stated that Godwin and Julius, the two other boys, on their part, informed their victim that their father had suddenly fallen ill with stroke and solicited for £2,600, which the victim sent.
The victim later discussed his transactions on the purchase of the land and his donation to God­win and Julius, the accused persons, with some London-based Ghanaians. The prosecution stated that it was during the discussion that the victim was informed that the transactions were fraudulent, adding that the victim then lodged a complaint with the police and under an arrangement, the victim informed the two groups that he had sent £750 to them and asked them to pick it up. It said a team of detectives laid ambush on the premises of the money transfer organisation and arrested the four men when they showed up to collect the money.
“Sakawa is the latest craze in town and even teenagers are getting hooked. A colleague of mine in the recently interviewed a 13-year-old boy who spoke about how he poses as a woman to dupe white men in Europe,” says Ato Kwamena Dadzie, a popular Ghanaian journalist. “Thanks to sakawa school dropouts have suddenly become millionaires, driving in posh Mercedes and BMWs. They are buying houses whiles graduates who are honestly earning a living struggle to pay their rents,” he says.
Aside impersonating ladies, there is also the traditional strategy of stealing people’s credit card details and other data, or tricking them into paying for services or goods that do not exist, which has also become very popular in Accra. Initially, some locals blamed the trend on Nigerians living in Ghana, but most suspects arrested since the surge last year, have been locals, many of them students and young school leavers. What makes sakawa serious in Ghana, according to one analyst, is that, different groups of people have joined this as a quick way out. Students, the unemployed, businessmen, pastors, and even gainfully employed people are trying it out daily. These groups approach sakawa in different ways.
Many of the young fraudsters have now penetrated some money transfer outlets with enticing offers to enable them retrieve large sums of money sent to them by their victims abroad. Recently, Daily Graphic, Ghana’s state-owned newspaper, reported a case of a lady attendant at one of the transfer outlets in Accra alleged to have been compromised by 'sakawa' boys with huge sums of money in kickbacks in lieu of the presentation of correct documents for the collection of their remittances. The attendant allegedly collects 10 per cent of the amounts involved from 'sakawa' boys who present code numbers and their personal identity cards to collect money in the name of females and 20 per cent from those who do not present identity cards.
“The problem is daunting, and it's getting worse,” said Oteng Adu-Gyamfi, a businessman, who laments the dent it is casting on the country’s image. According to a recent release from the United States Embassy in Accra, Ghana ranks second after Nigeria on the list of African countries that U.S e-retailers rejected orders from last year. 76 percent of merchants in that group shut off orders from Nigeria, 58 percent from Ghana, and 32 percent from Pakistan. Other countries blocked included Indonesia, 23 percent; Singapore, 19 percent; Romania, 18 percent; China, Russia, and Vietnam at 13 percent each; and South Korea and Hong Kong with 10 percent each.
According to Emmanuel Kwablah, a journalist with a local business weekly, the biggest threat to local business is, however, yet to manifest. In recent times, increasing numbers of entrepreneurs are providing websites for the display and sale of Ghana-made products, especially those that are targetted at the European and American markets, as well as other foreign markets. “It is only a matter of time for ‘sakawa’ to extend its ugly hand to this side as well, only to jeopardise Ghanaian e-exports,” he states.
“I really think that the problem is becoming bigger. If we continue this way, we very soon will be put in a position where we cannot do any other business outside,” says Clement Dzidonu, a professor at Valley View University, Accra. Dzidonu hinted that although the youngsters engaged in such crimes employ spiritism to achieve their ends, that does not write off the country’s increasing risk profile. Rising internet fraud and business scams originating from Ghana, he warns, could weaken the country’s e-commerce credibility on the international financial market.
Although internet service providers in the country have been tasked to check the crime, Michael, a 19 year-old former online scammer, who was guest on a national radio phone-in programme last month, said it will be a tough battle. He claimed the fraudsters use special software that blocks access to their Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. He recounted how some of his colleagues had been consulting spiritualists for certain potions which they used to ‘confuse’ their victims in Europe and America. “Some even die in the process of doing the charms,” he said.
Bedeviled with increasing rates of armed robbery, drug trafficking and lately ‘sakawa’, President John Evans Atta Mills, has his hands full as far as fighting crime in Ghana is concerned. Analysts say only a pragmatic crime busting strategy and a concerted national orientation effort can reverse the trend, which many acknowledge, is fast catching up with Ghana’s future generation.

Day I met Bill Clinton

Sometimes, I wonder why Nigerians no longer trust aन्योने As Nigerians, foreigners don’t trust us and we don’t even trust ourselves! More often than not, we are sceptical when dealing with colleagues in our offices, homes and beyond. Hence, I don’t know why we should complain whenever we travel abroad and people look at us with suspicion.

I could recall the statement of Nigeria’s immediate past president, Olusegun Obasanjo “The image of our country has been battered at home and abroad; more by our own mishandling and mismanagement than by anything else,” he once said at the launching of the “Nigerian Image Project” at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

So much has been said and written about the bad image of Nigeria abroad। It is true that some people have argued that much of the country’s progress and achievements have been beclouded and damaged by sheer weight of bad publicity and erroneous impression by the acts and actions of few individuals, corporate organisations and public officers whose activities have wrecked havoc on our reputation as the largest black nation in the world.

The launching of Nigerian Image Project by the Obasanjo regime raised many questions: what does the country intend to achieve? How will it be accomplished? What are the parameters for the execution and how credible are those involved in its implementation? But what we have failed to ask ourselves as a people is, how do we perceive one and another?

Sometimes last month, I was at a book launch, three books written by Imo State governor, Ikedi Ohakim. As expected, the who-is-who in the Nigerian political scene were gathered at the event and the hall was packed full of friends and admirers of the state governor. As also expected, it was a time for speech making.

After a few people had spoken, it was the turn of President Umaru Yar’Adua, who was represented by Ojo Maduekwe, minister of foreign affairs, to give his speech। Maduekwe began by extolling the virtues of the writer, praising him on the ongoing developments in Imo State while comparing it with people’s perception of the Yar’ Adua’s administration.

And of course, our dear minister like the Honourable Minister in Chinua Achebe’s A Man of the People while delivering the president’s speech, tried to indirectly boast of his personal accomplishment in the course of carrying out his duties, yet he never failed to drive home his message.
“The other day I was in Washington,” he began, “I met Mr। Bill Clinton who said favourable things about Nigeria. He talked about...” Before he could end his statement, the whole hall said: “uhmnnnnnnnn...!” A sign that they did not believe his story.

At that point, I was deeply hurt and I reflected on how much Nigerians lack faith in our leaders। It’s amazing that story of the honourable minister of foreign affairs could be termed incredible by Nigerians. Given Maduekwe’s status, his story is not out of the ordinary. His office gives him the opportunity to mingle with and meet powerful people in the world. It’s possible that Bill Clinton could have walked up to him to express his feelings about Nigeria.

For this reason, the problem of image building of a country like Nigeria, just like any other African nation, is a very arduous task if it is only intended to attract the attention of foreign media। The process of re-branding starts with us. We have to believe in ourselves.

It is true what makes news about Africa, including Nigeria in foreign media, is gory tales of war, hunger, disease, communal clashes and endemic corruption, but we must learn to trust out leaders to an extent, even if they had betrayed the trust we put in them in the past. Many Nigerians do not understand why their trusted leaders often end up in unacceptable behaviours; perhaps this sparked the kind of reaction that greeted the minister’s claim from the audience.
The effects of such embarrassment have left too many souls with no answer।

Efforts by the government to reinvent our image and correct the very grave misrepresentation of our country and people by western media may become fruitful only if they can serve us faithfully. We believe that in terms of reforms, there is a lot going on in the country.
We have a very rich culture, the warmest people on earth and we have a land that if we are to develop to our full potential, could become a major tourist destination in the world। Unfortunately, Nigeria has acquired criminal connotations over time, on account, perhaps, of the activities of an insignificant number of our compatriots.

There is no country on earth that does not have this group of people; they are just everywhere. I believe as a people with one destiny, we must work hard on our interpersonal relationship in this vibrant country that holds so much promise. However, I hope Nigerians would believe Maduekwe this time, if he says he has met Hillary Clinton, after all, he had a special meeting with her the last time she visited Nigeria!