Barack Obama and African mindset

s various editorialists and commentators throughout Africa have analyzed the substance of US President Barack Obama’s Accra policy statement on Africa on July 12 wasn’t new. What was new was Obama’s metaphysics, the bold unto-your-face manner, the ambience, the level of confidence, the psychological import, and the attempts to hit home a new mindset for Africa’s development.

That one of the key stumbling blocks of Africa’s progress is its mindset is unarguable. And Obama set to knock off the self-immolation, inferiority complex and finger-pointing. To let Africa face its problems head-on Obama didn’t promise huge monies as George Bush and Bill Clinton had done earlier. Obama has thorough grasp of the African situation (his father being victim) and he played brutally into it unemotionally, using his own refinement against all odds that saw him become the first African-American president of the United States.

Kofi Akosah Sarpong

The Obama Serenades

At Cape Coast,

we bowed our heads

in sorrow

and shame,

recalling the agonies

of our forebears…

the wicked complicity

of kinsmen

and sometimes

even parents…

 

At Cape Coast,

the ghoulish stench

of slavery

stared us

stiffly and

morbidly

in the face,

flaring up

our nostrils

to the wrenching

point of

hyperventilation…

Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jnr.

Andanis and Abudus, North v North

The Abudus and Andani’s are meeting the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu for the third time. The meeting will deliberate on the way forward towards resolving the impasse between the two rival chieftaincy clans in the Northern region. Two previous meetings ended up in a stalemate over the burial of the late Dagbon overlord, Yaa Na Mahamadu Abdullahi. The Abudu’s want to perform the funeral rites of their late King, Yaa Na Mahamadu Abdullahi in the Gbewaa Palace. But the Andani’s suspect the Abudus will proceed to enskin an Abudu Overlord once given access to the Gbewaa palace. They have therefore vowed to resist with force, any attempts by the Committee of Eminent Chiefs to have the Abudus enter the Gbewaa palace to perform the funeral. Today’s meeting is expected to bring an end to the protracted conflict between the two factions.

Source: Ghananewstoday.com