Toilet Politics, Oil and the Malibu Mansion

I was going to write the other day, on World Toilet Day – which was on Thursday. Not because I wanted to highlight the sad reality that a vast number of people on the continent where I live have no access to proper sanitation, including toilets…

I was going to write on that day because I heard, on the same BBC radio broadcast, another story about yet another massively rich, corrupt African stashing his billions abroad.

In other news, yesterday I heard the flabbergasting news that the EU is donating $1 BILLION to Nigeria, to help with corruption…

HUH? To help WITH corruption. Why does stuff like this still surprise me?
Right. A bit of background…

In the first story, our reluctant hero is Mr. TN Obiang, the Minister of Forestry and Agric. (and the son of the President) of Equatorial Guinea.

His country is the third richest in oil in Africa, just below Angola and Nigeria. There is a tiny population of half a million people. In 2007, the government sold USD$4.3 Billion in oil. Yet 90% of the 500,000 inhabitants live on less than a dollar a day.

This leaves quite a few billion for the government guys…

The news story goes on to explain that Mr. Obiang travels freely between his little country and the USA, to his Malibu Mansion, commonly carrying millions in cash each time he enters the states(normally punishable by a 5 year prison term), despite supposed laws in the states that deny entry to corrupt foreign officials. He keeps quite a few millions in bank accounts in America as well.



These laws are enforced, when it comes to guys like Mugabe – Zimbabwe’s tyrannical despot.

Why the double standard then?

Oil. And America’s interest in it.

Which brings us to the second story. The EU working with the Nigerian government, globally renowned for corruption, by offering them USD$1 Billion to assist…

Other African countries are up-in-arms about the choice of this massive donation to the richest oil country in Africa, eighth richest oil country in the world.

But that is the point really.

Oil. And the EU’s interest in it.

In the BBC story, the reporter asked so many of the questions I was squirming in my seat, itching to ask.

“Why Nigeria? With it’s vast oil reserves and billions in annual income from oil?”

“With the Nigerian government’s dismal track record for corruption, surely the EU is somewhat concerned that the funds will not be used as per their intended aim?”

etc. etc. etc.

The answers from the EU press officer were wishy-washy, non-committal. No surprise.

What makes my blood boil is that the bleeding heart Americans and Europeans don’t put all these facts together.

NGO’s grow and collaborate and fundraise, and promote guilt and scrape like finger nails on the thin raw skin of western conscience, to help, help, help! These helpless Africans.

Meanwhile the Western governments condone, concede, support and feed into the corruption.

When Mr. Obiang is welcomed at LAX, whisked over to his Malibu mansion in the stretch limo, darkened windows, cool aircon and refreshments in the back seat, there is a directly proportionate mass of slum dwellers back home, robbed of the basics of sanitation, housing, education, clean water, electricity. Babies are born and die the next day in a pool of their mother’s blood where the midwife couldn’t save their lives in the corrugated iron shack amid the thousands in a shanty.

I read further that despite his official salary of $6000 per month, he bought his mansion for $26million cash. Plus three Bugatti Veyron sports cars at £1.2million each.

The proceeds from just one of these cars would have bought enough mosquito nets for every child in his country, where malaria is the number one childkiller.

So the next time a campaign to end poverty in Africa comes my way, I’ll give them the address of T N Obiang in Malibu. I doubt he’s given yet.

Ghana Elections 2008 - Peace AND Prosperity?

The poll results trickle in uneventfully. The day awaited with a wary enthusiasm has arrived in Ghana. Election Day 2008. The third democratic election, the first time since the discovery of oil. Local and foreign media have been obsessing about Ghana and it’s chance to raise the image of Africa in terms of the democratic process, and the ability of an African nation to face it with calm and organization as opposed to violence and mayhem.

We stayed home today, taking it easy and keeping a low profile, as we’d been advised. I listened for gunfire or sirens but I heard roosters and birds chirping.
We tuned in to the local media stations and watched a relatively calm if not highly organized day at the polls for Ghana.

The most shocking thing to happen today is balloting materials turning up late at the polls and people being forced to break into two or three lines after having queued for hours in one line… Not earth shattering stuff.

Maybe Ghana will pull through tonight’s results like a fully democratic country, and accept the winner fairly.

There is a lot at stake though, and judging by the numerous posters and music videos by local artists, along with pleading commercials from pastors and politicians alike, begging the nation for peace, it seems that most are very afraid of something untoward happening.

I noticed today that the overwhelming message was peace. Is this the best an African democracy can hope for? That people do not tear into others with machetes, for supporting another party? Tribalsim plays a big part here in terms of who votes for which candidate and what party. This morning voters were told not to wear any partisan clothing or paraphernalia to the voting polls. One man didn’t heed the warning and was ‘almost lynched’ according to the local TV station, Metro TV.

Supporters of one or another of the two main parties take things quite seriously. We were caught up in a cavalcade of NDC supporters last night, and delayed over an hour on a short stretch of road. Buses and cars and motorcycles waving the NDC flag enthusiastically, surrounded us completely. There was a palpable frenzy in the air as the people swayed and sang and rolled their arms in the NDC campaign sign, indicating the need for change. One taxi stuck beside us for a long period caught my eye. It was an old station wagon, with three jubilant supporters waving flags and in the back seat a cow. Yes a live, full grown cow. Curled around itself in an impossible space, they would tap her head each time she tried to raise it… (these are the Kodak moments Ghana offers, when you just don't have your camera on hand!). Seemed like EVERYONE was out for the party. I guessed the cow would be part of the feast, either for the post election party or for the Eid celebrations which take place tomorrow for Ghana’s muslims.

For us visitors it’ll be the fourth day of a four day weekend. By the end of tomorrow we should know the winner. As we weaved along the road among the campaigners, I noticed as darkness fell on us last night in the car, each village we passed through, had no lights. No electricity yet. In 2008. The people came out of the dim lit rooms, paraffin lamps glowing within, to shout their support as we passed.

I wondered whether the new party would do more than maintain peace. I wondered if they would bring the basics to their people. Light in villages, schooling for the children, hope for the future.

Obama, the Mama, the myth and Drama

I’ve decided to blog about Obama. There comes a time in every blogger’s life where they have to blog about Obama.

I know nothing about American politics and that is by choice. However, it seems the less one knows about the actual political system the better. The democratic campaign of 2008 is about emotions and faith. It is about getting excited and building hope around a person who represents the polar opposite of George Bush.

After being bombarded on the Net, the TV, the papers, the global media monster, the other day I decided to read about Obama and the only aspect that is interesting to me – Obama as a person. His family, his past, what makes him tick. I wanted to get a true feeling about whether his popularity is based on faith, fiction, myth or merit.
What I discovered surprised me. I learned that I could relate to his mother’s story – a middle class North American suburban white girl, intrigued and obsessed by other cultures, with the audacity to believe she could overcome the overwhelming challenges of loving a man from another world.



I learned that Obama’s mother was forced to realize that the union with her Kenyan husband was doomed from the start, found herself abandoned and alone when he was just a baby, and that as a single mom she wanted to establish some stability for her son. She quickly married again – never losing her thirst for exotic adventure, and moved the family to Indonesia. Obama was a privileged expat kid!! He went to the private schools and was even sent to a $14,000 per year boarding school back in that states (Hawaii) as a teenager. He did what intelligent, spoiled American teens do. He juggled schoolwork with becoming a junkie. He smoked joints and snorted cocaine.

A disturbing aspect of his troubled teen years was his proclaimed profound identity crisis and lack of self esteem as a result. And he accredited all of this to his mixed racial heritage.



He blamed his mother and her middle class caring grandparents who he lived with as a teen, for his identity crisis. He changed/shortened his name during highschool to Barry to fit in.



He idolized his absent father, and allowed the romantic and vague stories told to him by his mother as he grew up, to cloud his true judgment of his father.

The true story of his father’s life has been exposed though, courtesy of the media – however I am shocked that the conservative/republican ‘powers that be’ have not pounced on this information to grind his campaign to a screeching halt… after all, the sins of the father…
According to Obama senior’s relatives, he had 8 children in total, from 4 women whom he married concurrently. By western standards he was scum then? And a raging alcoholic who’s involvement in numerous drunk driving crashes eventually brought his demise. Hmmmm…

Obama has since written inspirational books glorifying his father’s life and struggles. But as a mother, learning what I’ve learned about their lives, I just have to assume he is deeply affected by the truth of it all. His father was nothing more than a sperm donor. Married already to a poor woman in his home village, before coniving an idealistic white lady at University in the States to marry him and bear him a child. He then moved on (to another American University, on yet another scholarship) without a glance backward. And he did not stop there. He brought another white American lady back to Kenya with him, married her as well and added more children to the flock.

There is also the fact that Obama senior was a muslim, with the name Hussein. Now what I know about Americans is that the masses have a reputation for being brain washed fear mongers who would, under normal circumstances have a field day with this type of info – drumming up a frenzied fear of the Arab enemy… Otherwise how would Bush have gotten as far as he did?

Anyway, Obama got through his teenage identity crisis by the end of college and got involved in the Democratic Party. He was determined and ambitious. He was smart and relatively charismatic. But Presidential material? I don’t know what he has done to compel people to believe he is the future of the USA. He is all about change and promise and the future. But one must examine his past and his track record in order to make a fair assessment.

The thing about this campaign is that there is no room for fair assessment. Just because there is no better alternative, does not mean Obama is the answer.

He gets the black America vote, despite being an elitist with nothing in common - no roots in slavery, no connection to the 'hoods' or the cultural markers that define this group.

He gets the middle class liberal white American vote despite their underlying racism and uneasiness. He is a chance for them to prove they are politically correct. He talks like them, they can relate...

Whoever says the issues are not racially charged is just dreaming. America is racially divided. They cannot help but to see his colour. There's a one drop rule in America! His close personal association with an extremist black preacher has been widely discussed. Yet still, he gains votes from every corner of the country in staggering numbers.

I just can’t help but think that the American public is so desperate for the promise of something new and different that they turn a blind eye to the glaring issues that would normally have thrown a candidate to the dogs before their campaign could even get off the ground.