Historical perspective

So why would a professional like myself really want to get involved in African affairs? Other than the numerous reasons that I can come up with, “four specific nouns” coming up from the summary of the Economic Commission Report on Africa of 2005 moved me: “The story of Africa on the whole is one of tragedy, misinformation and conspiracy, and at most times, of inefficiency and of promises broken and opportunities squandered.”

Furthermore, I still urge my fellow Africans to grasp two particular philosophies that appeared in Obama’s book, titled The Audacity of Hope. First, Obama reminded us of a reading from Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR): “As a nation, we may take pride in the fact that we are softhearted, but we cannot be soft-headed.” Fondly referred to as the “son of Africa” by some of my fellow Africans, he went ahead to expound his own philosophy on the failings of his own motherland (Africa): “We should not expect to help Africa if Africa ultimately proves unwilling to help itself” (Ooko, 2012, p. 442).

References
Ooko, J. (2012). Reflecting on America's first black president: An African perspective of global events critical to the overall black history. XLibris Corporation. ISBN: 978-1-4771-4053-6
 

From personal responsibility to professional responsibility

In most of my travels, I have had the pleasure of meeting Africans of various nationalities in faraway places, be it that Somali immigrant in Vancouver, Canada; that Tunisian immigrant in Caracas, Venezuela; that Tanzanian in Mexico City, Mexico; or my old friend Camara, the Senegalese baker, in Belfast, northern Ireland. If however there is one relevant subject that has bothered me over the years when discussing Africa’s malaise during all these encounters, it’s the callous use of the word “leader.” Most of Africans in the Diaspora, who are otherwise well-meaning individuals that are truly touched by the stagnation of development in their respective countries, have not fully mastered what the word “leader” really means! Because of this major fault in our own assessment of personal responsibility, a challenge that I strictly place on our lap (the professionals), most of us Africans in the Diaspora find it easy to attribute the lack of development on our continent to our “leader(s).”

Opting, and quite emphatically to take a different tone in this discussion with some of my fellow Africans that I have been fortunate enough to engage in very fruitful discussions, I have always implored upon them that all of us who are above eighteen are essentially “leader(s).” My philosophy on this line of thought follows on the rite of passage, which is majorly recognized as the attainment of eighteen years in many societies the world over. With this brief analysis, practically every African I have met in the Diaspora, of whom the deflection of the responsibility for the malaise on our continent has been “our leader(s),” should consider him or herself an accomplice to the rot. This view is well corroborated by the general view in the developed society that “Africans deserve the leaders they get” (Ooko, 2012, p. 446)!

References
Ooko, J. (2012). Reflecting on America's first black president: An African perspective of global events critical to the overall black history. XLibris Corporation. ISBN: 978-1-4771-4053-6

 
Professional responsibility

In a sad note of conclusion, there comes to our notice stories of the African professional who ends up in the developed countries because of some disgust with his own country of birth. There is often the gloat from one such individual who goes on to pass a comment as one that I found very wanting some years back: “I’m happy to be in a place where there is a system that works!” Word of caution here: if an individual should ever find himself incapable of bringing progressive change to a failing society of birth, one can definitely leave all that behind as quietly as possible and without reveling in its failures. To do so is to help disparage one’s own failure of responsibility in one’s society!

In a strange twist to all the challenges facing the African continent, the glaring reality is that none of the so-called developed societies got wherever they are without grave sacrifices by their citizens. In many of the societies that are today’s forerunners of copious civilization, as is seen in Europe and the United States, they had to contend with all manner of public persecutions, like beheadings, hanging, the much-vaunted guillotine in France, and burnings at the stake during that era of reforms in Europe. Writing in his book, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor, David S. Landes noted that the plausible story for the evolution of institutions in the West is that informal relationships and norms in networks gradually hardened into formal rules, which are still supported by informal relationships and norms. I remember a scene from an old American western movie in which a visiting Frenchman visits the old west and witnesses a public hearing to a crime. Turning to his daughter, he remarks that such a crime would never have been committed in a society that wielded “lady guillotine.” Maybe, just maybe, if the societies of Africa had acquired “lady guillotine,” then perhaps our societies across the continent would be paradises of pride for the entire world to revel in (Ooko, 2012, p. 449)!

References
Ooko, J. (2012). Reflecting on America's first black president: An African perspective of global events critical to the overall black history. XLibris Corporation. ISBN: 978-1-4771-4053-6

 
A note on the relative cultures — European and African

Even though we now have credible evidences of African civilizations that predated and actually fed into what became European civilization, the onslaught of Europeans onto what was to be the literary reporting of African culture and history rendered those stories and events lost for some good five or so centuries. Whereas stories of the Renaissance period of the twelfth century in Europe talks of the significant contributions from the Islamic scholars, the Greek philosophers, and Roman traditions, very little, if there exists, brings to the fore any mention of Egyptian civilizations influencing ancient philosophers as Aristotle and Plato. Therefore, when the likes of Alfred North Whitehead states that the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition “is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato,” what they mean is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Egypt.

In the cultural wars that eventually toggled the dice in favor of the Europeans, no institution was as significant as the Christian Church. In his book Africa and Africans in the Atlantic World, John Thornton writes that “whereas both Christianity and African religion were constructed in the same way through the philosophical interpretation of revelations, Africans, unlike Christians, did not construct these religious interpretations in such a way as to create an orthodoxy.” The author adds that Africans did not agree fully on all the specifics of their religion.

While the foregoing analysis may hold some truth, I disagree with the author in that the spread of Christianity, just as history of the crusades would ratify, and just like it was the case for Islam, came through the blade of the sword and later through cannonballs. The mere lack of an orthodoxy in the African religions was never the fundamental weakness that allowed the intrusion of Christianity. After all, the majority of the barbaric tribes of Europe in the Dark Ages, some of whom portray themselves as modern-day nations or societies of Christianity, had their varied sorts of deities. With Africa’s social structural disruption by the Europeans at the onset of slavery and later through colonization, every chance of growth for the indigenous religions into some form of an orthodoxy was practically stymied. It is therefore fair to conclude, from the foregoing analysis, that the African predicament of lacking an orthodoxy had posed two great challenges to its religious doctrine. First, there existed a relative lack of power of the priests to control the masses. Second, the lack of solid doctrinal references had allowed for dilutions, an ease of the additions of new beliefs from practically every other source, of which Christianity became one.

It was again this lack of an inborn (locally tested) doctrine that led to the conversion of many Africans to Christianity, both in Africa and in the Americas. This phenomenon went on to dilute the position of the African priests further. Many of them became precarious in their religious positions, causing them to question their authority and ultimately casting doubts about the reality of their claims. Once their work was fully infiltrated by Christianity, the continued revelations of the African priests simply attracted similar reactions that had bestowed suppressions as the trials over witchcraft and heresy and the subsequent burnings at the stake that had taken place in medieval Europe. Individuals like Domingo in Mexico and Lucas Olala in Brazil were to face this fate during their practices.

Furthermore, whereas religious actors in Africa had no independent power to enforce orthodoxy, European Christianity had developed with a strong clergy that possessed political power, recruited its own members, had its own law, and at times threatened the authority of the state. Some historical recordings have it that in the year AD 390, Theodosius, who was then the Roman emperor, was excommunicated by the notorious bishop Ambrose of Mediolanum (Milan) for the massacre of people in Thessalonica after they had lynched his master of soldiers. It was only after Theodosius had done penance that he was allowed back into the church (Ooko, 2012, p. 191).

References
Ooko, J. (2012). Reflecting on America's first black president: An African perspective of global events critical to the overall black history. XLibris Corporation. ISBN: 978-1-4771-4053-6

 
Living with a corrupted Christianity - Elusive road to progress

It’s actually flabbergasting that most Africans would, in the twenty-first century, still wholesomely subscribe to the evangelical form of Christianity without an open mind whereas in the midst of renaissance in eighteenth century Europe, the likes of King Frederick the Great of Prussia had such astounding reactions to the religion: “Christianity, ‘Frederick had remarked sadornically,’ stuffed with miracles, contradictions and absurdities, spawned in the fevered imaginations of the Orientals before spreading to Europe, where some fanatics espoused it, some intriguers pretended to be convinced by it and some imbeciles actually believed it.” From the latest world survey of religious participation, 78% of sub-Saharan Africans attend church service at least once a week, a figure that is the highest in the world and is miles ahead of the second placed Brazilian population at 48% (Ooko, 2012, p. 455).

References
Ooko, J. (2012). Reflecting on America's first black president: An African perspective of global events critical to the overall black history. XLibris Corporation. ISBN: 978-1-4771-4053-6

 
The answer to the White Man’s Crime - Good governance in Africa

In the pursuit to register a workable system that will bring economic growth and development to the continent of Africa, development program managers as well as ordinary Africans have come to the agreement that no matter how clear those development recommendations may be or how diligent their monitoring processes may be, no real progress will ever be made without the political will. Not only would the political will register an environment that is conducive for political and economic development, it would also usher in the much-needed empowerment of Africa’s citizenry. Coupled with education, the empowerment of the citizenry would augur on the continent something that aid alone cannot achieve, and that is an all-out assault on ending poverty. This follows from the logic that only homegrown development, based on the dynamism of individuals and firms in free markets can efficiently work toward ending poverty before laying down the necessary environment as a spring board for better things to follow. This same dynamism of local individuals would also safeguard the continent from those desperate activities where the developed or developing communities dump low-quality products, or worse, banned drugs onto the continent’s shores.

With empowerment, education, exposure, and a sense of national identity, a stronger political will would also allow Africans to make the best judgment when it comes to making choices of economic development over their own heritage. Past events from a desperate need for economic progress, if not forced upon them by colonialism and postcolonial ideologies that rode on the wave of the Cold War, forced Africans to swap their otherwise very valuable heritages as historical sites for the sake of questionable economic projects. Weighing in on the possible effects of a plan by Tanzania to build a highway through the Serengeti National Park, Irina Bokova, the director general of UNESCO, cautioned the continent against undertaking development projects in their purity at the expense of nature and culture. Since we know that the need to obtain perks on the part of the political elite has influenced many of the questionable projects on the continent, an all-out assault to change the political will requires full involvement of parliamentarians, the media, the aid agencies, the churches and other faith groups, the trades unions, the African Diaspora, and the business community. Not to be left out are the individual voices and grassroots action, as they have proven that they can make a profound difference as was evidenced in the recent political movements that led to political changes in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen (Ooko, 2012, p. 505).

References
Ooko, J. (2012). Reflecting on America's first black president: An African perspective of global events critical to the overall black history. XLibris Corporation. ISBN: 978-1-4771-4053-6

 
Fawlty Towers revisited

By the time that political colonization was coming to an end on the African continent, disruption of the social order had created in many countries despotic leaders whose eventual elevation to the highest offices of the political order were to define the many miscarriages of Africa’s independence and self-rule. Reminiscent of “The Builders” scene from the British comedy Fawlty Towers, postindependent Africa has more often reflected that day when Mr. Fawlty (John Cleese) had left the running of the hotel to Polly when he was on a short trip with his wife Basil. From that scene of Fawlty Towers, Polly herself had decided to take a siesta, setting the stage for Manuel, the hotel servant, to be in “charge.” Purported to be a native of Barcelona, Manuel’s limited command of the English language, albeit his mannerism, could never make him a genuine replacement for Mr. Fawlty though. When a delivery man later walks into the hotel to deliver a mailed item and failed to pick up a rapport with Manuel, the latter could never offer an appropriate response to the former’s enquiry of “Who is in charge here?” Instead, Manuel goes on to explain to the delivery man he could only be “charged a fee after a service.” “No no . . . charge later, after sleep!” When the delivery man is forced to enquire further, “Where is the boss?” Manuel looks about himself, sees nobody in sight, and comes back with a response of “Boss is eh . . . Oh I boss!”

The new leaders of the new independent states of Africa, the “Manuels” of the day as I would prefer to call them, were seen to personify the states they led with intones as Nkrumahism and Nasserism. They moved fast to take advantage of the power vacuums that were left following independence, established systems of personal rule while encouraging personal cults of kinship... ((Ooko, 2012, p. 324).

References
Ooko, J. (2012). Reflecting on America's first black president: An African perspective of global events critical to the overall black history. XLibris Corporation. ISBN: 978-1-4771-4053-6

 
Your hero, my villain!

What Kibaki has ushered into the politics in Kenya is not unusual, as Kenyatta had left the challenge of a workable political system to the future generation after mishandling it through various amendments that were designed to amalgamate power unto his person. Kenyatta’s successor, Toroitich Arap Moi, had consciously maintained this ideology by employing a doctrine that was dubbed “Nyayoism” (footsteps) in which he was following Kenyatta’s footsteps. As one Kenyan writer once invoked, “dark clouds are forming under the skies of Kenya’s political climate with the prospects that Kibaki seems inclined to leave the issue of a workable political system to be solved by some future generation.” This mind-set almost typifies the collective mind-set of the signers of the Declaration for Independence of the United States around 1776. Those leaders had left the challenge of slavery to be handled by some future generation. In the case of the United States, what ensued was the Civil War in 1865. For Kenya, and in the wake of the current revolutions that are throttling North African and the Middle Eastern countries, one only hopes that hers will be a revolution of the minds and not of violence (Ooko, 2012, p. 359)

References
Ooko, J. (2012). Reflecting on America's first black president: An African perspective of global events critical to the overall black history. XLibris Corporation. ISBN: 978-1-4771-4053-6

 
A Personal Letter to a Fellow African, a Fellow African American, the Grand African Diaspora, to Haiti, and to Humanity!

For us Africans, and for the most part, we have left it to foreigners to define for us what our own standards are, and to a good extent, who we are as a people. With the meek mindset that some of us have managed to cultivate for themselves, rendering the deep sense of colonisation, these individuals have wholesomely adopted this form of self-classification at the instigation of foreigners. Until three weeks ago, shithole was not a fashionable word that some fellow Africans could casually dish out as a misconceived adjective (for that is what it became), at their ancestral countries or against each other on discussion forums on the Internet. All this came later came to be, simply because a foreigner who happens to be an American of German and Scottish parents deliberately coined it for the most susceptible within our African population. Funny thing again, is that this cacophony of linguistic and standards ineptitude extended to some confounding lunacy of not understanding the mode of English in their trajectorial nations, which in the case of the Anglophones is either American or British English. My parting note on this particular episode relates to what I always deem as the most embarrassing moments - being involved in an argument, if not necessarily a productive discussion, with a fellow African in a European language (Ooko, 2018, p. 5)!

References
Ooko, J. (2018). A Personal Letter to a Fellow African, a Fellow African American, the Grand African Diaspora, to Haiti, and to Humanity! Retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/36380241/A_Personal_Letter_to_a_Fellow_African_a_Fellow_African_American_the_Grand_African_Diaspora_to_Haiti_and_to_Humanity_

 
Written speech, delivered to the HSC candidates of Maranda High School

Now, like some good writer said; REMEMBER! the [sic] extraordinary energy and self confidence [sic] of our great-grandfathers; The rats were not yet gnawing at the coats of western men ... (Ooko, 1986, p. 7).

References
Ooko, J. (1986). Written speech, delivered to the HSC candidates of Maranda High School. Archived.

 
Are We Kenyans This Gullible?

Flashback

Multiple sources within and outside the government have all reported that Kenya is essentially a nation almost wholly captured by the vice of corruption. There exist numerous shadowy characters working in cahoots with powerful mid-level bureaucrats, who are in full control of what moves within the system. If it’s true that the president’s directive to have all procurement and accounts officers in his office transferred was defied by those whose positions in the government are junior to his, then we have a real problem. This real problem has been explicitly confirmed by the Chief Justice. The fellow is on record to have said that unless corruption is contained, the nation risks having the scourge as the fourth, if not, the only, arm of government (Ooko, 2016, p. 1).

References
Ooko, J. (2016). Are We Kenyans This Gullible? Retrieved from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/we-kenyans-gullible-ooko-john?trk=portfolio_article-card_title

 
A Brief Open Letter to Mutahi Ngunyi

Ah yes, in my desire to relieve you of this rant even though you started it, I almost forgot the sixth item! Have you recently taken a look at the ethnic composition of the Kenyan civil service? Oh my, what am I saying, this composition has been more or less so for decades. In fact, it’s been so since a Luo was the president of Kenya! And the same civil service influence has been used as a gateway to personal business enterprises, those that are being flouted in our faces today as consequences of pure individual efforts of which only the Ngunyis are capable of (Ooko, 2016, p. 1)

References
Ooko, J. (2016). A Brief Open Letter to Mutahi Ngunyi. Retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/15284301/A_Brief_Open_Letter_to_Mutahi_Ngunyi


 Federations Must Support African Coaches

European coaches working in Africa earn an average of thirteen to thirty-five thousand dollars every month. Exceptions like the two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a month that South Africa paid to Carlos Alberto Parreira, a former World Cup winner with Brazil are rare indeed. Given that such international coaches pay taxes in the country of work and of origin, there is no reason why African coaches in the country of work cannot earn two thirds of such compensations for similar work. Cases of African coaches being underpaid by their federations are normal. This has encouraged unprofessional acts as those of a local Kenyan coach who was accused of being bribed by professional players toward his team selections.

When then Kenya’s president, Mwai Kibaki, took the occasion of former Brazilian president Lula’s visit to ask for his help in getting Kenya to the World Cup that was to be hosted by the latter’s country, I was particularly embarrassed. I wrote in my book that if African societies spent a mere half of the energy and resources they did on politics, we would be miles ahead of our present development status, not only in football but in all other areas.

References
Ooko, J. (2015). Federations Must Support African Coaches. Retrieved from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/federations-must-support-african-coaches-ooko-john?trk=portfolio_article-card_title
 
 
  A Technical Report on the State of Kenyan Football

Causes

So what are some of the causes of low standards in our game of football today? Definitely, the lack of a progressive model of management in the sport in the country stands out to be a primary cause. What I mean by a progressive model of management is that few of our former players have attained a worldwide recognition in the game or other professional careers, and have come back to the sport’s management locally…

Also coming as an undeniable cause to the lower standards of football in the country today is the lack of credible support from the political and economic order. The mere reason as to why the sport of rugby easily outstrips football to big chunks of sponsorships from the likes of Kenya Airways is simply pegged on a class system. The former sport, especially in this country, has been identified with what used to be royal schools during colonialism, before finding its way into the universities. From there on, its adherents have without doubt, rolled into plum job positions from where, and with connections, have actively supported rugby sponsorships. All this is despite the fact that rugby is easier to play and is far much less popular than football.

Remedies

So what are some of the remedies for the lowered standards of our local football? The number one remedy is a brisk involvement in the grassroots of the game. This is what is done in all the societies where the game has flourished, all with the involvement of national and local governments, the business community and local communities as volunteers.

In an article I presented to the FIFA Master program early this year, I had envisioned a process in which the overall management of sports in Africa is bound to lag behind player development for some time to come. This is mainly due to politics and culture. Coaching techniques in most African countries, despite recent improvements, are still below expected levels in view of the continent’s raw talent. With brisk grassroots development therefore, and with the prospect of the fact that human mobility has vastly improved in recent times, skilful or well developed players can easily cross into other societies in which the overall game development is superior. From there, they can still be able to contribute as models of the sport in their original societies.

References
Ooko, J. (2014). A Technical Report on the State of Kenyan Football. Retrieved from https://www.academia.edu/10678915/A_Report_on_the_State_of_Kenyan_Football