African blog review – October 30, 2008
Dibussi Tande reviews the following from the African blogoshphere:
Grandiose Parlor
Ayobami Ojebode
Chris Blattman’s Blog
The Road to the Horizon
Aloysius Agenda
StartupsNigeria takes a look at the impact of Google setting up shop in Nigeria:
“Google’s presence will have a positive impact on Nigeria’s economy via the introduction of new products, services and innovations for both companies and consumers. These products and services will drive the Nigerian market towards competition and thereby make for price reductions on specific technology-related solutions. Possible products will include Google Enterprise Search, Google Apps Security, Compliance and a variety of free software services.
Thus, Nigeria’s ecosystem will improve tremendously as it will encourage technology investments and partnerships between local and foreign companies (especially those that have been skeptical about investing in the Nigerian market).”
Grandiose Parlor is one of the numerous bloggers who have commented extensively on the arrest of Nigerian blogger, Jonathan Elendu:
“Nigerians are tired and irritated by the Yar’Adua’s administration, whose agenda has remained one of the most guided secrets in national history. Now, it is appearing that a focus of that agenda is clamping down on unfavorable media outlets. Elendu’s arrest follows the closure of Channels TV, another independent media outlet based in Lagos, that was sealed off for suggesting the president might resign from office because of health concerns. Who’s next on the waiting list?
What I can’t fathom is why an administration that speaks some much about attracting foreign investments, and has a negative publicity over the Niger-Delta insurgency, would go ahead under the banner of national security and create additional negative media coverage? It does not make sense. If the government is really concerned about national security, then it is looking in the wrong place. Jonathan Elendu is a small fry, I hope.”
Ayobami Ojebode
Ayobami Ojebode looks at the broader implications of the Elendu arrest, particularly its chilling effect on online journalism:
“Online journalism has been considered the safest form of journalism, the least susceptible to state clampdown. It has negotiated for itself a clear space in the public sphere for citizens’ engagement of government, its actions and policies. This form of journalism is understandably attractive to Nigerians given the experiences of orthodox journalists in the hands of the Generals Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha—Nigerian military dictators who hounded and pounded journalists for nearly fourteen years...
Media scholars and political scientists who support the idea of a free press find in online journalism an avenue for unfettered freedom of expression. Not only this, online journalism has led them to announce and in fact celebrate the death of gate-keeping and censorship… Jonathan Elendu’s arrest by the government of Nigeria should lead theorists to cut short this celebration and rethink the universality of their conclusions.”
Chris Blattman doubts that the Mo Ibrahim prize can actually serve as a catalyst for good governance and leadership change in Africa:
“Some leaders are motivated by a vision--one that usually includes them at the head of the state--and a measly $5 million won't do much to change that intrinsic, possibly insane, motivation and megalomania. Witness Ugandan President Museveni's ridicule of the Ibrahim prize last year… And don't forget: Presidents fear not just their own skins, but that of their cronies. Why has Mugabe held so tight to the reins of power? His generals and ministers may be giving him little choice. Perhaps the Old Man even cares about their fate.
To treat an autocrat as though he were a greedy schemer and not a man of pride and prejudice is misguided. To treat an autocracy as an individual and not a network of power-brokers is naive.
I'm thrilled that Mogae is getting the money; he deserves it. But let's call it what it is: not an incentive for bad leaders, but a golden handshake for the good ones.”
The Road to the Horizon provides some grim statistics from war-torn Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) culled from "Living with Fear", a study carried out by the Berkeley-Tulane Initiative for Vulnerable Populations and a host of human rights organizations:
“Here is East Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) by numbers:
55%: interrogated or persecuted by armed groups
53%: forced to work or enslaved
46%: beaten by armed groups
46% threatened with death
34%: abducted for at least a week
23%: witnessed an act of sexual violence
16%: victims of sexual violence”
Aloysius Agenda comments on Rwanda’s decision to change the language of instruction in its schools from French to English:
“In most of French colonies like Cameroon, Chad, Gabon, Congo etc. the economic exploitation, human right abuses, political victimisation by neo-colonial regimes and the domination by the aristocratic class, etc., are said to be under the indirect influence of France… The longest serving dictators are all products of French system of governance.
France was implicated in the genocide in Rwanda; French companies have been involved in several scandals among which was that of Elf in Congo etc.
The adoption of English by Rwanda can therefore be interpreted as a clear indication of the rejection of French intrigues in Africa…”
* Dibussi Tande, a writer and activist from Cameroon, produces the blog Scribbles from the Den
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org/