Category Archives: Africa

by Joel | 4 March 2004 · 5:51 pm

Former Haitian President Aristide’s New Hosts

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: Bangui grants Aristide asylum ‘on humanitarian grounds’

BANGUI, 2 March (IRIN) – The Central African Republic (CAR) has granted former Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide asylum at the request of Gabonese President Omar Bongo and for humanitarian reasons, a government minister said on Monday.

“When a man in need knocks at your door, you do not consider his colour, his race or his rank, you welcome him and offer him the little you have,” Parfait Mbay, Communications Minister, said in a statement read on state-owned Radio Centrafrique.

He added, “At the request of his counterpart and dean of central African heads of state Gabonese President Omar Bongo, the president of the republic [Francois Bozize] accepted to receive the former president of the first black republic in the world, Jean Bertrand Aristide.”

By receiving Aristide, the CAR had confirmed its reputation as a land of asylum for people in difficulties, Mbay said.

Mbay, four other ministers and the CAR army chief of staff, Gen Antoine Gambi, received Aristide when he arrived on Monday at the Bangui-Mpoko Airport.

Mbay said that Bozize had consulted Vice-President Abel Goumba, Prime Minister Celestin Gaombalet and the chairman of the National Transitional Council, the country’s law advisory body, Nicolas Tiangaye, before allowing Aristide into the country.

“It is with sincere gratitude that we address the Central African Republic’s authorities for receiving us this morning,” the radio quoted Aristide as saying on his arrival in the capital, Bangui.

Referring to and paraphrasing Toussaint Louverture, the historical Haitian hero who was tortured and killed by French colonisers 200 years ago, Aristide said: “Today, in the shadow of Toussaint Louverture I declare: by overthrowing me, they have cut down the tree of peace but this tree will grow up again because its roots are Louverturian.”

The CAR government’s decision to welcome Aristide is perceived as an attempt to draw the attention of the international community to its own situation. The country is currently in a transitional period since the 15 March 2003 coup that brought Bozize to power. Since then, the authorities have been seeking international recognition. Now, with Aristide in exile in Bangui, the task may likely be easier.

[This Item is Delivered to the “Africa-English” Service of the UN’s IRIN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations. For further information, free subscriptions, or to change your keywords, contact e-mail: Irin@ocha.unon.org or Web: http://www.irinnews.org. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Reposting by commercial sites requires written IRIN permission.]

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by Joel | 6 February 2004 · 9:23 pm

Five Nigerians Charged in $242 Million ‘419’ Fraud

Abiola of Foreign Dispatches reports that five more Nigerians have been charged in ‘419’ scams of truly obscene proportions.

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Nigerian prosecutors leveled 86 counts of fraud and conspiracy against five people Thursday for allegedly swindling a Brazilian bank of $242 million, in the biggest crackdown yet on the West African nation’s advance-fee fraud or “419” scams.

The five are accused of luring an employee of Sao Paulo’s Banco Noroeste into siphoning off the funds from his employer, persuading him he could land a share in a lucrative Nigerian construction contract if he just paid enough handling fees up front.

Me, I’m still waiting for a Magadan gold heiress to deposit her savings into my bank account. Who needs Madame Abacha?

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by Joel | 26 January 2004 · 10:02 pm

Book ’em Obasanjo! – A Nigerian Scam King Jailed

Abiola of Foreign Dispatches reports the incarceration of one of the more notorious of the Nigerian scam artists.

Ever wondered who the real sources of all those 419 letters you received were? Here’s your chance to learn about just one such individual, who goes by the name Fred Ajudua. It turns out he’s actually been clapped in jail, which goes to show that Obasanjo can get the the odd thing right now and then. How astonishing it is to learn that Fred – the one and only, the man of the 10-car motorcade, the man of the multi-page spreads in Ovation magazine, the “businessman” so renowned for his exploits that he became known only by his first name, like a Nigerian Cher or Madonna – is sitting in a jail cell in Kirikiri, like a common thief!

After quoting much of the longer story on AllAfrica.com, Abiola concludes:

A lot of nice-sounding fluff, but fluff nonetheless. Still, if there’s one thing this article makes clear, it is that the conmen behind these 419 letters are by no means all as dumb people think they are. Ajudua is a crook, but he’s no dullard, and neither are most of the other 419 experts I’ve encountered in Lagos. If those pleading letters from Mrs. Sese-Seko and Mariam Abacha are riddled with spelling and grammatical errors, consider that these errors were put in intentionally, to lull the gullible into a comforting sense of superiority over those dark-skinned dummies who can’t find a way to get $26 million out of the country without the help of clever white men like you, Joe Blow, sitting in your la-z-boy in Peoria, Tx; though this story doesn’t mention it, the reason for Mr. Ajudua’s arrest was his defrauding of one greedy Dutch genteman of the grand sum of $1.7 million dollars.

Of course, Fred is now teaching law in prison. “Giving back to the community,” I’m sure he would say.

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by Joel | 22 January 2004 · 8:40 pm

A White Nigerian?

“Where are you from?” I ask, directly, for this is what I have learned to do in North Carolina whenever I hear someone from West Africa. She answers, “We live in Cary,” once a town outside Raleigh but now a tidy upscale suburb.

But this isn’t what I mean. “No,” I correct her. “Where are you from originally?” And she sturdies herself. “I am from Africa,” only it’s more like Ah-free-ka, with the emphasis on the Ah and the ree vibrating on her tongue. Still she doesn’t take me seriously. “No.” I venture, more sternly this time, “what country?” And now she says, relaxing, “I am from Nigeria.” She draws it out: Nigh-jyyy-rria.

Tears come to my eyes and then my body warms, as if I have had a transfusion. “I know,” I tell her, I was born in Ogbomosho.” Every Nigerian knows Ogbomosho, in Yoruba land.

“Ah,” she replies quietly, as if this is a mystery, and we stand for a moment in recognition of a kinship impossible to speak. She is from Ibadan, just down the road from my original home. Her name is Joanna. Finally her husband approaches, for he is in no hurry at all; he wears one of those West African print shirts with the embroidered necks and sleeves to the elbows, and you can see his stomach protruding slightly. “Johnny,” she calls out, “this woman is a Nigerian.” I am as happy as the child was moments earlier.

So few people know me. I am white. I have blonde hair and blue eyes. I teach American literature in the English department of North Carolina State University. No one in my neighborhood would imagine that I grew up in Africa. For years, even I forgot where I am from. So I am thankful for Joanna’s discernment. In Nigerian thinking, anyone born in Nigeria is Nigerian. She may be a bad Nigerian or a lost Nigerian, but she is still a Nigerian.

SOURCE: Gods of Noonday: A White Girl’s African Life, by Elaine Neil Orr (U. Virginia Press, 2003), pp. 2-3.

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Filed under Nigeria, U.S.

by Joel | 22 January 2004 · 8:39 pm

To Keep Nigeria One Is a Task That Must Be Done

On August 16 [1966], my father’s birthday, the Biafrans reached the Ofusu River Bridge which marks the border with the Western region, our region. On my birthday, August 19, the Biafrans were continuing to advance. All around, the savannahs were quiet; there was a lull in the rains. The air was as dry as a stone. Around that beautiful dining room table, I had a birthday party with our little compound clan. I was thirteen and my mother made a white cake with yellow icing and on it she placed a ceramic Siamese cat as a decoration. I wore a dress pink as a carnation. My birthday gift appeared in a small box, a birthstone ring–peridot–in an oval setting, rather plain really, like my face. I didn’t like it. I was disappointed. My mother explained that we were in a war and it was not a good time to buy record players when we were so uncertain of our immediate future. She said this to me in our living room after the party and I stared at the philodendron as she spoke, determined not to look at her or signal the least agreement. She could speak if she liked; I would not listen.

The Yoruba had finally got off the fence and appeared to be aligned with the North in its mission to keep Nigeria unified. This was a blow to the Igbos. On the radio you could hear the refrain, To Keep Nigeria One Is a Task That Must Be Done.

The next day, August 20, the Biafrans attacked Ore, putting them within 130 miles of Lagos and about 90 miles from Oshogbo where I was unhappily viewing my new ring in its box, for I would not wear it. If they reached either Ibadan or Lagos, the Federation of Nigeria would fall like a bulleted elephant. But just as Gowon was about to flee, the British and Americans intervened. Who knows what happened in Ore. We never knew. But the war turned around. Perhaps today there is an old woman in Ore who was there that day, who saw what happened when the Biafrans stopped and then backtracked. Her eyes may hold the secret.

SOURCE: Gods of Noonday: A White Girl’s African Life, by Elaine Neil Orr (U. Virginia Press, 2003), pp. 238-239.

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by Joel | 7 January 2004 · 9:05 pm

Africa and the Atlantic Islands Meet the Garden of Eden

Christopher Columbus’s vision of the world beyond Europe was deeply influenced by what he gleaned from written sources such as Marco Polo and the Bible. Yet he also had a great deal of personal and practical experience from travels in the Atlantic Islands and coastal regions of West Africa. Upon his arrival in the Caribbean, he expected to find the Asia described by Marco Polo. Initially, he considered establishing a series of factories and trading posts, similar to those of the Portuguese in West Africa, from which Europeans could tap into local trade networks. When he discovered that brisk trading relations would not likely come about in the near future, he advocated the establishment of mining and agricultural enterprises, such as those the Portuguese and Castilians had founded in the Atlantic islands. Thus his experience in Africa and the Atlantic islands helped shape his responses to the conditions he unexpectedly encountered in the Caribbean.

SOURCE: William D. Phillips, Jr., “Africa and the Atlantic Islands Meet the Garden of Eden: Christopher Columbus’s View of America,” Journal of World History, vol. 3 (1992).

A few of the other articles in the same issue look rather interesting, too, judging from the abstracts.

UPDATE: Jim Bennett leaves a fascinating comment about something else Columbus learned from earlier experience.

Another effect of Columbus’s experiences in sailing the eastern Atlantic was his understanding of the Atlantic wind system, particularly if you accept his own account of having sailed to Iceland and the seas to its north. Rather than argue over exactly how much credit Columbus deserves for discovering the Americas (an endless and problematic exercise) perhaps it’s worth focusing in Columbus as the discoverer of the mid-Atlantic wind system. This was the underlying reason for his intuitive leap of departing from the Canaries, rather than the Azores, unlike previous expeditions. A Canaries departure puts one into the mid-Atlantic wind system bound west; an Azores departure usually results in fighting the wind system, harder in those days with rigs that couldn’t sail close to the wind.

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