Folks put on your seat belts, it is going to be very turbulent in Egypt, another Somalia is possibly in the making. You would think Africans are capable of making rational judgements based on history. Many Egyptians are supporting the Muslim Brotherhood whose agenda is largely unknown, what we know for sure is that some radical elements within the Muslim Brotherhood are looking for another Islamist state in Egypt. What would it take for some people to understand that Religion and Government does not work!. Let us go a little deeper into History and learn that governments based on religious…

Have you ever asked this question: how do members of my African ethnic group come across to Americans, especially to African Americans?  If you have not asked that question perhaps you ought to do so.  You will learn interesting stuff about how you are seen as opposed to how you think that you are seen by other persons. People relate to you as they see you not as you tell them to see you! Each of us is an ambassador of our ethnic group and as we behave folks around us draw conclusions about us and people from our ethnic…

Happy Women’s History Month!  This is a great time to reflect on our accomplishments and to celebrate as African women. The 2000s brought unprecedented political opportunities for African women.   Many countries strived to make good on their ratification of the Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) which called for, amongst other things, equal access to women in politics.  To level the playing field, some states initiated quotas into their constitutions, others implemented appointments, incentives, or quotas at the party or legislative levels.  For example, Kenya’s 2010 Constitutional Article 81b states, “not more than two-thirds of…

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGS) were declared and made “compulsory” social policy option for third world countries. About the same time the United Nations adopted these goals as a palliative “arrest” option for the third world, the World Bank came up with a huge document on African, entitled “Can Africa Reclaim the Twenty first Century?” Without anybody saying so, both the UN and the World Bank held very pessimistic view about Africa ’s capacity to meet up to its social challenges, to reach or accomplish the limited and tentative targets set for it, but they did say so in too…

In this piece, I interpreted a dream to suggest that my father and the Africans he represents  are lazy and lacking in leadership skills; that all they do is talk about their problems but do not go about solving them.  The piece says that Africans have to change from being mere whiners about how rotten their world is to those who take initiative to solve the problems they see in their world. A Dream’s Suggestions On The African Character Ozodi Thomas Osuji Generally, when I wake up while having a dream I switch on the lamb by my bed’s side…

"Our country is that spot to which our heart is bound" (Voltaire). After 25 years of living in the United States a friend of mine finally retuned home. His desire to return has been in the works for almost five years; but as much as he tried, he couldn't bring himself to doing so as he couldn't get past the issue of basic infrastructures like NEPA, clean portable water, waste disposal, and other aspects of human security. To think that what most other societies take for granted -- law and order, abundant food supply, clean environment, first-rate schools, health care…

While in college, I read The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa the African (1789) and did not make much of it.  Recently, someone told me that Chinua Achebe, the famous Igbo writer, claimed that Olaudah is an Igbo. I asked him how Achebe came to this conclusion and he did not know.  I thought about it for a while and thought that Achebe is probably full of it. Why? Though I am an Igbo, I have a love-hate relationship with Igbos; I tend to be suspicious of whatever Igbos say.  I had concluded that…

By Onima Institute http://onimainstituteusa.org/OLAUDA.htm Olauda Equiano Was a Son of Etsako in Edo Land : In Today Nigeria, and Yes, He Was Out of Africa  A Rebuttal to Claims and Faulty Analyses Made by Two Eminent Scholars Here is an interesting argument about the true birth place of Olauda Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, the African. Below is our humble presentation which we believe stands to liquidate the claims that have been made by some eminent scholars which to me seem to amount to academic and intellectual dishonesty in this matter. Olauda Equiano was one of those taken away into slavery…