I was on the Ghanaweb forum doing regular interactions with people who also feel highly concerned about what is going on between our two sister nations, Ghana and Nigeria, (in alphabetical order!). I had spent all my ten posts so I did not have the chance to post a rather painstaking work! Well, I post it here below because it helps to raise the debate to a new level.
A Ghanaian Forum On How to Stop the Ghana Bashing
AKYEA MENSAH, HOW STUPID???
N. K. W - HM PRISONS, UK 09-11 07:36
GHANAIAN PRISONER, UK
HARD-TALK, UK 09-11 14:04
IT MUST BE THE PRISON'S FOOD!
Nana Akyea Mensah, The Odikro. 09-11 14:42
Akyeaa Mensah u make me laugh
N. K. W - HM PRISONS, UK 09-11 19:13
This person needs to be encouraged not attacked. He is improving! He used to make worse statements, that is why sometimes you give the benefit of the doubt. We do not all express ourselves very well in English and sometimes we can make killer-mistakes without intending to. If we make such attacks systematic and people do not even understand why they are under attack, we might run the risk of rather than being an inclusive forum we shall become exclusive. I think the language is bad but like Socrates, that was not his intention.
I also think I do owe you an apology specifically as pertains to the issue of why the Nigerian ministers quoted were feeling that irksome. I think this is important because it is a crucial part of the positive solution we would all want to see to come out of this diplomatic impasse between the two nations. I reacted to your post without reading everything you had written first. I do apologize for the prejudice, and obviously regret it! My only excuse is that I wanted to evaluate all the numerous comments in the forum and see how the prospects are for a peaceful co-existence between the two federal states of Africa. After reading the first two sentences, I thought I had a pretty idea of where you were coming from because I had already read some long and insufferable passages from you being currently quoted in Nigerian Forums.
I shall quote extensively to support my point and to let you know that in this information age, the seeds of discord we sew each day do germinate and grow! Are you proud of this:
"Is There Rivalry Between Nigeria And Ghana?
Nairaland Forum« on: September 09, 2009, 10:37 PM »
I was on Ghanaian forum [ghanaweb.com] with forum users commenting on 'a letter from the Ghana High Commission in Nigeria to a Nigerian newspaper, appealing to Nigerian government officials to refrain from spreading falsehood about '.
I have been to Ghana several times. I have had several Ghanaian friends. I was a member of a Ghanaian church in London sometime in the past. I thought Ghanaian people are very warm and friendly. I also thought there was some mutual respect between Nigerians and Ghanaians. I was very shocked about some of the comments made about Nigeria on the forum. Most of those comments were so bad that they are unprintable. I have quoted some of the comments at the end of this post.
My questions are:
1. Are these comments representative of the generally held impressions about Nigerians by Ghanaians all over the world or just the opinion of a minority?
2. Is there some kind of rivalry between Nigerians and Ghanaians?
3. If there is rivalry, is such rivalry healthy?
Quote
Author: Okyeame Sogbladzah
Date: 2009-09-09 05:59:00
na so so jealousy go kill them!
nigeria @ a glance;
dirty eba-eting yorubas,
aproka egusi-soup-eating igbos,
tight & juicy female orifice akwa iboms,
illiterate buga buga militant hausas,
419 infested govt officials,
so so oil, no fuel,
yes o yes nigeria, na we own; we must to do better for am!
Quote
Author: Pronto
Date: 2009-09-09 04:59:16
If such stupid people are ministers in Nigeria, how do you expect the country to progress!!! Lots of gas and NO ELECTRICITY!! NO, they are not jealous becos of Obama, But because we lead better and civilised life !!!!!!!!!!
Quote
Author: N. K. W - HM PRISONS, UK
Date: 2009-09-09 09:23:10
I could not just hide my anger and further guffaw when a PIG calling himself HARD-TALK uk and his bunch of useless Morons and HIV infested minsiters of state sling mud at Ghanaians. Now check these facts:
1) It is not true that Wole Soyinka is the first African Laureate to recieve a NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE. The first African to recieve a NOBEL PEACE Prize in Literature was ALBERT LUTULI of South Africa in 1960, at a timne Soyinka DID NOT HAVE PANTS under HIS TROUSERS. ASSS HOLE!!!! U see u are not even schooled enough to attract commonse sense in your dealings.
2) Which Africa country emits bad odour even if the whole Atlantic Ocean is turned into a mouth wash for them and will still emit bad odour from ther MOUTHS?
Answer - NIGERIANS
3)Which is the only country in Africa to have the FBI and CIA storm their country to arrest and investigate Cyber CRIMES and money laundering as well as COCAINE TRAFICKING?
Answer: NIGERIA
4)Which African Country has the HIGHEST number of foreign Prisoners in the UK?
Answer: Nigeria. 932, with 409 of them hardened CRIMINALS and out of this number 119 use Ghanaian PASSPORTS, who have been found not even having a relative of them being a Ghanaian. 197 of these use South African Passports and 28 have UK Nationality status, thus those with British Passports.
5) Which Africa country have the highest number of women in British jails?
Answer: NIGERIANS
45 in HM Holloway Prisons, 23 in HM Belmarsh Prisons, with 31 of the total number, using Ghanaian passports parading as Ghanaians, who cannot even speak a single Ghanaian Language. They have Nigerian passports but use Ghanaian passports to travel only to Ghana. THIEVES, OLE. BALAWU.
COME on, COme again, Want more THRUTHS? NOT Facts but TRUTHS?HuhHuh BASTARDS!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Meanwhile, there was something in your message that could have bonded our two people together! You must be really ashamed of yourself! What makes this stupidity painful to bear is the lost opportunity to hit the nail on the head! Secondly therefore, Hard Talk was not only familiar but the very foundation of this article. I am quoting hard talk as the courageous Nigerian mentioned so naturally I paid much attention to what he was saying. From the first impression you had made of me, and knowing where Hard Talk is coming from, I naturally warmed up to him! However, I did not want to hurt your feelings, but I wanted to show my personal disapproval of your language in reference of my person.
"I have never in my life doubted that there are some Ghanaians who will do anything even if it means killing their fellow countrymen for a piece of EBA, OGBONNU and OIL to save a Nigerian...
Examples of the above a too legion for me to jot down here.
One such idiot and nincompoon is NANA AKYEA MENSAH. I do not know where on the planet this ingominous, rapacious HOODLUM lives but i am sure it is not with HUMANS cos the very substance of your article beggars believe and has all the rhetorics of a demented soul. You never ever in your sordid write up tackle the issue that has sparked all these but rather went at length to explain why A NIGERIAN, under the pseudonym KARD-TALK, UK was rather angry at Ghanaians for mudsling his country and went even at lenght to cull some of his cancerous jibes in your write up....
I think the comments by Nigerians on their forum Niaraland.com will be enough signpost to aid you stupidity.
You must be ashamed of your cursed self. Read on SUCKER: " That was when I remembered I was a very busy person and realised it was time to move on!
I only came back to check what you meant by I was "unable to unable to get to the substance of my write-up which in all purposes suggests to me that u are just a noisy cymbal." With me there are always consequences, even though I sincerely do not want such things go get in the way of friendship and international solidarity. I strongly resent to the language you use in addressing people. It is not clear whether you have an interesting angle on the subject that were are unable to see or you simply have some personal axe to grind and in that case one's opinions do not even matter:
"U ar today preaching peace on this forum forgetting the countless number of women you have by your indiscretion and shameful acts caused them pain.
I would spare you this time but i can assure you u am ready for your lifeless attitude and self aggrandised stance.
Come again SUCKER!!!!!!"
Thanks for reminding me of that! Indeed, I have very completely forgotten about "the countless number of women you have by your [indiscretion] and shameful acts caused them pain."! Can you please refresh my memory for me? Are you my son? How can I help you? What exactly is your problem? Is it a matter of having a hammer in your hand and seeing everything turning into nails all of a sudden? Or there are some burning issues of public interest? We are all ears! Try to go to the point, the protocols of parliamentary decorum is also designed in such a manner that you may not under-represent your brilliant ideas by clothing them in a manifestly repugnant manner! For the avoidance of any doubts, I order you to take a very careful notice of the fact that Nana Akyea Mensah takes no shit, and shall never be forced to swallow any material he does not digest!
To prove my point, you just brought up something I nearly missed because of your bad language. Half of your post was very brilliant but too tedious to reach because half of it is nothing but boring insults. I am sure you will help all of us if you would stop that type of behaviour. There is no doubt you have a sense of injury, we all do, but these are times that call for grace under pressure, otherwise "I'd rather be a pair of rugged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas"!
I decided to check out if the only reason why you seek to attack my integrity is simply because I am preaching peace between our two nations or there was something to it. I discovered, to my surprise, a very interesting insight into what some Nigerians are saying themselves about this problem and it made a lot of sense also. I suppose this is what you meant in your previous post as "the substance of [your] write-up". Thanks to your loud and undiplomatic mouth for bringing my attention to it. You did not have to, if you had been polite in the first instance.
I have decided to respond to this because I think it is a very important angle for looking at what is really going on. The incompetent ministers must have found it hard to look themselves in their mirrors to feel so devalued by the smell of their stinking opulence and radical corruption, as well as embarrassment of being on the spotlight for the wrong reasons, with all fingers pointing at them with scorn, even from important citizens like Wole Soyinka. Obviously, people behave differently under pressure. Whilst Hemingway may do it with grace, the Nigerian ministers do it in disgrace.
What Nigerians need to do if they are not happy with their government is to insist on accountability from their government and to ask the ministers whose inferiority complex leads them to make such self-assuring statements to know that what is stake is not the size of any member of the federating parties to the United States of Africa which matters, it is the rule of law, respect for human rights, transparency and accountability that the people to whom they are talking that nonsense to want to hear about! The ordinary people of Ghana must revenge such attacks by calling on the people of Nigeria to demand greater accountability from their ministers who are responsible for these utterances! It is not by insulting Nigerians that they would feel the heat. It is by joining the people of Nigeria in demanding accountability from them!
This will make other corrupt African politicians think twice or more, before they open their mouths to criticise our achievements as a people. Nigerians are more angry and frustrated by their own government's incompetence and pervasive corruption than investigating a case in which a Ghanaian was caught red-handed having sex with a pig! It is in our interest to encourage them. Transporting our democratic gains to a neighbouring state can only boomerang and help re-enforce our own very fragile democracy. It is a just cause that would help bring our two peoples closer.
These are no times to begin to fret around with jingoism and mafficking throwing our weight about inviting needless animosities. All the powers today, China, EU, Japan, USA, prefer to deal with us as divided entities and even avoid issues with our continental body when they are of a continental dimension. The EU developed this into an art form when their representative would not meet with Ecowas members but would "call upon President Kufour"! Obama would not address the AU but directly to Africa through Ghana's parliament, with very honourable "official reasons".
In my humble estimation there is no need to pour petrol on fire with the Obama visit angle. The problem is that rather than Ghanaians stupidly and self-gloriously feeling special because of a one night visit by a US President, we must begin to question why the US is ignoring the AU in major issues such as US Africa Command AFRICOM, The AU meeting took place barely around the same time, is Africa so bad and such a disgraceful continent that the only piece of the territory worthy of Obama's feet must be Ghana? Who is trying to divide and rule us here? What is wrong with a direct address to the African Union Summit? They would have unanimously endorsed it too? It is only the fool that claims to be putting on weight when indeed, he is getting swollen. We must insist on regional peace and friendship at all cost because we are all one people with one imperialist threat, and one common destiny! If you fell special feel it in your bones and justify it to sister countries with some elegance and a sense of dignity.
We are the masters of our own fate and the captains of our souls and God is on our side! So is History! I shall not say much. After all, in the final analysis, is it not up to each individual to choose to be a part of the solution rather than the problem? Is it not us to choose to be spectators of our own history rather than active participants in turning it into a happy ending?
Post Scriptum:
I liked your post on Africom. Actually, I did write an article on it so my position on the matter is very clear. I had never heard of the "The Worldwide Matrix Attack" in the specific terms you were quoting so I checked it out. Wow! This is mind boggling! I have already heard bits and pieces of the story, particularly in connection with Mr. Dick Cheney's involvement in the "running of an assassination ring".
The story on Democracy.Now.Org was that:
"The investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has revealed the Bush administration ran an “executive assassination ring” that reported directly to former Vice President Dick Cheney. Hersh says US operatives have secretly gone into countries and executed suspects on a target list. The operation was apparently run under the extra-legal Joint Special Operations Command, overseen only by the White House. Hersh made the disclosure while speaking Tuesday at the University of Minnesota."
WOLF BLITZER: And so, this would be, and from your perspective—and you worked in the Bush administration for many years—it would be totally constitutional, totally legal, to go out and find these guys and to whack ’em.
JOHN HANNAH: There’s no question that in a theater of war, when we are at war, and we know—there’s no doubt, we are still at war against al-Qaeda in Iraq, al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and on that Pakistani border, that our troops have the authority to go after and capture and kill the enemy, including the leadership of the enemy.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s John Hannah, Dick Cheney’s former national security adviser. Seymour Hersh joins me now here in Washington, D.C., staff writer for The New Yorker magazine. His latest article appears in the current issue, called “Syria Calling: The Obama Administration’s Chance to Engage in a Middle East Peace.”
OK, welcome to Democracy Now!, Sy Hersh. It was good to see you last night at Georgetown. Talk about, first, these comments you made at the University of Minnesota.
SEYMOUR HERSH: Well, it was sort of stupid of me to start talking about stuff I haven’t written. I always kick myself when I do it. But I was with Walter Mondale, the former vice president, who was being amazingly open and sort of, for him—he had come a long way in—since I knew him as a senator who was reluctant to oppose the Vietnam War. And so, I was asked about future things, and I just—I am looking into stuff. I’ve done—there’s really nothing I said at Minnesota I haven’t written in the New York Times. Last summer, I wrote a long article about the Joint Special Operations Command.
And just to go back to what John Hannah, who is—was—I think ended up being the senior national security adviser, almost—if not the chief of staff, deputy chief of staff for Dick Cheney in the last three or four years, what he said is simply that, yes, we go after people suspected—that was the word he used—of crimes against America. And I have to tell you that there’s an executive order, signed by Jerry Ford, President Ford, in the ’70s, forbidding such action. It’s not only contrary—it’s illegal, it’s immoral, it’s counterproductive.
The evidence—the problem with having military go kill people when they’re not directly in combat, these are asking American troops to go out and find people and, as you said earlier, in one of the statements I made that you played, they go into countries without telling any of the authorities, the American ambassador, the CIA chief, certainly nobody in the government that we’re going into, and it’s far more than just in combat areas. There’s more—at least a dozen countries and perhaps more. The President has authorized these kinds of actions in the Middle East and also in Latin America, I will tell you, Central America, some countries. They’ve been—our boys have been told they can go and take the kind of executive action they need, and that’s simply—there’s no legal basis for it.
And not only that, if you look at Guantanamo, the American government knew by—well, let’s see, Guantanamo opened in early 2002. “Gitmo,” they call it, the base down in Cuba for alleged al-Qaeda terrorists. An internal report that I wrote about in a book I did years ago, an internal report made by the summer of 2002, estimated that at least half and possibly more of those people had nothing to do with actions against America. The intelligence we have is often very fragmentary, not very good. And the idea that the American president would think he has the constitutional power or the legal right to tell soldiers not engaged in immediate combat to go out and find people based on lists and execute them is just amazing to me. It’s amazing to me.
And not only that, Amy, the thing about George Bush is, everything’s sort of done in plain sight. In his State of the Union address, I think January the 28th, 2003, about a month and a half before we went into Iraq, Bush was describing the progress in the war, and he said—I’m paraphrasing, but this is pretty close—he said that we’ve captured more than 3,000 members of al-Qaeda and suspected members, people suspected of operations against us. And then he added with that little smile he has, “And let me tell you, some of those people will not be able to ever operate again. I can assure you that. They will not be in a position.” He’s clearly talking about killing people, and to applause.
Your post:
"As a matter of Fact former CIA Direcror George Tenet has penned what he called "The Worldwide Matrix Attack" which is morte deadly than the Hydrogen an Atomic bomb put together.
And there is also AFRICOM which OBASANJO sensibly rejected but was accepted by J.A KUFFOUR all for an exchange of the USAID $20million and the Millinium Challenge Account.
Africom is just the doomsday for Africa which countries like Nigeria, South Africa an Zambia rejected even before they made it public. "
I think you can be great when you choose to. I would prefer working with you if you could argue more constructively and also refrain from puerile pranks! However, I must confess that I just read the following after a short search on the : "The Worldwide Matrix Attack":
"This Memorandum trumped previous mechanisms by which the President would authorize intelligence actions (but not assassinations) through individual Presidential Findings. The fail safe mechanisms established under the administrations of Presidents Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton were simply erased at the urging of Tenent. In light of these revelations, what was authorized by the President may have led to the assassinations of a umber of human rights and ethnic leaders not connected in any way with Al Qaeda but did represent bothersome roadblocks to a number of U.S. military and corporate interests."
"... 4. Chief Bola Ige. On December 23, 2001, Chief Bola Ige, the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Nigeria, was assassinated in the bedroom of his home in Ibadan by unknown gunmen. Ige was a leader of the Yorubas, a largely Christian ethnic group that has championed the cause of southern Nigerian Christian tribes like the Igbo, Ogoni, and Yoruba that maintain grievances against exploitative Western oil companies that have spoiled their lands with pollution and pocketed most of the oil revenues for themselves and corrupt Nigerian politicians. Ige was the presidential candidate of the pan-Yoruba Alliance for Democracy but lost to the current President Olusegum Obasanjo, a former general who is thought by many Nigerians to be in the hip pocket of western oil companies, including Chevron and ExxonMobil. A lucrative CIA and Pentagon front operation, the private military contractor MPRI, has been training special units of the Nigerian armed forces. These forces have been active in putting down anti-oil industry protests by Igbo, Ogoni, and Yoruba tribal peoples along the Nigerian coast. Michael J. Boskin, the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Bush I is a member of the Exxon Mobil board, while current National Security Adviser Condolleezza Rice served on the board of Chevron. Currently serving on Chevron's Board is Bush I trade representative Carla Hills and former Louisiana Senator Johnston, who also serves on the board of Freeport McMoran.
In all likelihood all of these assassinations were likely known to the CIA and allowed to take place unhindered. The killings all directly benefitted the interests of the US military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower so poignantly warned us about some 40 years ago."
"THERE IS NO TIME TO WAIT! AFRICA MUST UNITE!"
Kwame Nkrumah, 1958
The autumn whether here is nothing to write home about. Have a nice day!
--
Nana Akyea Mensah
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