Showing posts with label Ghana. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ghana. Show all posts

Thursday, 27 June 2013

The League of 3000 Slaps

“It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.”

- Abraham Maslow I have never been a fan of Theresa May. I think it’s only fair this piece begins with that sentiment out in the open.

From my modest position, she has always struck me as being more style (well…) over substance. An individual so talentless and flawed, that it is only possible for such a person to rise to high office, when the pool of choice is filled with equally weak compadres.

Let’s be frank, can you imagine someone of Theresa’s limited capabilities in Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet?

Remember her shambolic speech at the Tory conference in 2011, when in her haste to mock the Human Rights Act and impress her fellow Blues in one fell swoop, she failed to check her facts and basically informed the conference that an illegal immigrant had not being deported because of his pet cat! As it turned out, this fable had been doing the rounds for months and had been debunked several times over.

But our Home Secretary and her band of merry civil servants had not bothered to check the facts with the Home Office. The instant gratification she longed for was clearly more important than the truth.

Moving on in her litany of errors, Theresa left us sufficiently puzzled with her next trick. You remember the one…..where she, without the knowledge of Parliament, decided to relax UK borders and in doing so had completely run headlong into the Border Agency’s hierarchy.

Miraculously, she came out of the ensuing massacre, position intact, although the likes of Brodie Clark weren’t so lucky. But then as we all know, Theresa’s Prime Minister adjudged she was still doing a good job and kept her on. One wouldn’t want to offend the right-wing of the party, would one?

Saying that, I am convinced David Cameron paid for that folly, with copious amounts of wincing when his Home Secretary predictably struggled before the Home Affairs Committee. In an hour-long duel, Theresa fluffed her lines, looked completely rattled and unprepared. It was clear she shouldn’t be in charge of anyone; talk less of one of the most important governmental departments.

In a particularly embarrassing session, our dear Home Secretary under intense scrutiny had no choice but to admit her ignorance as to which airports had implemented her newly relaxed regime. To spare her blushes, one of her embarrassed aides had to pass her a piece of paper with the correct information. You could almost hear the collective gasp of her fellow MPs.

Then there was her completely impotent reaction to the London riots. In absence of the Prime Minister, the next person to look up to in those types of domestic scenarios is the Home Secretary and boy, did she look limp and ineffective! And to think this is an individual who has desires on Number 10. I suppose if one’s skin has been undeservedly saved many times, one ultimately begins to develop delusions of grandeur.

I could go on, but what purpose will it serve to inform you that we currently have an inept Home Secretary, when it is undeniably clear to most? In these times of global and domestic insecurity, when the country appears to have home-grown enemies even keener than our external foes, it is a thing of amazement and quite frankly, sadness, that this person holds such a position.

Clearly the gods are ready to kill off this coalition….why else will they first make them mad?
Why else would the May lady decide her latest venture would be to come up with a £3,000 visa bond scheme that singles out Nigeria, Ghana, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka?

Apparently, this latest proposal of hers is to deter visiting overstayers and tourists who illegally recourse to public services, like the NHS. As one would expect, this hasn’t gone down well with everyone, although there are supporters of the scheme who are urging her to even raise the value of the bond.

Oh well, as someone of Nigerian descent myself, there are many things I could write in this article at this point, but I must rise above the utter stupidity of this latest debacle. It appears our madam still sees the UK with severely tainted spectacles. In the relentless pursuit of some UKIP votes, she has forgotten the people who do the donkey-work for everyone else.

Go around any major city and tell me who are the cleaners, the public transport workers, the people who run and man the corner shops. Those jobs are the real backbone of this economy and anyone who tells you different is deluded. My naive expectation was the relevant communities would be treated with a smidgen of respect.

I realise Theresa wants to be Tory leader one day and as such has to lay down her ambitious marker, so we do get the message loud and clear. People like me are obviously the problem in this country and once these issues have been resolved with the £3000 bond, the country will be alright on the night! That of course is the curse of the one-dimensional political character that populates our government today….they have the same answer to all problems…..it’s always the darkie’s fault!

Just for the sake of clarity, can we just agree that overstayers and exploiters of this country’s welfare structure, come from all over the world and furthermore, they come in all shades and colours. We have Aussies, South Africans (during and after apartheid), Russians, Eastern Europeans and many more.

I thought we should point that out because it appears the only immigration offenders that our leaders are concerned about; seem to be the ones who don’t look like them. My guess is they just thought why offend everyone when we can just pick on the soft-touch nations?  It is not only highly offensive, insensitive and infuriating, it is downright revolting!

What is required is stronger immigration controls, a more effectively run Border Agency and tougher checks to ensure visitors do not take recourse to public funds. What we have been given is a proposal stewed from the laziest form of ministerial work and it all stinks of electoral desperation.

But then, why should anyone be surprised….after all it has Theresa May’s paws all over it.

Sunday, 27 January 2013

The Season of the long Blue-black knives.


So, some Tories are out to get David Cameron and replace the Prime Minister with, wait for it....Windsor MP, Adam Afriyie.

And? I hear you ask. Maybe, I should spell the name for clarity; A-F-R-I-Y-I-E. No? Nothing? Oh well, since you are going to be a spoilsport, I better let you in on the secret....he is black!!!

Try not to choke on your cornflakes, this is 2013 Britain....our heroes come in a variant of colours ;-)

Actually, he is 'post-racial not black' (his own words). Son of a Ghanaian father and a British mother, Adam is probably one of those mixed-race people like Tiger Woods, who detest people referring to them as black.

To be fair, I suppose it's only fair that the 50-50 blood is acknowledged. We wouldn't call mixed-race people white, so why call them black, right?

Actually, it's a free world and I don't really care what Mr Afriyie calls himself, as long as he does not try to introduce us to another word like 'Caubliasian' (this was Tiger's gift to us during one of his Oprah confessionals!). To the uninitiated, that stands for Caucasian, Black and Asian...Lol!

Poor Tiger...yes, we know you are very good at putting your balls in a hole (well, several ugly holes), but you are such a muppet off the course!!!

Anyhoo, back to the matter at hand, some Conservative backbenchers (that's another word for bitter people who have no influence within their ruling party), have got together and decided to truncate Cameron's time at the top. Apparently, Mr Afriyie is the Tory Obama and he will be a lifesaver for their dwindling political fortunes.

Talking of fortunes, it turns out AA is a self-made man with £100 Million dangling in his back pocket! Damn shon...that's some dough and considering our current cabinet is 80% millionaires, he will definitely fit in.

Wow...young, rich and black (sorry, post-racial). The combination is so intoxicating and you can just imagine the likes of Tinnie Tempah, Dizzee and Labyrinth, coming onboard and making the Tories cool again....not. Aaaah, by the way, for those of you wondering what the man of the moment looks like (you know you are), here's a pic of him and his missus.

Adam Afriyie and the missus

He looks every bit the Tory....doesn't he? Even down to the blue suit! His wife is cute too....although, she is worryingly in red....Labour alert!

Well, I wish you luck Sir with your leadership plot. Much as I would like to see you become the British Obama, I would rather place my chips on Chuka Umunna, Labour MP for Streatham.

Nothing personal, I just want Nigeria to pip Ghana to the Downing Street finishing line...major bragging rights bro...major!

Thursday, 11 June 2009

The Power of the Inevitable....

The Former Minister of the Nigerian Federal Capital Territory, Nasir El-rufai, in his recent speech titled “Nigeria: Political Dynamics and Prospects for Reform,” given at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C, gave the usual lengthy stone-throwing at the Yar'Adua government and expressed his doubts, at any prospect of the current regime implementing any tangible progress.

In truth it was a good speech and to be fair, it included some suggestions for change, rather than the customary negative appraisals which inform us of the problems, but seem to be bereft of any information related to solutions. Of course, in speeches like El-Rufai's, there will be the odd nonsense thrown in for good measure and he did not disappoint, as he ended the speech with comments concerning recent plans for President Obama to visit Ghana and not Nigeria. Apparently, like most political observers, he believed the President has done this because of the quality of governance in Ghana, which is clearly lacking in Nigeria.

Well, I doubt if you will find a bigger Obama fan in the blogging world than myself (I spent 8 months pretending to be the great man - www.obamadrama.blogspot.com), but I hope he truly did not snub Nigeria due to the governance issue, as his recent choice of destinations does not seem to be in line with his purported 'preference' for the Gold Coast. Yes, Nigeria is suffering from ill-governance and endemic corruption, but I do not believe the regimes in Saudi Arabia and Egypt (yes, I know the Middle East crisis dictated his itinerary!), hold any 'paragon of governance' status when compared to the Nigerian nation.

Unspeakable things are being done by both countries' governmments to maintain the fragile stability they display to the world and if Obama has truly decided not to visit Nigeria due to her dodgy government, then I am afraid he is obviously applying the most sophisticated form of double standards! Saying that, we do not have proof that this is the case, but we are ready with our reactions if it is ever confirmed.

We know Nigeria is an incredibly challenged country, with a seemimgly self-destructive character, but I am certain a man of Obama's intelligence is aware that his appearance in the country, rather than the opposite, is the propellant needed by the masses to demand change and for the goverment to initiate a turn in it's direction. Forget vsits from the Dai Lama and the Pope, this is the world's most powerful man, who just happens to look and walk like us and most importanly, one who achieved what most thought was impossible (no different from the current Nigerian mindset). In the end, we are talking of the world's most populous BLACK country! It is not a maybe for him, it is just a matter of when.

Mr President, we are expecting you.......don't let us down.