My Oga At The Top Mentality - A Plea

"Together; we can practically discourage the“MY OGA AT THE TOP MENTALITY”: approach. Simply by empowering your associates, and or employees to make informed decision in your absentia. You don’t need to live in Lagos full time to understand what the term MY OGA means. Chances are you’ve had an encounter or heard this phrase one way or the other on the streets of Lagos. Phrases like “Let me check with my oga”, “Oga said”, “Oga Talk Sey”. We can’t deny our rich cultural tradition of respect for superiors, or elders, neither can we let this kinds of mindset continue to damp the abilities of folks that need upbeat moral or build interpersonal skill set. The My Oga at the Top Mentality prevented Mr. Obafaiye from making crisp informed decision at a critical time of need." [Read More]

Really considering Sino-Africa relations.

I'm really happy that Emeka Okafor shared William Wallis' article in the FT it leads very nicely onto the next post I want to write about Africa's relationship with the East. First I must work on a 5000 word essay so in the mean time head to Emeka's Africa Unchained blog, find the link to William Wallis' article and build an opinion.

Where's Joe?

I read this article on Ghanaweb, as I always do. It's about the fact that Ghana wastes 1 billion Ghana cedis each year on ghost workers. Now if you are familiar with Ghanaian movies, you would know that there is a strong belief that the dead can walk among us without us knowing that they are dead. My mum and aunties have often joked about the taxi-man reports of ghosts hitching rides in a certain part of Accra.

If this 1 billion cedis was being spent on ghosts who don't know how to play dead and stay dead I would totally understand, but for some reason, this money is being paid to people who are definitely not coming into work in the morning. Can someone ask, please, why we feel the need to pay people who aren't turning up to work? It is not at all difficult, Joe comes to work everyday for 10 years, one day Joe doesn't come in, his boss doesn't call to find out where he is cos in Ghana people will just assume he's in a casual bout with malaria. Joe is not there for 2, 3, 4 days. The above is assumed because "malaria... mtchewww enye easy". Ghana loves its funerals so no doubt SOMEONE in the office would know that Joe has sadly died and that the appropriate attire is black and brown. Maybe the boss doesn't know. Surely the boss realises (dead or alive) Joe hasn't been in the office for 2 weeks. Does he not send a message to Joe via post, phone or person? Joe's family are too upset, they don't respond, fine. But come on, if after 3/4 weeks you definitely don't know what has happened to Joe, why are you still going to pay him? Has the work been done? Even if it has, has HE done the work? No. Only in Ghana* do people expect (dead or alive) to get paid for work not done. That's probably why so many aspects of the public sector is in chaos.

This yet another form of corruption. Forget complaining about the amount Chris Brown comes to disrespect our common values, forget scrutinising the Black Stars' budget every 2 years, think about how many schools, clinics and roads we might build with the billions of cedis lost in the past decade alone simply because for some reason we still want to pay people who don't show up for work!

*I know it's not only in Ghana, but enjoy that lovely saying that so many Ghanaians use to internalise our failings to epic proportions like the rest of the world is perfect until you get to Ghana.

Happy #IWD 2013!

Last #IWD I had the lovely pleasure of being on an international Google Hangout with some of Africa's leading ladies including Ory Okolloh, part of this hangout out was even aired on Kenyan CitizenTV. That was super cool. 

This year, my IWD is much quieter, one 3-hour lecture I nearly fell asleep in. At the end of the month (29/03/2013) however I will be partaking in an event focused on black women in the UK. Below is the flier, if you are in London, please stop by. If you aren't be you know people who are, please share.

Telling the African Story - Komla Dumor - TEDxEuston

Komla Dumor hasn't yet reached hero status for me yet, but of all the celebs I follow on twitter and facebook he's definitely my favourite. His talk at TEDxEuston just got uploaded a couple of days ago: