Fuck aids

I know that the defense that gays are not Africans is far too void to be listened to people (Zulu’s used to do that shit)

However I do not think that Europeans forcing Africans to accept gay relationship as acceptable makes it African.

I do not have a heart for gays and I will never apologize for that, I honestly refuse their imposition as an orientation in the same breath that I accept social and liberal temperament in society.

I just think that some lines should not be crossed.

Now about gays I never thought them as a threat till; the white people forced us to hate them. Why should they equate the very aid they give us to sexual preferences.

What is more important to Britain, whether we are gays or whether we die of starvation, malaria and AIDS

Honestly if I was by the remotest chance gay how would I feel when millions of children die around me just because my government does not recognize me. If my brother or sister will go to a hospital without malaria drugs or my mother miscarries because of a bout of malaria just because Europeans think the government should acknowledge my presence.

In fight for Universal rights the course of action assumed by Britain is not only morally wrong, imperialistic but downright perversion of the very ideals they are fighting for.

They point out that similar policy worked wonders in enforcing democracy, insinuation: whenever they want us to accept their ideas good or bad they use aid.

This is a wakeup call for all Africans to realize that aid is the carrot on the stick, it is the neocolonial church or school or administration or culture that’s enslaving us.

In other news America will not cripple Iran’s central bank because of the fragile financial situation and so let them build A bombs. We do not have oil, Iran’s bargaining power so when they decide they’ll cripple our central banks and there’s nothing we can do about it.

War should be the last resort

Recent dare devil audacity shown by Al Shabab on Kenyan soil has provoked deserved rebuff from government quarters that was long overdue.

Kenyans are practically baying for blood and war in unison. Laxity of Kenya’s defense forces on its frontiers has attracted aggression from Uganda over Migingo, Alshabab and the Merille of Ethiopia. And this latest provocation on Kenyan soil has jolted us to action, having us mobilize troops toward Kenya Somalia border in contemplation of a war with the terrorist group. A move that has been lauded across all quarters as justified aggression from defense forces which was beginning to look moribund as per public opinion.

However caution should be exercised when contemplating war, especially with an amorphous terrorist organization hiding behind civilians on foreign soil.

In 2006 Israel undertook a similar escapade in quest to finally deal with Hezbollah which had provoked Israel for far too long. In that war Israel incurred a financial loss of $1.6 billion, destruction of at least 60000 homes and business, TOURISM ground to a halt, literally and economic growth slumped.

Despite all this losses Israel cannot out rightly say it won as minimal insurgents were actually killed with large Civilian casualties on both sides of the border were recorded. However Israel was cushioned by the yearly $2.2 billion in military aid from America

Back home we are at terrible economic status quo with the shilling helplessly plummeting, economic growth barely recovering post poll violence and looming uncertainties of the oncoming 2012 polls.

Military action into foreign soil will cost the country dearly bearing in mind we run in a deficit budget and are heavily reliant on tourism a clear target of Al Shabab from the Kikambala incident.

While action is necessary, we must temper radical action with reason and chart a way out that will reap maximum benefit for our country.

I think creation of a buffer zone at the border and presence of more military at the borders will be better than going into Somalia in pursuit of a faceless threat.

GUNS FOR HIRE

In African politics the role of court poet who uses his ingenious to bark for his master is taken seriously and professional to uttermost disgust. Like the story in Ayi Kwei Armah’s Healers where one practically lay before the king and declared that the king spit into his mouth so that all he says  be but merely the words of the King- and what supplicating conception of the kings words than his spittle?

Attending a Campus Agenda forum with young political minds discussing political aspirations in a sound and sober gathering that would soon be abandoned to wanton drunken campaigns I could not help but notice elements that posed and or displayed political and oratorical prowess to frustrate an aspirant and sell one of their choice. The vehemence, with which they barked their intellect showed obsequious desire for their owners to notice.

What dejectedly churned my innards was how these men of psychological impeccability could lower themselves to the service of other men to the point of losing their intellect all together and talking like ignorant, arrogant and sentimental holloipolio.

Newspapers are filled with intellect opinion pieces which subliminally tend to lean toward or in juxtaposition to political aspirants in Kenya as in the case of Miguna Miguna and his ilk. We witness sound intellectual mind sell themselves to kings and shaming scribes and orators.

Like Plato warned of the dialectics and their power over public opinion in democracies  I echo his concerns of highly educated and well articulated orators and scribes of our time powerfully transmitted through the media.

Maybe its high time media policy in democracies should be evaluated to allow for these guns for hire to outrightly declare who their masters are so that the reader can decide between their two bigoted sides for and against an individual, idea or cause. Liberitarian theory is based on the mases determining what is good and what is not for them and not some sharp academia shaping their thoughts for some economic –political interest as a gun for hire!

Man Eat Man Society

                                                                                                                                       By Donald Ngala

It may seem like ages since the late Mwalimu Julius Kabarage Nyerere of Tanzania declared Kenya to be a man- eat man society. In response, the then attorney general Charles Mugane Njonjo quipped that Tanzania was a man eat nothing state due to its socialist “ujamaa” economic policy.

Much water has flown under the bridge since then and the two countries have undergone tremendous changes both politically and socially. The result has been that Kenya has emerged as a ravenous, capitalistic economic powerhouse in the east African region while Tanzania is the gentle humanistic brother next door. This was evident when at the outbreak of the post election violence in 2008, Tanzania played a leading role in brokering the peace process which saw Kenya return to sanity and stop the mayhem and bloodletting.

The former president Benjamin William Mkapa was among the eminent persons who oversaw the negotiations that returned the country to its senses, while the current president Jakaya Kikwete witnessed the final signing of the accord that set up the coalition government.

So the big question is why are Kenyans such a trigger happy people? Why are they so disagreeable? Why do they argue and play the blame game all the time? Why are their Tanzanian brothers and sisters more gentle and agreeable?

It is the contention of many political observers that this is borne out of the ravenous nature of our politics. This is the capitalistic system exported to Africa, the Americas, Australia and Asia at the height of Imperial British Conquest in the 19^th century.

The expansionist policies of the British was informed, not by good brotherhood but by the more basic and atavistic reason of hunger for natural resources due to overpopulation on the British Isles and the rest of the European continent.

This had been caused by the foregoing Agrarian revolution which has enabled the Europeans to raise enough food for the masses leading to an unprecedented population explosion. These masses needed to be fed and housed but since lebensraum or living space was scarce, land and other resources had to be found somewhere.

The European monarchs sponsored exploration expeditions which “discovered” lands beyond the seas in the Americas, Asia, Africa and Australia. Most of these lands were usurped either through cunning and conniving, military conquest, outright extermination of whole populations or a combination of some or all the above.

There then followed a period of subjugation of the native to the colonial yoke and blatant exploitation of the colonies for the benefit of the “mother-land” colonizer. Suffice to say, this ran its cause and the native growing enlightened demands his rights and land back.

During the liberation of the colonized, whether pacifically or by force of arms, the colonizers deliberately sought out the weak-kneed and the collaborators who could not oppose them to safeguard their capitalistic interests. Thus the scenario was created whereby the sons of the collaborators are the ones who benefited most from the new set up, not necessarily those who deserved to be rewarded. Ironically, those who had paid obeisance to the conqueror had to take care of his interests upon his departure.

Independence therefore did not mean an end to dependence on the western powers. Capitalism and its raw forms of money worship and the attendance desire to worship the moneyed has continued to drive the former colonies to extremities of begging outright submission to the western yoke.

In short, the west continue to rule us, They decide who occupy our statehouses or presidential palaces- which they built- and woe-betide  you if you decide to defy them like Ggagbo, and they come to take you out of the  most secret bunker in “their” palace, because they know exactly where you are hiding.

The idea that only those who collaborated with the white colonialists should benefit from public largesse goes against the grain of social justice. And here we are not talking about the extreme “ujamaa” type of socialism but a simple equitable distribution of the national cake.

Anyone who has lived or visited Tanzania will attest that despite its economic challenges compared to Kenya it has humanity (utu) which carries across the country and serves its wananchi very well. This can be credited to Nyerere who subjugated tribe to nation unlike Kenya where the British colonizer practiced divide and rule and therefore left a legacy of people identifying themselves as tribe first and nation second.

That the old man laughed his opponents off the mainland was a plus for the nation. His enduring legacy has seen Tanzanians realize the dreamed-of desire of everyman and woman, to be humble and proactive at the same time.

This has been evidenced by the expulsion of those avaricious Kenyans who invaded Dar, and importing impunity from back home, tried to take over Bongo-land. They were unceremoniously bundled out, and sent packing back to Nairobi.

The same fate faced those dare-devil trigger happy Nairobi thugs, car-jackers and robber-barons who invaded Tanzania and literally, western-movie style, threatened to take over the sleepy town of Moshi. They mistakenly thought that the Sheriff of the town was sleeping on the job. They were in for a rude shock. At the end of the shootout; Moshi Sheriff 7, Kenyan villains 0.

That Tanzanians hold us in contempt is demonstrated by their refusal to adapt to the Kenyan model of capitalist democracy wholesome. Largely they practice their own homegrown solutions to their problems.

When Kenyans first arrive in Bongoland, they are amazed at the “excess courtesy” displayed. “Tafadhali naomba nikuzie nini?” (Literally:Please, what can I serve you with?). The Kenyan, used to the rude and no nonsense “Unataka?” (What do you want?) back at home cannot fathom this. He or she has been brought up with inspiring moments in soccer stadiums where differences are settled at the blunt tip of stones.

He is daily bombarded by councilors hurling stones when running for mayoral seats. It is a tough world man, the Kenyan psych has been conditioned to believe. They enter Tanzania expecting to be harassed by police, insulted by the “Dala dala” tout after struggling to board the damn thing.

Nope, nothing like that here, kaka, he is told. His mind can’t digest this. So he comes back home and ironically, the first thing he does is complain Tanzanians politeness. What is wrong with us Kenyans?

What we forget to realize is that all that pressure in our society equals a massive dose of stress. Every day you arrive from work or whatever endeavours you engage in, you have a heavy dose of stress. And it is this pressure cooker which eventually burst forth after the 2007 elections. In the words of Shaw: The centre could no longer hold, things had to fall apart.

Much of it has been blamed on negative ethnicity, and that could be partly true. But methinks the main culprit is our economic system. Remember Clintons quip: “It is the economy stupid.” This is informed by the fact that if my neighbor’s and his children’s tummies are full, he or she will find little reason to quarrel. On the other hand, if he sees me gorging myself while he and his are starving, there is every reason for him to resent my station, all other circumstances not-withstanding. When my member of parliament refuses to pay tax on his or her 1 million shilling paycheck while the lowly teacher who takes home 13 thousand shillings is taxed, then there is something very wrong in the state of Kenya. As Chinua Achebe said, the Mp is simply taking too much for the owner to see. The owner here is the electorate, the man who toils on the farm from sunrise to dusk to put food, literally, on the table. This is the very same farmer who is taxed to pay for the luxury of one individual when the amount of 1 million which the MP earns can virtually feed more than ten families in the village.

It is a man eat man society indeed, where you are either eating or being eaten.

Moral renaissance

In recent times there has been a major decline in donor funding for the AIDS pandemic in Africa. Majorly attested to the fact that most countries grossly mismanaged earlier funding and a feeling that the monies being chanelled to the third world is actually not doing what it is meant to due.

And truly so in the ground for anybody who cares to find out the NGOs are seemingly money making briefcase organizations. They are being used by individuals in order to make money more of business ventures than humanitarian. As long as they can draw action plans and collect data to confirm their activities which involves paying of the very confirmers they can continuously pipe the international funding into their pockets.

This has created another big corruption scandal as tax payer money from the developed states is grossly mismanaged from the very top echelons of the funding organizations to the man on the ground. This however does not mean that the NGOs are a complete failure. To give credit where its due, some of this organizations have achieved the unimaginable in terms of fighting the pandemic.public awareness has increased trifold times, while preventive measures have been made known and available to the vast majority. PLWHA have been able to access anteretrovirals at their remote areas and have been trained as ambassadors for change in the society. Holistic goals have been achieved and this can be credited to the enthusiasm of this very NGOs.

However since funding has been reduced and  running such organization has preemptively been a challenge all is not lost. I would like to urge the organizations not to relent as the fight against the condition is far from over. Let this time of difficulty separate the grain from chaff. Those who were solely around to merely make money will jump ship as ofcource. However those of us who truly belive in our cause to stop the pandemic should find other avenues that are less monetary to tackle the scourge.

Money as I maintain is overestimated especially when there are alternatives to it. I would sugest that instead of workshops that repeatedly year in year out teach the same thing about HIV/AIDS we can go for teaching morality which our society badly needs and is unimaginable in the scope which it might reduce AIDS prevalence in Africa.

Being a victim of immorality myself I understand how it single-hendedly contributes to majority of HIV/AIDS infection in the greater Africa. While I had predisposed knowledge on infection and prevention my inability to curb carnal desires put me in a great risk of infection. I realized that probably there were people out there who shared my own vulnerability due to this relaxed moral state that my society entertains in all garbs, civilization and modernity included.

Thus I thought that now since the money taps are seemingly running dry, we have the opportunity to realize what non-monetary and simle human elements can be harnessed in the fight against AIDS. We can experience lasting success by teaching morality to all the society. Purging tha wanton enslavement to our carnal destrauctiveness and releasing our society from the tight clasp of the AIDS scourge.

Everyone would rightly agree that the genral moral fibre in our society is wanting. We virtually have accepted that pre and extra marital sexual affairs are part of us. This should not be the case. Let us fight thi battle as it should. Openly castigate morality and increase social conscience on intimacy and true love. We can not accept ads that sell mapenzi bila regrets ni mapenzi na condom (condom love without regrets) as if we have forgotten what love is. condoms can only ensure sex without regrets and not love! This subliminal acceptance of weak morality even to the most ideal human notions like love is totally debasing.

We need to teach morality, truthful and non-comercial. Developed nations cannot fund our morals because money and try virtue and morals are incompatible. That is why I suggest that this are not difficult times but a golden opportunity for reinnasance especially in recalling morals that are lost to our true history as Africans.

Moral decadence

The Nambale MP argument that money laundering was not a crime in Kenya when he allegedly indulged in it decries the moral fiber in the country which the law is supposed to enforce.

Seeking to block his extradition to Jersey Hon Chris Okemo, former Minister for energy, said in court papers that the Proceeds of Crime and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2009, was not in force at the time of his alleged offence and so was not a criminal act in Kenya. He thus wants to absolve himself from trial on these and other grounds. The MP faces 15 counts of money laundering and misconduct in public office allegedly committed between February 1, 1998 and June, 28 2002, which he denies.

His defense is akin to saying that all crimes prior to enactment of law are not crimes and cannot thus be pursued legally. What of the fact that they are wrong? Should we let the people who took advantage of loopholes in the Justice and legal system to perpetrate crimes just because the then frame work did not consider their actions as crime?

This is not a too unlikely scene as it is far too evident in the common Kenyan psychomotor to indulge in the wrong just because there are no direct reparations to their actions. It calls into our attention thus that as we enforce the legal mechanisms in the country we should seek to uphold our morality and be guided by law rather than entirely depend on the law.

We are more like children being guarded by an iron arm and once the close supervision of our parent is veered off we are all too quick to go on the romp and the end is usually tragic.

The MPs is not an isolated case as there are several incidents that call this decrying trend into to the fore. Kenyans are known to over indulge in drinking and had to have Muthutho laws to keep them away from bars which they still try to avoid at all costs. Speaking to one drinker identified only as Onyango, it emerged that drinkers would hide in dark closed bars just to avoid Muthutho laws.  “We even go drinking in the bushes as there is no law prohibiting drinking in bushes thus beating Muthutho at his own turf,” he laughingly added.

This is in sharp contrast to our Uganda brothers just across the border who despite lacking direct laws prohibiting drinking do not engage in it till evening after work. A discipline which has lately been digressed from as the influx of Kenyans fleeing Muthutho’s law saunters across the border 

While we have successfully enacted a constitution Britain continues to depend on an unwritten one and is successful at it. They have deeply ingrained moral standards which are punishable when perverted written or unwritten. That is why when the law as per international standards was breached, Interpol issued a red notice against the Minister and Mr. Gichuru after a warrant by the Bailiff and Chief Justice of the island of Jersey, United Kingdom in April 2011.

On our account wrong can only be punished by law and those who can beguile the system can go scot free. We should have a strong code of conduct with the law acting as a guideline to enforce it rather than totally depend on the law without our own initiative to be good citizens.

This poses the question of whether the law is the answer to our dire criminal problem as a nation. It exposes the fact that our morality is wanting and that we might actually be incapable of any good unless we have a guillotine over our necks.

Brand exodus

By Bantaleo Muhindi/Otiato Guguyu

As inflation spirals and hits the 14.5 per cent mark Anne Khatenje, a secondary school teacher, walks into a super market in Busia town. With a list of items,  the 47 year old teacher makes for soap at a shelf.

Momentarily, she stares in space. Ostensibly puzzled and not believing her eyes, the mathematics teacher counterchecks what she has on her list of items as the price of the bar soap she has always purchased and used in her house has risen.

Upon learning that the price of the bar soap has almost doubled in the last two month, she goes round the super market only to learn that prices of virtually all items inflated. The teacher is lost for words but is compelled to adjust her budget.

Another shopper, Lucy Akundah, at the same supermarket, concedes that escalation of prices has changed dearly the brands she used to go for. “Tough times call for tough measures,” she says, adding, “I go for prices hands down.”

An avalanche of consumers are rushing for lower quality but cheaper goods by the day as attested by the rising trend of victims fatally succumbing to brews in Central Kenya and Nairobi.

The recent green light to millers to import GMO to help arrest the rising deficit in national cereals extrapolates the situation. Whereas the government allowed this on condition that they outrightly  indicate the maize is GMO the risk is that with the current market trend which is so centered on price may not put that into consideration.

The unabated shortage of maize, coupled with inflation which has, subsequently, contributed to high cost of living have driven some Kenyans into opting for alternatives of major brands.

They actually opt for lower quality and cheap items. While they do so, they are ignorant of how the products they purchase will affect them.

Whereas soap may not have an adverse effect on someone’s health, the recent revelation by Roy Mugira of National Safety Authority to approve importation of GMO to mitigate looming shortage should in itself be food for thought.

Should Kenyans purchase products cheaply notwithstanding the effect they have on their health?

Though the gains of the purchase may be immediate the long term effect on consumers of some of the products may be adverse. It could be debilitating.

The guidelines on importation of GM to be issued by Mr Mugira should be borne out of critical and analytical mind. They should not be the type that benefit millers who will buy the GMO maize at about 70 per cent of the price of the locally produced maize and sell it at exorbitantly.

Doubtless, it is the kill that millers are out to make which makes them support the importation of GMO immediately. No wonder chairman of Cereals millers Association, Diamond Lalji, says, “Bio tech is the way we should go and it will help us overcome shortages of maize.”

“GM maize is cheaper by about 30 per cent compared to the non GM and that is expected to bring down the price of the final product,” he adds.

It is on the premise that scores of Kenyans mire in poverty, are desperate, gullible and that ours is a man eat man society that rigorous sensitization should be conducted prior to implementation of some decisions.

Through education and sensitization stakeholders, consumers inclusive, will be empowered to look beyond prices and make informed choice instead of buying what is cheap today and expensive tomorrow.

Purchasing goods, especially those that may impact on health, calls for a second thought from consumers.  The price-consideration-only thinking should be discarded.

Safety of some GMOs is debatable. The status quo of the Kenyan economy is an eerie harbinger of tougher times economically and socially. This is why all GMO products should be re-examined by experts.

Brand exodus to poor quality alternatives also needs re-examination lest the nation slides to a health precipice. Though the economy mauls the consumers’ pockets the latter should not be exposed to health risks.

The allegory of the hornbill

When I was young in primary I read a story about a noisy hornbill and the trouble he brought about to the whole forest. The noisy hornbill kept quacking through the forest. The forest was indifferent to its tirade. One lady bird however was cautious and skeptic of the wanton indifference in the forest. It warned that the noisy hornbill will eventually bring trouble to the whole forest and that the forest ought to check his excess of noise. The whole forest at the height of indifference opted to stay indifferent to the noise of the hornbill and the counsel of the lady bird. Every one simply minded his own skin. Then one day a hunter heard a loud hornbill in the forest and followed his incessant noise. He came to the clearing where the hornbill was and shot it off the tree. It fell where there were mushrooms and the hunter thought he should take the mushroom as well for eating with the hornbill. To his enthusiasm he found a snail next to the mushroom and took it as well to make good soup. He cut the banana next to them and lianas to tie and package his hunt. Thus much to the warning of the ladybird all the neighbors of the noisy hornbill did meet their end because of the noisy hornbill and their indifference to its excess.

The allegory finds relevance when put in retrospect to African colonization and more specifically the story of the Nile.  Colonization then and now is a process it starts off like cancerous cells and if unchecked spreads to the whole and kills the body and soul ad infinitum. Not so long ago euro imperialists colonized India and wanted to go there more often. They had to strenuously go round a forest continent impenetrable and ancient. The distance was painstaking and making it was a matter of probability. When the managed to put Egypt under their influence and construct a canal to ease access of Indian subcontinent. It proved a convenient and shorter way to access their investment abroad. However they later realized the invaluable River Nile and saw it fit to control Egypt and harness the Nile. The nile was subject to control and the had to expand territories down south to its source to ensure monopoly. They descended south gobbling territories I their wake. At the source they got to the more illustrious lake that they named after their queen maybe due to it benevolence and sustenance of territories all round it. So they occupied all land around this great lake. Then there came the fact that actually besides the water and the life, flora and fauna there was resources minerals and labor that was abundant and unpaid. And what started as a shortcut to India ended up as colonization of East Africa just like the proverbial hornbill hunter. The indifference of the neighbors to the takeover of one of them eventually brought the demise of all of them as a whole.

And that’s exactly what is happening in Africa toady! The Euro American alliance has brought out it military birds for display in Libya for self centered reasons. They let other despots like the Syrian and Bahrain administration slaughter protesters and are too quick to support, intervene and arm dissidents of Benghazi. The sheer might resources and media invested in the Odyssey campaign tells of the benefits they intend to assume once their puppet NTC gains undemocratic power over Tripoli. My point in alluding to the allegory of the hornbill is in call for action from AU. The domicile AU and other African states on the matter is appalling. We are showing utter indifference to the crisis of Tripoli like the hornbill’s neighbors and that will be our greatest undoing. What this crisis might end up being is a gradual re-colonization of the motherland if left unchecked. They already own our economies and we are indebted to them to the bone. Now they are brazenly administering territory on the motherland? Now they brazenly control the Somali coast in our own interest? Now they have brought us military help against El Bashir and are at the heart of oil producing Abyiei. And we know that the whole of Africa is their dumb vassal and satellite states. Soon all the bullshit about sovereignty and democracy they have been tutoring ass will be shoved aside ‘in our own interest’. Their philosophies will be redefined and re-colonization will be dubbed our best solution from ourselves. As we continue to play indifferent the hunter is bombing down Libya and we are the neighbors that will go down with it.

Africa, your silence is deafening.

African solutions lie within.

One of the greatest threats to Africa presently is the threat of food insecurity. Largely accredited to worsening climatic situation and government impotence and which has turned the basket of the world into a beggar of aid.

In my take I consider the great inability of Africa to feed its populations to a great extent is because of the great shift to cash crop farming and neglect of food production to a few. Countries as fertile as Kenya have to import maze in excess to feed its population which should not be the case.

The food system is set out that there are a few designated maize farmers especially in the plush Kitale and Trans Nzoia district who virtually feed the whole nation. They are supposed to cultivate and deliver maize to the silos which are then stored too feed the nation annually. Then there are bulk grain dealers who import maize and store them and later sell to the government and companies for the nation to be fed.

This system has been largely accepted and unquestioned until recently with constant food shortages and skyrocketing inflation. Accusations of lack of capacity and hoarding have been changed and this only served to worsen the situation when the price practically skyrocketed to a record high of 0ver a hundred shillings for two kilograms of maize floor in the rural area.

Like I said at the start African solutions can only come from within. I think the food crisis gives a chance to review the food production process. Whereas we need the government to do its worked and feed its population we must start taking the true responsibility for feeding themselves. We cannot abandon the duty to feed ourselves to the government or private farmers and commercial grain handlers.

The most important step to ensure food security is thus the revitalization of subsistence farming! In as much as all we hear is that we need government intervention or aid, the truth is that to ensure food security we must be able to feed ourselves as individuals.

Subsistence farming which is dying to the more lucrative and attractive commercial farming is the key to feeding our population as all the proletariat wants is to eat and if he can feed himself then there is food security.

Most issues arising in the crisis can be solved by this imperatively easy way. The issue of storage for large grain handlers and the complaint that they lack the capacity will not be witnessed in small scale subsistence farming. The unscrupulous hoarding will neither be the case nor the transport cost passed on to the consumer.

All we need is for government to devolve mini silos to small villages and encourage the ancient art of building small scale storages. The government should cut cost and give incentives to small scale millers especially posho-millers or run posho mills in local centers or towns where they can be accessed easily and cheaply. The government should employ and deport extension officers and make agriculture more robust in villages and rural towns where the population can be encouraged to use every scrap of land at their disposal to grow food and feed Africa. Then most importantly the governments must cease leasing our land to other countries to grow their own subsistence food here we do not eat royalties or the tax they levy on the Global powers and multinational corporations!

The civil society and good will ambassadors should push for a national and continental drive to feed yourself which will encourage subsistence farming. The school curriculum must stop bedeviling small scale farming as insignificant economic activity that must be discarded for commercial farming for the right philosophy to be passed to the young generations

We do not disqualify the commercial dealers as they are an important chain in the food security complex. They will come in hand for the transfer of food to less fertile areas and town who cannot feed themselves. Areas that are agriculturally challenged will be serviced by these commercial entries and the government. And looking at the whole continent especially sub Sahara such areas are minimal. The continent then will be able to feed its people.

And the question arises, what if we all grow food? Then this underscores my lifelong theses that African solutions are within. We will have the greatest opportunity to rediscover barter, exchanging value for value and not value for paper!

The NATO well in the Arab Springs

It is deplorable for the global politics to take the turn it is taking and insulting to Africans who honor their freedom struggles from colonization. The NATO action in Libya is despicable colonist and bullish of the West. We have accepted their iron fist control on our economy and subliminal control of our polities but they are overdoing it and have taken enough for the owner t notice.

While the West media continues to sell the democratic process in Libya where NATO flies fighter jets over Tripoli in the daylight bombing Libya TV, the rest of us do not buy it. In as much as it is strategic to bomb propaganda cells like Libya TV to win a psychological war it is irresponsible and NATOs Achilles hill to destroy opinion of whoever voices it. The innocent journalists are not ruling so why bomb them when they are not holding any arms against you.

We are made to believe that the media in Libya is spreading bigotry but so are the West media. Libya is NATO drilled well in the Arab springs! It is a west aided takeover by the rebels and not a revolution as witnessed in other Arab neighbors.

We have seen great disparities in the revolutions and the CIA doctored pseudo revolution in Libya which stinks more of a western take over than freedom for Libyan free people.

NATO will win the war but it will lose the stupefaction it exercises over African people. They will expose their vested interest and attract more vengeance that it attracts in the Middle East

I call upon the African Union to stand up and be counted. They come to the war claiming Kaddafi is killing Libyans what about their own shelling of Tripoli.

Would we rather Americans, Britain and France kill Libyans?

The AU must refuse to recognize the West supported rebel government unless the legal and truly democratic diplomatic efforts are taken to solve the Libyan impasse.

Let change in Libya come from within! Let African voices rise against colonization!