Wishing All You Beautiful People Out There A Very Merry Christmas!

Did I say Merry Christmas? Ordinarily, the answer to this question should be “Yes“, because this is the celebration of the greatest event of all time, but in nearly every country on the African continent, the season is anything but a “merry” one. In fact, just two things have kept a majority of the ordinary people going with some kind of sanity: i) our ability to make fun of ourselves as Africans, and ii) our sense of humour, especially in times of adversity, that enables us to keep smiles on our faces.

Uncle “Never-say-Die“ Robert has just announced that he plans for Zimbabwe to adopt the Chinese yuan as legal tender, in return for debt cancellation worth about $40m - a move one economist predicted "has no future at all". What, $40m, huh? These people who call themselves leaders on the continent never cease to amaze me. What kind of booby trap is that? It is bad enough to hand over large swathes of our territories to illiterate Chinese miners and traders, but their currency? How are his own folks in the Shona hinterlands going to deal with bargaining and change in Chinese?

Gambia has just been declared an Islamic republic by the half-illiterate President Yahaya Jammeh who said he wanted to further distance the West African state from its colonial past! The tiny, formerly secular country – named after the river from which British ships are said to have fired cannonballs to fix its borders – joins the ranks of other officially Islamic Republics such as Iran and Afghanistan. Hear him, “In line with the country’s religious identity and values I proclaim Gambia as an Islamic state,” said Jammeh on state television.

As Muslims are the majority in the country, Gambia cannot afford to continue the colonial legacy.” Master of all he surveys! Yet this country has a constitution which allows “freedom of association/religion.” So what happens to the minority Christian and animist populations? Do they also come under primitive, 14^th century Sharia Laws? Lord have mercy!

Zambia has been plunged into darkness after a blackout which affected almost the entire country. According to Reuters, “Almost the whole country except for Southern and Western province has experienced a power failure but we are yet to establish what has caused it.”’ My o my, and there are civil and public servants who are over-paid and over-pampered by the poor Zambian taxpayer to generate and supply power to the nation.

Those urchins will run their generators and pollute the air, all at the expense of the poor taxpayer, who is going to lose everything in the season that is supposed to bring him cheer and laughter!

In Burundi Monsieur Pierre Nkurunziza has decided that although the national Constitution only allows two presidential terms, “two of his illegitimate children” or relatives have just turned twenty-one and qualified to be ministers of state, so the whole country should burn, while he changes the Constitution to give himself a third term! As a result, the United Nations says at least 240 people have been killed since April when Mr. Nkurunziza decided not to step down at the end of his second term.

Ghana’s case would have been laughable were it not so serious. The intermittent power outages, aka “Dum so” have been going on for the entire term of the present government, even though the President promised on the campaign trail, to end it within (read my lips) six months, if he was elected to office. That was November 2012. Water supply is no better.

Instead of the promised solutions to these very basic problems, utility tariffs have been increased by about 90% since the government took over. New increases which average over 50% have been slapped on the poor consumers some of whom get access water in their kitchen taps about once every thirty days or so.

In the meantime, the new Minster of Power (the country has more ministers than Heavy Power Systems Engineers, I am told on good authority!), has managed to get some barely literate Arab sheikhs to act as intermediaries to flog some mickey mouse generators to the poor taxpayer at 150% the going market rate!

The man who promised to resign if he was not able to fix "Dum so" by December has decided that since Ghanaians generally have short memories, they wouldn't even notice if he overcharged them for non-existent services.

And the list goes on and on.

God Almighty, what did we do so wrong to deserve such heartless rogues? As a Christian, I still maintain the hope that a better morning will dawn on the continent someday.

And on that note, let me take the opportunity to wish all of you my dear readers, A VERY HAPPY CELEBRATION OF THE KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS, who will one day to rule our lands with justice, equity, freedom and love. Meanwhile, the programme to see to one-term presidencies on the continent is still very much alive.

MERRY CHRSISTMAS!!!!!

I shall return with my beaded gourd, God willing.

Naana Ekua Eyaaba has an overarching interest in the development of the African continent and Black issues in general. Having travelled extensively through Africa, the Black communities of the East Coast of the United States as well as London and Leeds (United Kingdom), she enjoys reading, and writes when she is irritated, and edits when she is calm. You can email her at [email protected] , or read her blog at https://naanaekuaeyaaba.wordpress.com/ .