The Vim Views & Versions - Blogs of a MIghTy African

I shared some quick thoughts on why John Mahama even after campaigning for a few months beat out Nana Akufo Addo who campaigned for 2+ years on my Facebook profile and a friend encouraged me to write a blog post. I wanted to share my analysis of why Johnny Digital Mahama won. Some of the points are serious and some aren't so serious. Cos Why So Serious? If you followed my blog from the start, you'd know I named my blog "Why So Serious". Yeap, picked it from the Batman movie. It's clear many people voted for John Mahama the person vrs Nana Akufo-Addo rather than the NDC versus the NPP. Nana Akufo Addo is not liked very much in Ghana for his "arrogance and elitism". Ask around. I'll allow my namesake to share a quick Nana story ( (8th paragraph ) on the arrogance  bit.  He might have gone around the country 3 times but I bet Ghanaians could see through him as they met him. The NPP with its property-owning democracy and Republican-ish ness makes it...

My favorite song from Nigeria this year finally has a music video! Oh, you don't know the song? It's simple, artistic and straight to the point. It is no short of vim. It makes you pay attention to the lyrics because you have to. The song sounds as good as the first time I heard it. How can't I fall in love with a song with lyrics like "The future is here, the future is here." You know the song now? It's called ' The Future' by Ty Bello . Nigerian youth, the future is here. Show you know this by voting this month. Invest yourself in the decision-making of Nigeria. Toyin Shokefun Bello made a huge splash on the Nigerian music scene in 2007 with her song Green land . "The land is green". It was patriotic and Nigerian. And then I heard Freedom , which I also loved. She's a celebrated photographer and award winning artiste. Creativity should be her middle name. So when Nigerian musicians started making inspirational songs in the run-up to the...

From the people who brought you Makmende , they also bring you Kuweni Serious. Just A Band and their crew are just too awesome. As #Kenyadecides, we join them in prayer for a peaceful period and a period that will help shape the nation's march onto greater heights. Kuweni Serious - Fighting the EVIL powers of apathy Featuring a random sampling of Kenyans. Produced/Directed by Mbithi Masya and Jim Chuchu for Kuweni Serious. Edited by Mbithi Masya. Narration by Bill Sellanga, words and music by Jim Chuchu. Narration --- There is a difference between the one who rents a house, and the one who owns a house. The one who rents a house doesn't care if the walls crack and crumble, they can always move to another house. The one who owns a house knows that no one else will take care of it, thus they paint the walls and mend the cracks. More than 60% of Kenya's population consists of young men and women like us. The problem is that we behave like tenants of Kenya. We have let the old...

The Kangaroo dance was probably the most popular dance in Ghana in 2008. First the Black Stars unveiled it when Michael Essien got on the end of Sulley Muntari's freekick to score Ghana's first goal against Morocco in the African Cup of Nations at Accra's Ohene Djan sports stadium. I was at the stadium that day and believe you me, I was so ecstatic to see the goal that I was making so much noise jumping up and down to pay any attention to the Black Stars' celebration. They did the dance again after Sulley Muntari scored Ghana's second and the next day, a new dance craze was born. The NPP employed it in their Election 2008 campaign as well. Do you know where the dance originated from? Do you even know that it was a dance craze in Kenya as well? Now you know. The Kangaroo dance celebration became a phenomenon during the CAN 2008. In fact, Ghana's dreaded rivals, the Super Eagles, actually used that same celebration when they drew first blood in the quarter-final a...

Don’t you think we need to change ourselves for us to move forward or change, etc? Why do you vote for who you vote for? Are you happy with the disappearance of the Ghanaian flags on our streets? When was the last time you consciously bought a made-in-Ghana product over a foreign one? Which do you think will care more for you? NPP or NDC? Which government do you think will empower you more? NPP or NDC? Which government will control the constant migration into Accra which is choking our capital city? Which government will raise more money in Ghana through taxes for national development? Which leader is better equipped to get his opponents to listen to him and unite the nation? Why NPP or NDC? What are they doing right that the other political parties are not doing?

Many Ghanaians would not vote for the NDC simply because of J J Rawlings. How do you address them and this? The NDC has been calling for change. What kind of change are you calling for or bringing to Ghana? Even though Professor Atta Mills is called Asomdwoe hene, a lot of people don’t see the NDC as a peaceful political party. What do you have to say about this? Is Professor Atta Mills going to move to the Jubilee House if he wins the election or he’ll do what President Kuffour did? Fortify his house, etc In about how many years do you think we’ll have an Ashanti or Akyem presidential candidate in your party? Are you going to discontinue some of the contractual agreements the NPP had with some firms because those firms have mostly NPP card-bearing members? Many Ghanaians abroad were shocked when you pushed the election into a second round with 47% of the vote. Any idea why? For a long time, I didn’t know what the NDC platform was. Is most of your campaign propaganda? List some of the ...

Do you really believe you couldn’t win the first round of the Ghanaian elections because some of your supporters stayed at home? Is it true some people in the ruling government travel to funerals with 20 Pajeros? Who funds all that petrol? Why do we have to make way for NPP campaign vehicles to navigate through traffic? Would any of the NPP gurus send their house boy to a syto school? These schools do have free compulsory universal basic education right? Do we want quality education or just an increase in scholl-going children? When you champion the NHIS as an achievement, do you also tell Ghanaians many times costs over 6 GhC aka 60,000 cedis aka 6 dollars are not covered? What happened to Baah Wiredu and why couldn’t he get medical attention in a Ghanaian hospital? Why are we talking about closing the Togo border? What about the Burkina Faso and Cote d’Ivoire borders? How much does one billboard cost? Humour us, how much did you spend on your campaign for the election? In about how ...

My alter ago, from GhanaThink, just wrote another letter to Osagyefo. Enjoy! Greetings Osagyefo, I hope you are doing well and getting into another gear for the festive season. As for me, I'm following Kaakyire Kwame Appiah's 24 song to the tee, I'll be going to Sikakrom to spend Christmas. Even though there is a credit crunch, I still have some money to purchase a ticket from one continent to the other and buy Christmas gifts. It's called 'saving by being chisel and hustle' . I'll be going to meet a Ghana I haven't seen in awhile, a Ghana that is gearing up for an election. That should be interesting. Ghana's election is going to a second round. The NPP and NDC would be going at it. One person who will not be going against anything is sure to be Samia Nkrumah. She's the new member of parliament for Jomoro. Osagyefo, your daughter is a wonder o! Many people didn't give her a chance to wrest the parliamentary seat from Hon. Lee Ocran, and besi...

December 7th has come to pass. I was really hoping for the Convention People's Party to make an impact in this election. It was asking much to see Ghanaians give the CPP enough votes to win when they had such a poor showing in Election 2004. Well guess what? The CPP didn't do much better this year. It won just one parliamentary seat and won under 1.5% of the presidential vote. One poll had given the CPP 7% in the run-up to the election. What happened? Let's dissect it and see what the future holds for the CPP. This is only the beginning. The biggest reason why Ghanaians did not vote for the CPP was that a vote for the CPP was a waste. The ruling New Patriotic Party championed this message as well. Ghanaians want to vote for or support a winner. Ghana is an NPP-NDC nation. You'll have to ask yourselves why we support certain parties. The NDC has its world bank in the Volta region and that hasn't changed with Atta Mills at the helm. The NPP rules the Ashanti region ev...

The D-Day is Sunday and Ghanaians would be going to polls. We will be electing the 3rd president in this 4th Republic after Jerry John Rawlings and John Agyekum Kufuor. I have seen both rule Ghana and they have done their parts in stabilizing and developing our beloved country. I believe Paa Kwesi Nduom should be the next president of Ghana. He is the agent of real active positive change. He is the best candidate and we deserve the best leader. Now, not in 4 years' time. He is ready. I am going to try and discuss why he should be voted for and why is the man for the job. This development is not four or eight years early. We have to change the way we do things now so that we can continue on this forward march to economic prosperity, citizenry satisfaction and national happiness. I supported the NPP during the 2000 election. I saw John Atta Mills as more of the same of JJ Rawlings and was alos worried that he would be heavily influenced by Rawlings as well. I was in secondary school ...

My alter ego, Maximus Ojah (Nwia) of GhanaThink fame, wrote a letter to his buddy Osagyefo concerning the Ghana elections. Here is the letter below. Dear Osagyefo, Forgive my insubordinate self for not keeping in touch. I know my letters have become occasional but it's not because you didn't send me that stimulus package. I will change. But as you can guess, there is an occasion. Coming up in two days is the election in Ghana. Ghana will be electing a new president as Traveller John steps down after two-terms. We know for sure there will be a change in who our first citizen is. Would there be a change in what our first citizen does? The world is looking at Ghana wondering if we'll pass another test in our democracy. We'll be praying for peace and a free and fair election. Kwame, people are saying Ghanaians are too 'chill' for post-election violence in case some group of people feel there is a stolen verdict. Kenya and Zimbabwe cannot happen in Ghana they say. So...

A friend shared one video and I felt I should share with you all. See how people celebrated Obama's victory in some African cities. We were all very happy, but some people were happier than others http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFPczM58G6w This video was made by Africanews.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSWz95ynwm4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpkvgG5HMTw

November 4th, 2008 was a monumental day. A black man became the leader of the 'free world' and the president of arguably the most powerful nation on earth. I supported him, because he was the best candidate and I admired his vision, character, personality, ideas and ideals. As the results came in, I thanked God for the impending victory and the lack of 'surprises'. The last thing I could handle was to have the opinion polls heading into Nov 4th say one thing and provide a different end result, especially when it would be going against the outcome I so much wanted to happen. Obama said 'Yes, we can' and yes, 'we' have won the election. Barack made it clear though, that the change he'd preached for more than a year wasn't here yet and that we needed to work hard to see it come to fruition. Yes, we can but we are not done yet. I received a text from a friend saying: "Rosa Parks sat so Martin Luther King (MLK) could walk, MLK walked so Obama co...

Champs, thanks for the encouragement. Y'all make me want to write more. I hadn't planned on writing tonight but I got inspired again. Shebi shebi, I am on fire. I am hot right now. Nah, there's no 'eye candy' or mishap in this story. I just attended an event at Stanford: An evening with (Skip) Henry Louis Gates, Jr, who was interviewed by Claude Steele. I remember Skip from an event I attended at Harvard when I was still at MIT, where he led a panel discussion celebrating Wole Soyinka's 70th birthday. I met both Skip and Uncle Wole that night, and that experience requires another blog. This conversation was very interesting; but this is what I remember - education, racial 'stuff', paradigm shifts in how black people are perceived and Barack Obama. They couldn't resist talking about Barack Hussein Obama, would you? I already spoke about him here but this is a follow-up. I am engulfed in Obamamania and I can't wait to see him win this election. Ho...

Another post from my alter ego - Maximus Ojah, a member of the GhanaThink community . Happy Belated Birthday Osagyefo, Kwame, some people in this world are old, but as for you, you are grown. What! 99 years! I am struggling with my quarter-life crisis and am dreading the next few years; I can't even imagine a mid-life crisis. Happy belated again sir, and may you find rest and sleep at the same side of the bed you slept on September 20th. Do find that spot again because you smiled at your fans. You must have smiled when you read the news about the national launch of your rejuvenated party's campaign for this year's election. The CPP is back, new, vibrant and attractive. Nkrumahists like us cherish your birthday like other holidays in the Ghanaian calendar. Were you called the African Showboy due to the flamboyant parties you threw for your birthday? Were you called the African Showboy because of how you lavished cedis (when they were as good as dollars) on your friends and ...

It's no secret that I support Paa Kwesi Nduom (PKN) in the upcoming Ghanaian election. I've heard this man speak a couple of times, met him in person, and we have more of the same ideologies for Ghana. His track record is magnificent; he has succeeded in his various ventures and has paid his dues to Ghana. In the aftermath of Ghana's golden jubilee and the relative goodwill we enjoy in the global arena, we need to enlist and rally ourselves in a vision that would bring us national prosperity now and a mission that would get us there. We need to act now while we are enjoying this goodwill and time of patriotism, these times may not be with us for a long time. PKN is the leader we need at this time. Apparently, someone who didn't know about my support for Paa Kwesi Nduom gave my email addresses to Akufo Addo's campaign and they have been bombarding me with campaign emails. Does that amount to spamming? Maybe, maybe not. I can't fault them for trying but not everyo...