The Vim Views & Versions - Blogs of a MIghTy African

Today, 6th March, is Ghana's 54th birthday and independence day for all Ghanaians. So a lot of Ghanaians and lovers of Ghana on Twitter have been hoping for Ghana to trend on the social network and on Google Trends. This hasn't happened and we could sit here and debate why that hasn't happened. Funnily enough, I got something of 'mine' to trend and unfortunately, it's not even about Ghana. It's about the Manchester United game that was played today. Ghanaians love football (soccer) and many love the English Premier League. So when Manchester United and Liverpool clashed at Anfield, a lot of us were watching. Some of us were tweeting about the game and posting updates on Facebook . My team, Man Utd was 'destroyed' and as a good fan of the game, I congratulated Liverpool, who also happen to our bitterest rivals. Sorry, Manchester City, Chelsea and Arsenal. I posted this tweet after the 3-1 defeat. "Congrats #Liverpool. Well played. While #Man...

This is one of my favorite speeches to listen to. It gives me goosebumps every time. The speech Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah delivered at midnight 6th March 1957 as he declared Ghana's independence. It has a lot of soundbites, Kwame Nkrumah was an excellent orator and bits of the speech are repeated till this very day and will be forever more. Download below the Independence speech delivered by Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana's first president on 6th March 1957. The Midnight Speech At the Old Polo grounds in Accra. Enjoy. Provided by the GhanaThink Foundation File - [6:56 minutes (6.35 MB)] http://www.4shared.com/audio/TTNSQTXs/Kwame_Nkrumah_-_The_Midnight_s.html Here is the speech transcribed for you. "At long last, the battle has ended! And thus Ghana, your beloved country is free forever. And yet again I want to take the opportunity to thank the chiefs and people of this country, the youth, the farmers, the women who have so nobly fought and won this battle. Also I wa...

I have blogged about Patrick Awuah countless times. In fact, as I write these words, tears well up in my eyes. Tears of joy. How is getting you to hear and watch Patrick Awuah speak not a joyous moment? At the recent Barcamp Ghana event at the university he founded - Ashesi University - Patrick Awuah said “There should come a time that citizens in Africa will not desire to migrate to Europe or the USA”. Watch this video - Training our next leaders: Patrick Awuah on TED.com video Is Patrick Awuah on Twitter? Erm, not to the best of my knowledge. The man is so unassuming and humble, I doubt he even wants a Twitter. So far as he will continue to honour speaking arrangements, like at Barcamp Ghana events, we won't need him to have a Twitter. We will be documenting everything he says.

When we were looking for keynote speakers for the very first Barcamp in Ghana , we thought George Ayittey was a perfect fit. He is a distinguished Economist in Residence at American University in Washington, DC. From his TED.com profile His influential book Africa Unchained has helped unleash a new wave of activism and optimism -- especially in the African blogosphere, where his notion of cheetahs-versus-hippos has become a standard shorthand. The "Cheetah Generation," he says, is a "new breed of Africans," taking their futures into their own hands, instead of waiting for politicians to empower them. (He compares them to the previous "Hippo Generation," who are lazily stuck complaining about colonialism, yet doing nothing to change the status quo.) Since I am on a TED Talks roll, let's watch his TED talk titled "Cheetahs vs. Hippos" Follow him on Twitter @ayittey Watch the video

This video is old. I haven't listened to the full thing yet. I haven't met Ory Okolloh before. But she's one of my role models. Watch the video below and it will give you every reason why. Ory Okolloh tells the story of her life and her family -- and how she came to do her heroic work reporting on the doings of Kenya's parliament. Kwame Som-Pimpong @kwsompimpong shared this on Twitter just some minutes ago and now I am sharing with you. Major props to TED. What an easy blog post. I should do more like these. Follow Ory on Twitter @kenyanpundit . She is also the founder of Ushahidi and has just recently left her CEO post there to become the new policy manager in Africa for Google. Read about it here on her website .

It's great that there are a lot of African movies out there. But frankly, the only ones I really want to see are those gunning for the awards and going to film festivals. I can watch the rest online. Oh damn, did I step on someone's foot? I hope not. My favorite African director, Leila Djansi , is being honoured again. After all the wahala of ' I Sing Of A Well ' (won't tell you about it, there are other websites who excel at that), Leila's next film, Sinking Sands is proving to be even more successful. It received 9 nominations at the Africa Movie Academy Awards (AMAA), which I am taking really seriously because they seem to be open to movies from most of Africa. Well, except the Francophone and Lusophone countries, which I hope is fixed soon. Since most people are losing faith in FESPACO, (will come back to this in another post), the AMAAs are the default African Oscars. Kate Henshaw, Ini Edo, Rita Dominic & Michael Ezuruonye at the AMAA 2011 Nomination N...

This Sunday, I attended yet another Ghanaian church in the Bay Area . Yeap, you guessed right, it's in Oakland too. I had already been to the Church of Pentecost here , twice. A friend invited me to the new Lighthouse Chapel International branch that they had started in September. Her persistence paid off as I attended this weekend. Like I learnt in Ghana last Christmas, there is a Lighthouse chapel in every corner . Seriously. I hope this blog entry helps us all figure out why. There are 1200 Lighthouse Chapel International (LCI) branches worldwide in 52 nations. Talk about spreading far and wide. It started in Ghana 21 yrs through a medical student called Dag Heward Mills who is now the presiding bishop. Sorry, but I can't help but think of churches as businesses/enterprises/start-ups these days . Dag Heward Mills is every bit an entrepreneur churning out new entrepreneurs every year. There has been the question of should churches pay taxes? I think so, if they don'...