Goodbye Michael, Welcome Whitney!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiUoIDQOcC8

As a consolation, one can get musically thrilled again as Queen Whitney Houston knocks on the Music Kingdom gate.

She’s back, splendid, mature, survivor, fighting. Amazing!

Like telling us, ‘Hey look, Michael is gone but you are not alone, I am here with you’ and I will sing again for you.

Welcome back Mrs Houston, show us again that there is a reason to believe!

Bongo means ‘Lies’ in fake Kiswahili.

A son of Rwanda, as African as I feel, Gabonese electoral outcome and the green light of the Bongo dynasty gives me a nasty taste and messed up my week-end.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0_437xopc0

For Sudan, For Ever!!!!

Kagame on CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS

Still shy, but more eloquent, gained serenity and ease of talk: Proof of statesmanship.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ-CvQSsMF0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wc5a6P6VDGc&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SaVF2sGxCk&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzhi5oi-i5g&feature=related

For the New Flying

For Sweet memories sake, watch this:

Kandi dutahe cyane.

Learning from Ghaneans

Ready for Jazz @ Enghien

Maceo Parker, Richard Bona and so forth!!!

http://www.enghien-jazz-festival.com/#/accueil/

Why kings run away to die like Dogs?

President Bongo died on June 8, 2009 at the Quiron Hospital in Barcelona in Spain, where he had gone to seek treatment for “strong emotional shock” after the death of his wife. In fact he died of abdominal cancer. He was 73.

Clearly, the Bongos could not bring themselves to seek medical treatment in any of Gabon’s health care facilities because they were substandard, only fit for the wretched-of-the-earth. Yet Gabon is the kind of place that should have some of the world’s best health care facilities. It is a rich country, blest with enormous natural resources, with a small population of 1.49 million and a small physical area to develop.

Though its oil production has fallen in recent years, Gabon still produces about 250,000 barrels of oil every day. Its exports in 2008 raked in a whopping $9.7 billion. Its imports were worth a mere $ 2.8 billion. Its foreign currency and gold reserves stand at $1.9 billion. Its 885 km of coastline offer it exceptional marine opportunities. Gabon is a very rich country by any measure.

Had Gabon’s treasures been managed by someone like Singapore’s Lee Kwan Yew, it would have joined the First World many years ago. Its leaders would not have had to seek health care abroad. Instead, under Bongo, the majority of Gabon’s citizens have remained trapped in poverty. While Gabon’s GDP in 2008 was estimated at more than $22 billion, with an estimated income per capita of $14,000, its social indicators of development were similar to those of most of sub-Saharan Africa.
This is because 90 per cent of Gabon’s income is controlled and enjoyed by 20 per cent of the population. However, like their counterparts elsewhere in Africa, Gabon’s wealthy rulers and their cronies forgot to build, equip and staff state-of-the-art health facilities that would take care of them when disease, that great equaliser, struck.

Now, the Bongos were neither the first nor the last of Africa’s rulers to seek a cure abroad. For example, Dr Agostinho Neto, the first president of Angola, died of abdominal cancer at a Moscow hospital on September 10, 1979. He was 56.

When Sir Seretse Khama, the first president of Botswana, took ill in 1980, his English wife, Lady Ruth, rushed him to London, where a diagnosis of terminal abdominal cancer was made. To his credit, Sir Seretse rushed back to Gaborone so that he would die in his homeland. Death came on July 13, 1980. He was 59.

Ahmed Sekou Toure, the anti-imperialist President of Guinea, died on March 26, 1984, while on the operating table at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, USA. He was 62.
Chief Jonathan Leabua of Lesotho died of abdominal cancer in a Pretoria hospital on April 6, 1987. The 72-year-old chief was on his way to London for further treatment.

Felix Houphouet-Boigny of Cote D’Ivoire, suffering from cancer of the prostate, was flown to France for treatment. He was then flown back to Cote D’Ivoire, connected to life support systems, not only to enable him die in his empire, but to help sort out the succession to the presidency, a matter he had neglected to consider during his 35-year rule. He died soon after he was taken off the ventilator on December 7, 1993. He was 88.

The Ngwazi Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda of Malawi died on November 25, 1997 at a Johannesburg clinic. He was about 100 years old.

President Julius Kambarage Nyerere of Tanzania, who was diagnosed with leukemia in 1998, checked into London’s St. Thomas Hospital in September 1999, and died there on October 14, 1999.

Ugandan vice president Dr Samson Babi Mululu Kisekka flew to the United Kingdom to seek treatment for his heart disease. He checked into University College Hospital, London, where he died on October 25, 1999, aged 87 years.

Kenyan vice president Michael Kijana Wamalwa checked into London’s Royal Free Hospital, where he died on August 23, 2003 after a very long illness. He was 58.
President Levy Patrick Mwanawasa of Zambia, struck down by a hypertensive stroke while attending an African Union summit in Egypt, was flown to France where he was admitted to the Percy Military Hospital in Paris. He died there on August 19, 2008 at the age of 59.

Over in Guinea, General Lansana Conte sought medical treatment abroad numerous times, before being bedridden by the complications of diabetes and vascular disease. When Conte died in Conakry on December 22, 2008, the president of the national assembly informed the world that Gen. Conte had hidden his physical suffering for years “in order to give happiness to Guinea.”

But the star of them all was Etienne Gnassingbe Eyadema of Togo, who died on February 5, 2005 at the age of 69. Announcing Eyadema’s death, a Togolese government spokesman informed us that the president had “died as he was being evacuated for emergency treatment abroad.” One imagined a desperately ill Eyadema, a foreigner among his people, being evacuated back to his homeland of France. Vive la France!

Ushahidi

Swahili, lugha ya wanafrika

http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/-/2558/591242/-/rgm9raz/-/index.html