Grand Theft Statue

Look at what Senegal have got themselves! It’s beautiful innit?! Standing at 160feet it’s higher than the Statue of Liberty, designed by a Senegalese architect. The Monument of African Renaissance. Cool name too! Africanness, Strength, Beauty…At a cost of $27MILLION! That’s about £14 MILLION. In SENEGAL! –A country where half the population lives below the poverty line.

I want to be annoyed for the Senegalese but I can’t because (get offended if you’re the type that likes that getting offended or tell me it’s none of my business. I AM a West African but one who has never been Senegal. I DO plan to go to Senegal someday –but only because I heard the women there are beautiful and speak French) Let’s be honest there’s always going to be poor people and politicians will always do what they want with our money. What better way for a politician to spend money you didn’t want to give them than this? The tourism it will attract might make your children and your children’s children less poor later?



Nevertheless, some women are upset because it looks like the woman is being pulled along so it’s sexist, the Muslims are annoyed because it's facing Mecca and the bared flesh, the Christians are also upset because of the bared flesh but for a bonus upsetting, the President (who also feels he deserves 35% of tourist revenue it brings in as "intellectual rights.") compared the brother in the statue to Jesus!

So in short the Senegalese are not happy with their new statue. This is by no means an exhortation to anyone that finds themselves near Africa’s western-most point to steal it. No, a plan to take it with a combination of JCB earthmoving machines or hydraulics combined with ropes and pulleys to apply necessary and safe pressure to the statue’s loadbearing points in a twelve hour operation that could be executed during the hours of night…is not at all what I’m saying…at all. I wouldn’t give my email hackdonga@live.co.uk to any of you to contact me regards any projected escape routes (Route 1: Overland Guinea-Bissau to Ivory Coast then Ghana, Route 2: Overland again this time through Mali and Burkina Faso then south to Ghana, Route 3: By sea over the Atlantic ocean with a possible stop at Cape Verde for refreshments then south-east for Ghana)

I have very positive hopes for Africa. I envision this statue one day being lauded as the first of many landmarks in West Africa that isn't a slavery castle or mosque erected by Christian and/or Muslim invaders. After all, all the biggest landmarks always receive criticism at first e.g. The Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, the Millennium Dome, the Pyramids (I don’t know about the pyramids for a fact but at the very least the builders who were buried alive in them had to have objected)

How not to rob an old woman

I want to tell you a story. It's a story based/derived/stolen from what happened to a guy I met at the barbershop last week. This story has all the makings of an urban legend but I actually met the guy this happened to. First of all it’s important you don’t judge me because I just MET the guy -he’s not a friend and even if he was a friend…you still shouldn’t judge. It says so in the bible and there's a very important bible element to this story.

Anyway so here it goes. In interests of security and privacy let’s call this guy ‘Marlon’ –no hang on Marlon's his real name-let’s call him uhm...Mike.

Mike was hungry one day and so decided to rob an old woman he saw coming his way. I didn’t really fully establish Mike was hungry as he was telling this story but hunger is the most sympathetic reason for robbing an old woman like Mike does in this account. I want you to like Mike so bear with me.

Anyway Mike pulls out a knife (like I said –bear with me). The size of the knife doesn’t matter but Mike was already bigger than the woman he was targeting so brigning a knife into this was just plain wrong.

Upon the woman seeing this -quick as a whip (Those are my words for quirky dramatic turn of phrase you understand. Robert thinks a ‘whip’ are the cars he steals) the woman pulls out a bible and grips it firmly! This puts off Mike. He has probably robbed church going people before but faith in God aside…when he puts a knife in their faces…they put their faith in God aside and their money in his palm and so on.

What worries Mike even more is that the old lady doesn’t do anything. She just stands there holding her good book aloft. She’s shaking a little bit about not from fear. She might be praying because he can’t see her face from his height and her bible but that wouldn’t explain the shaking. Mike hasn’t been to any church for a while but he know women don’t shake like this woman was shaking when they pray. I explained to Mike that there actually was some shaking involved at some churches during prayers but that he would have to find know her denomination. Mike never found that out.

Anyway, after a while of this(Mike with knife, old woman with bible) Mike decides he’s tired of waiting and reaches for her handbag –which in all fairness is doing nothing just hanging around her elbow. BOSH! She hits him in the face with the bible. He’s not sure if it’s he’s got a busted eye, nose or lips because he’s unconscious for a minute.

It was his eye and nose but he doesn’t find this out until after he wakes up and the old woman has left. Some school kids (he assumed they were school kids because they were apparently that age. He couldn't remember if it was a school day and if it was the kind of time they should have been in a classroom somewhere)tell him the police have been called so he leaves too.

The moral to the story. There’s a time to use the bible…and there’s a time to use the bible!

Mike has never seen the woman again and Mike’s glad about this. I could have chosen to find a name for this woman with her weaponised holy scriptures but she might be some form of angel sent to teach Mike a lesson and I don’t want to get God angry by naming her Black Betty or something.

The Mintah Blog

This blog is about a subject of great concern to Ghanaian AND indeed Nigerians on the continent and in the diaspora. No, it’s not third world debt

Our movie industry. What is to be done about it?

The acting is poor but the actresses are good looking, the storylines are LUDICROUS but the actresses are good looking. The thing with poor quality African TV is that like ghetto BET and is a chicken and egg situation. What came first?

Did Africans demand insane storylines and 2D characters or have we had jammed down our throats until we ‘liked’ them.

Nollywood and Challeywood movies starring.
I once watched a documentary British actor named Nick Moran who tried to make a movie with subplots.

I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Every movie without an explosive revelation every 7-8 minutes is considered a bad movie.

This is a personal because I plan to revolutionise the West African entertainment industry but I'd like to know who I'm fighting. The customers or the industry organisers?

I'm going to do more but this all I have to say about this now. I need YOUR feedback.