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Nigeria has a history of dodgy elections: will it be different this time?
February 11, 2019 3.43pm SAST
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Ini Dele-Adedeji
Teaching Fellow, Politics & Development Studies, SOAS, University of London
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Ini Dele-Adedeji does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
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President Muhammadu Buhari attends a campaign rally ahead of the 16 February elections. EPA-EFE/Stringer
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Nigeria is preparing for its general election. But will it be credible? Nigerian voters are well aware that the elections will not be won solely by votes or popular consensus. There are several other variables that influence election results.
These include the incumbent’s control of state security apparatuses, grassroots structures, and control of institutions such as market traders associations, and the National Union for Road Transport Workers.
The road transport workers’ union, which acts as a canopy for bus drivers, conductors, and motor park touts in Southwestern Nigeria, has a history of providing foot soldiers for employment as election thugs with skills in ballot box snatching and voter intimidation tactics.
In addition, the possibility that the election could be rigged cannot be ignored.
Questions around the credibility of elections in post-independence Nigeria can be traced as far back as the “First Republic” which lasted from 1960 - 1966. After allegations of massive rigging in the 1965 elections the country’s western region was engulfed in the infamous “Operation Wet-ie” riots.
The riots pitted rival political groups against each other leading to Nigeria’s first military coup in 1966. From then on the country experienced a series of coups. Between 1966 and 1999, when the country made a decisive break with military politics, Nigeria experienced eight military coups. In that same time period three general elections were conducted.
Tumultuous past
The years outside of military rule were comparatively brief and arguably overshadowed by the spectre of the military. When elections did happen they were plagued by strong allegations of electoral fraud. Since 1999, when the country broke with military rule, five elections have been conducted all of which have been tainted by controversy.
It’s clear to see that Nigeria has survived a tumultuous political history. Going into this next election, questions still remain about the credibility of the country’s electoral system, and the viability of it’s governance structures. Looking back things have often gone wrong, but are there instances where things have worked out well for the electorate?
I would argue that there have at least two instances when voters got what they asked for. One is the June 1993 presidential election, which is considered to have been relatively free and fair in its conduct, its eventual annulment notwithstanding. Another is the presidential election of May 2015 when the incumbent Goodluck Jonathan, gracefully accepted defeat by conceding to President Muhammadu Buhari.
Yet I still feel that Nigeria’s electoral system needs a complete overhaul if it’s to perform its functions with as little external interference as possible.
Shadow of military rule
The country has been ruled by military administrators more than it has by democratically elected leaders. For 29 years of Nigeria’s independent history military dictators have had a grip on its leadership. This is compared to just 20 years of democracy. The result has been that electoral rigging and malpractice are rife within Nigeria’s electoral process.
Since 1999, Olusegun Obasanjo and Muhammadu Buhari, both of whom were previously military dictators spent a combined 12 years in power. President Buhari is now seeking a second term. As a result, there are still those who argue that the country’s transition from military rule to democracy is not quite complete.
The executive arm, for example, still maintains certain authoritarian characteristics that are reminiscent of the military era. One of these is the use of the armed forces to manipulate election processes. For instance, during the recent gubernatorial elections in Ekiti and Osun states voter intimidation by the security forces was rife. This was done to scare away opposition voters and give the ruling All Progressives Congress an edge.
The electoral commission
Another factor to consider is the supposed independence and impartiality of the Independent National Electoral Commission which is in charge of running the elections. Critics point to the fact that the commission chairperson and others in the commission are nominated by the president. This calls into question the credibility of the entire electoral commission.
Further, Buhari has just appointed Amina Zakari as the new collation officer. Zakari will oversee the committee responsible for the national collation centre from where results of the presidential election will be announced. But Zakari has been alleged to have a family relationship with the president. This has raised suspicion within opposition circles that the government intends to rig the polls.
To make matters worse, the behaviour of the electoral commission in previous elections hasn’t always been above reproach. This has lent credence to the criticisms bout the body’s impartiality. In the run up to the 2007 general for example, the Supreme Court ruled that the commission had no power to disqualify candidates in the eleventh hour as it had purported to do in the case of opposition candidate Atiku Abubakar.
The opaque nature in which recent gubernatorial elections have been held has also added to the fears of a rigged presidential poll. The September 2018 gubernatorial election in Osun, for example, was panned by election observers as being riddled with voting irregularities like voter harassment, and interference by “inappropriate persons”. These irregularities were reinforced by the high number of security officers deployed to the state during the election period.
The involvement of the security apparatus in tilting this tightly contested election in favour of the ruling All Progressives Congress is considered to be an indicator of how things could pan out in the general election.
Role of outsiders
Observers like the European Union and the US also exert a measure of influence on Nigerian elections. By ramping up the rhetoric on the importance of free and fair elections they play into the hands of the opposition who have historically appealed to foreign powers to umpire the electoral process.
Incumbent governments, on the other hand, have typically been on the other side of the argument. Nigerian governments have often cited what they call the “neo-imperialism” of countries like the UK and the US and decried their interference in Nigeria’s sovereignty. This resistance to foreign interference was most recently evidenced in comments made by Kaduna State governor, Nasir El-Rufai, who threatened foreign observers with death if they engaged with local politicians.
Former president Goodluck Jonathan also trotted out the “foreign interference” trope when he claimed in his recently published memoir that the US played a hand in ensuring that he lost the 2015 election.
And a few weeks ago the ruling All Progressives Congress joined the bandwagon when they issued a statement telling the EU to not undermine Nigeria’s sovereignty.
Not all grim
Despite all of the above, it’s not all grim. There are some positive precedents that can be built on.
For example, despite predictions that there would election violence during the 2015 poll, Jonathan did the honourable thing by conceding defeat to Buhari.
His concession reinforced the notion that elections need not be a “do or die” affair. This peaceful transition after just one presidential term in office also set a positive trend for elections across Africa.
But with the slim margin between the incumbent, Buhari, and his main contender Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party – this narrative might need to be reinforced when Nigeria goes to the polls again on February 16.
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Nicholas James
African countries clamour and long to be part of the World Community, with significant representation on bodies such as the UN, World Bank etc, and complain that the rest if the world does not seem to take Africa seriously.
Yet, after over 50 years, i.e. two generations, of ‘democracy’, there is hardly a country in Africa that can hold genuine, fair, safe or credible elections for its government. People are killed..often in large numbers… economies destabilized yet again…votes rigged, and the threat of imminent total national collapse is always there, lurking in the background. In contrast to so many countries elsewhere, life before an election can be very different to life after it for its ordinary citizens, and the process itself is so often harrowing, dangerous…and downright unsafe.
This is in marked contrast to much of Asia, Europe and Australasia/Oceania. India for example with its multitude of peoples of many ethnic backgrounds and religions, regularly holds successful elections, which have very little dramatic effect on its inhabitants’ daily lives…whoever wins…in contrast to African countries, where today you have a life…tomorrow you may not have a country.
It is not so much the process of ‘how elections are managed’, it seems more a reflection of the attitudes of people who partake in them. Accepting electoral defeat until next time, working with the ‘opposition’, balancing self-interest with the need for greater good of the country, abiding with the rule of law…all these are the attitudinal guidelines that define democracy. Most seem to be ignored in African elections.
With the second largest economy in Africa, Nigeria has no excuse. There are many countries elsewhere that have wide religious, economic and other disparate interests and values, that hold successful elections without a “do or die” attitude.
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Tuesday, 12 February 2019
The New York Times/Richard A. Oppel Jr.: Her Title: Cryptologic Technician. Her Occupation: Warrior.
The New York Times
Her Title: Cryptologic Technician. Her Occupation: Warrior.
Shannon Kent, shown during her first combat deployment in 2007 to Iraq, illustrated an unspoken truth: that for many years women have been doing military jobs as dangerous, secretive and specialized as anything men do.
Image
Shannon Kent, shown during her first combat deployment in 2007 to Iraq, illustrated an unspoken truth: that for many years women have been doing military jobs as dangerous, secretive and specialized as anything men do.
By Richard A. Oppel Jr.
Feb. 8, 2019
Given who she really was, military officials had little choice in how they described Shannon Kent. They said only that she was a “cryptologic technician,” which anyone might assume meant that her most breakneck work was behind a desk.
In reality, she spent much of her professional life wearing body armor and toting an M4 rifle, a Sig Sauer pistol strapped to her thigh, on operations with Navy SEALs and other elite forces — until a suicide bombing took her life last month in northeastern Syria.
She was, in all but name, part of the military’s top-tier Special Operations forces. Officially a chief petty officer in the Navy, she actually worked closely with the nation’s most secretive intelligence outfit, the National Security Agency, to target leaders of the Islamic State.
The last few years have seen a profound shift in attitudes toward women in combat roles. Since 2016, combat jobs have been open to female service members, and they have been permitted to try out for Special Operations units. More than a dozen have completed the Army’s Ranger school, one of the most challenging in the military. Some have graduated from infantry officer courses, and even command combat units. And in November, a woman completed the Army’s grueling Special Forces Assessment and Selection course, the initial step to becoming a Green Beret.
Advertisement
Yet Chief Kent illustrates an unspoken truth: that for many years women have been doing military jobs as dangerous, secretive and specialized as anything men do.
She would sometimes muse that conversation — even with people who had top security clearances — would be simpler if she could just join a Special Operations unit.
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Subscribe to The Times
“She’d tell me, ‘You can say what you do in two words, but I have to explain over and over to people what I do, and half of them don’t believe me,’” said her husband, Joe Kent, who recently retired after a 20-year career in the special forces. “As the years went on, she wished she could just say, ‘Hey, I’m Joe, and I’m a Green Beret.’”
“In many ways, she did way more than any of us who have a funny green hat.”
Only in death can friends and family talk about a life that showed just how far women had quietly advanced into the nucleus of the nation’s most elite forces.
Advertisement
“Her job was to go out and blend her knowledge of cryptology and sigint and humint to help the task force find the right guys to paint the ‘X’ on for a strike or a raid,” Mr. Kent said.
Cryptology is code breaking; sigint is signals intelligence, like intercepting and interpreting phone calls and other communications; humint is human intelligence, the art of persuading people, against their instincts, to provide information.
At 35, Shannon Kent was expert in all three. Her husband credits a knack for gleaning information picked up from her father, a lifelong police officer.
“She understood how all the pieces came together,” he said. “She wasn’t just relying on local informants. She knew how to fill in the gaps through her knowledge of different intelligence capabilities. She was kind of a one-stop-shop for finding bad guys.”
Advertisement
Chief Kent spoke a half-dozen Arabic dialects and four other languages. She was one of the first women to complete the rigorous course required for other troops to accompany Navy SEALs on raids. She could run a 3:30 marathon, do a dozen full-arm-hang pull-ups and march for miles with a 50-pound rucksack.
She did this while raising two boys, now ages 3 and 18 months, and, for a time, battling cancer.
She used her five overseas combat deployments to master the collection of human intelligence, gaining the trust of tribal leaders, merchants, and local government officials who confided in her, often at great risk to themselves.
That is the kind of mission she had been on Jan. 16, when a bomber killed her and three other Americans at a restaurant in Manbij, Syria. The Islamic State claimed credit for the attack. She became the first female service member to die in Syria since American forces arrived in 2015.
More than 1,000 people attended Chief Kent’s memorial service on Friday at the United States Naval Academy Chapel in Annapolis, Md., where she was posthumously promoted to senior chief petty officer and awarded five medals and citations. The awards described her Special Operations work and also said she had been the noncommissioned officer in charge at the N.S.A.’s operations directorate for four years.
Advertisement
She had enlisted for the same reasons and around the same time as many of her female peers: after Sept. 11. (Her father, a New York State Police commander, and her uncle, a firefighter, both responded to the attacks.)
By the time the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were reaching their highest pitch, women had been trained as intelligence collectors, linguists, interrogators and other specialties that put them on the front lines.
That Chief Kent’s last assignment was in northeastern Syria, where American forces work with the Kurdish militia was fitting: there are many female fighters and commanders in the Kurdish forces.
“Women have been on the front lines with special operators for 16 years,” said Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, author of a book about female troops working with elite forces in the combat zones of Afghanistan. “But because that community is unseen and so rarely talks about their work, it’s been hard to know how much women have done.”
Advertisement
Chief Kent developed skills that have become critical over the last two decades, including the immediate exploitation of documents, hard drives and other intelligence found during raids, and sophisticated methods of targeting that combined eavesdropping, human intelligence and relationship mapping.
In her first combat rotation, in 2007, she worked with the Joint Special Operations Command in Balad, Iraq. She did two more rotations in Iraq before a long stint at a remote outpost in Zabul Province, Afghanistan, in 2012, where she won awards for being a top human intelligence collector and linguist.
Early in her career her language skills and easy manner had made her good at “tactical questioning” of people during missions. “That was her foot in the door,” Mr. Kent said.
“Back then I don’t think SEALs were enthusiastic about talking to locals, and Shannon found a place where she could be of value, and she poured her heart and soul into it,” he said.
Advertisement
The Kents first met during intelligence targeting training at Fort Belvoir, Va., where Mr. Kent had been assigned to an Army Special Operations command after seven deployments to Iraq. They were married Christmas Eve 2014.
“We got set up by another girl who does the same stuff,” Mr. Kent said. “It’s a pretty insular type of community, and we had similar life experiences.”
But for a cancer diagnosis — and the Pentagon bureaucracy — Chief Kent would not even have been in Syria.
After so many hard missions and becoming a mother, she had decided to become a clinical psychologist and treat veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Advertisement
That meant becoming a Navy officer and spending six years studying and training. She was scheduled to go to the Navy’s Officer Development School in Rhode Island last June, and to begin her classes for her Ph.D. in the fall.
But she had been diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2016. She told her husband, then on a deployment, only after the surgery was successful.
“She just sent me a picture of her throat scar and said, ‘I had a little cancer, but I got it cut out. I didn’t want to bug you,’” Mr. Kent said.
Even though she was considered cancer-free, the military’s rules blocked her from becoming a commissioned officer. But the rules still allowed her to deploy to the most hard-fought combat zones.
Advertisement
She pressed her case with Congressional representatives, and her husband followed up with the Navy after her death. This week, the Navy modified its rules to make it easier for enlisted service members who wish to become officers to petition for medical waivers.
“The Navy fixed everything that kind of screwed Shannon,” Mr. Kent said.
A version of this article appears in print on Feb. 10, 2019, on Page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: Title: Cryptologic Technician. Occupation: Warrior.. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
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Her Title: Cryptologic Technician. Her Occupation: Warrior.
Shannon Kent, shown during her first combat deployment in 2007 to Iraq, illustrated an unspoken truth: that for many years women have been doing military jobs as dangerous, secretive and specialized as anything men do.
Image
Shannon Kent, shown during her first combat deployment in 2007 to Iraq, illustrated an unspoken truth: that for many years women have been doing military jobs as dangerous, secretive and specialized as anything men do.
By Richard A. Oppel Jr.
Feb. 8, 2019
Given who she really was, military officials had little choice in how they described Shannon Kent. They said only that she was a “cryptologic technician,” which anyone might assume meant that her most breakneck work was behind a desk.
In reality, she spent much of her professional life wearing body armor and toting an M4 rifle, a Sig Sauer pistol strapped to her thigh, on operations with Navy SEALs and other elite forces — until a suicide bombing took her life last month in northeastern Syria.
She was, in all but name, part of the military’s top-tier Special Operations forces. Officially a chief petty officer in the Navy, she actually worked closely with the nation’s most secretive intelligence outfit, the National Security Agency, to target leaders of the Islamic State.
The last few years have seen a profound shift in attitudes toward women in combat roles. Since 2016, combat jobs have been open to female service members, and they have been permitted to try out for Special Operations units. More than a dozen have completed the Army’s Ranger school, one of the most challenging in the military. Some have graduated from infantry officer courses, and even command combat units. And in November, a woman completed the Army’s grueling Special Forces Assessment and Selection course, the initial step to becoming a Green Beret.
Advertisement
Yet Chief Kent illustrates an unspoken truth: that for many years women have been doing military jobs as dangerous, secretive and specialized as anything men do.
She would sometimes muse that conversation — even with people who had top security clearances — would be simpler if she could just join a Special Operations unit.
You have 2 free articles remaining.
Subscribe to The Times
“She’d tell me, ‘You can say what you do in two words, but I have to explain over and over to people what I do, and half of them don’t believe me,’” said her husband, Joe Kent, who recently retired after a 20-year career in the special forces. “As the years went on, she wished she could just say, ‘Hey, I’m Joe, and I’m a Green Beret.’”
“In many ways, she did way more than any of us who have a funny green hat.”
Only in death can friends and family talk about a life that showed just how far women had quietly advanced into the nucleus of the nation’s most elite forces.
Advertisement
“Her job was to go out and blend her knowledge of cryptology and sigint and humint to help the task force find the right guys to paint the ‘X’ on for a strike or a raid,” Mr. Kent said.
Cryptology is code breaking; sigint is signals intelligence, like intercepting and interpreting phone calls and other communications; humint is human intelligence, the art of persuading people, against their instincts, to provide information.
At 35, Shannon Kent was expert in all three. Her husband credits a knack for gleaning information picked up from her father, a lifelong police officer.
“She understood how all the pieces came together,” he said. “She wasn’t just relying on local informants. She knew how to fill in the gaps through her knowledge of different intelligence capabilities. She was kind of a one-stop-shop for finding bad guys.”
Advertisement
Chief Kent spoke a half-dozen Arabic dialects and four other languages. She was one of the first women to complete the rigorous course required for other troops to accompany Navy SEALs on raids. She could run a 3:30 marathon, do a dozen full-arm-hang pull-ups and march for miles with a 50-pound rucksack.
She did this while raising two boys, now ages 3 and 18 months, and, for a time, battling cancer.
She used her five overseas combat deployments to master the collection of human intelligence, gaining the trust of tribal leaders, merchants, and local government officials who confided in her, often at great risk to themselves.
That is the kind of mission she had been on Jan. 16, when a bomber killed her and three other Americans at a restaurant in Manbij, Syria. The Islamic State claimed credit for the attack. She became the first female service member to die in Syria since American forces arrived in 2015.
More than 1,000 people attended Chief Kent’s memorial service on Friday at the United States Naval Academy Chapel in Annapolis, Md., where she was posthumously promoted to senior chief petty officer and awarded five medals and citations. The awards described her Special Operations work and also said she had been the noncommissioned officer in charge at the N.S.A.’s operations directorate for four years.
Advertisement
She had enlisted for the same reasons and around the same time as many of her female peers: after Sept. 11. (Her father, a New York State Police commander, and her uncle, a firefighter, both responded to the attacks.)
By the time the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were reaching their highest pitch, women had been trained as intelligence collectors, linguists, interrogators and other specialties that put them on the front lines.
That Chief Kent’s last assignment was in northeastern Syria, where American forces work with the Kurdish militia was fitting: there are many female fighters and commanders in the Kurdish forces.
“Women have been on the front lines with special operators for 16 years,” said Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, author of a book about female troops working with elite forces in the combat zones of Afghanistan. “But because that community is unseen and so rarely talks about their work, it’s been hard to know how much women have done.”
Advertisement
Chief Kent developed skills that have become critical over the last two decades, including the immediate exploitation of documents, hard drives and other intelligence found during raids, and sophisticated methods of targeting that combined eavesdropping, human intelligence and relationship mapping.
In her first combat rotation, in 2007, she worked with the Joint Special Operations Command in Balad, Iraq. She did two more rotations in Iraq before a long stint at a remote outpost in Zabul Province, Afghanistan, in 2012, where she won awards for being a top human intelligence collector and linguist.
Early in her career her language skills and easy manner had made her good at “tactical questioning” of people during missions. “That was her foot in the door,” Mr. Kent said.
“Back then I don’t think SEALs were enthusiastic about talking to locals, and Shannon found a place where she could be of value, and she poured her heart and soul into it,” he said.
Advertisement
The Kents first met during intelligence targeting training at Fort Belvoir, Va., where Mr. Kent had been assigned to an Army Special Operations command after seven deployments to Iraq. They were married Christmas Eve 2014.
“We got set up by another girl who does the same stuff,” Mr. Kent said. “It’s a pretty insular type of community, and we had similar life experiences.”
But for a cancer diagnosis — and the Pentagon bureaucracy — Chief Kent would not even have been in Syria.
After so many hard missions and becoming a mother, she had decided to become a clinical psychologist and treat veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Advertisement
That meant becoming a Navy officer and spending six years studying and training. She was scheduled to go to the Navy’s Officer Development School in Rhode Island last June, and to begin her classes for her Ph.D. in the fall.
But she had been diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 2016. She told her husband, then on a deployment, only after the surgery was successful.
“She just sent me a picture of her throat scar and said, ‘I had a little cancer, but I got it cut out. I didn’t want to bug you,’” Mr. Kent said.
Even though she was considered cancer-free, the military’s rules blocked her from becoming a commissioned officer. But the rules still allowed her to deploy to the most hard-fought combat zones.
Advertisement
She pressed her case with Congressional representatives, and her husband followed up with the Navy after her death. This week, the Navy modified its rules to make it easier for enlisted service members who wish to become officers to petition for medical waivers.
“The Navy fixed everything that kind of screwed Shannon,” Mr. Kent said.
A version of this article appears in print on Feb. 10, 2019, on Page A4 of the New York edition with the headline: Title: Cryptologic Technician. Occupation: Warrior.. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
Related Coverage
2 Graduating Rangers, Aware of Their Burden
Aug. 20, 2015
Image
2 Graduating Rangers, Aware of Their Burden
Army Ranger School a Test for Women in Combat Roles
Aug. 7, 2015
Image
Army Ranger School a Test for Women in Combat Roles
Americans Killed in Syria Were No Strangers to War
Jan. 18, 2019
Image
At War
A dedicated forum for exploring the experience and costs of war.
U.S. and South Korea Sign Deal on Shared Defense Costs
Feb. 10
Subscribe to the At War Newsletter
Nov. 5, 2018
More in U.S.
Ivan Pierre Aguirre/EPA, via Shutterstock
Butterflies, Bulldozers and Barbed Wire Rally Border Wall Opponents
Feb. 8
Chris Carlson/Associated Press
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Feb. 11
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Monday, 11 February 2019
Those Who Transformed The NPP's Private Militias Into Armed State Paramilitary Forces Must Be Tried For Treason
The issue of a political party (elected to govern our nation for four years in what is a constitutional democracy), serreptitiously turning it's private party militias into state-sponsored paramilitary forces, is a very grave matter. It is a grave matter, precisely because arming a private militia, to transform it into a state-sponsored paramilitary force, borders on treason, under the 1992 Constitution.
An alarming, and egregiously-violent manifestation, of the dire consequences of the formation of state-sponsored private armed militias - which are clearly unaccountable to even the leaderships of the nation's security agencies - was seen in a viral video clip, watched by millions around the globe, during the recent by-election at the Ayawaso West Wuogon constituency.
Many who saw that viral video clip, reacted with revulsion to the scenes of gratitious violence, which they witnessed - horrified by the display of impunity shown by a number of balaclava-clad thugs-in-uniform, assaulting innocent people, in an area in a constiterncy in which a by-election was taking place.
For many who watched that viral video clip, it was hard to believe that the barbaric scenes they were witnessing, actually occurred in Ghana. That revulsion arose from the fact that many around the world regard Ghana as a civilised nation, and stable African democracy, which is justly held up to the world as a model democracy, in a continent in which over the years, violence during elections have resulted in the destabilisation of many nations.
The more responsible sections of the Ghanaian media must reject the subtle attempt to lessen the gravity of what is a very dangerous development, and most shameful occurrence, by labelling what is a political party's own private militias, which have morphed into state-sponsored paramilitary forces, as vigilante groups. They are not. There is a world of difference between vigilante groups and private militias bearing arms provided by the state.
As a matter of fact, vigilante groups often have common-good underpinnings, and arise when thoroughly-fed-up community groups feel that law enforcement agencies consistently fail to punish wrongdoers in their midst, and therefore take the law into their own hands to exact justice, by meting out punishment to wrongdoers themselves.
An example of such vigilantism, is the recent phenomenon of angry youth in Asante Akim, directly confronting nomadic herdsmen, who allegedly have been raping local women, and also murdering protesting farmers, who complain that the herdsmen's cattle have been destroying their farms.
We are not a conquered and subjugated people, whom the New Patriotic Party (NPP) vanquished in a battle, for us to come under the jackboots of brutish and uncivilised myrmidons-in-uniform, controlled by wealthy and powerful men with dubious backgrounds, such as the Bernard Antwi-Bosiakos and Kennedy Adjapongs. One of the reasons some voted for Akufo-Addo to lead Ghana, was hope that he would instil discipline into society.
Conversely, we can also vote his party out of power again, if that will free us from the clutches of marauding thugs-in-uniform, abusing our human rights with impunity. Furthermore, Parliament must also investigate the matter of the morphing of the NPP's private militias into state-sponsored paramilitary forces, who are now threatening our freedoms, as a people.
Remaining a free people, with constitutionally guaranteed rights, is something that the vast majority of the ordinary people of our country clearly cherish - which is why those bearing ultimate responsibility for the transformation of the NPP's armed private militias, into armed state paramilitary forces, must be tried for treason. Full stop. Haaba. We rest our case.
An alarming, and egregiously-violent manifestation, of the dire consequences of the formation of state-sponsored private armed militias - which are clearly unaccountable to even the leaderships of the nation's security agencies - was seen in a viral video clip, watched by millions around the globe, during the recent by-election at the Ayawaso West Wuogon constituency.
Many who saw that viral video clip, reacted with revulsion to the scenes of gratitious violence, which they witnessed - horrified by the display of impunity shown by a number of balaclava-clad thugs-in-uniform, assaulting innocent people, in an area in a constiterncy in which a by-election was taking place.
For many who watched that viral video clip, it was hard to believe that the barbaric scenes they were witnessing, actually occurred in Ghana. That revulsion arose from the fact that many around the world regard Ghana as a civilised nation, and stable African democracy, which is justly held up to the world as a model democracy, in a continent in which over the years, violence during elections have resulted in the destabilisation of many nations.
The more responsible sections of the Ghanaian media must reject the subtle attempt to lessen the gravity of what is a very dangerous development, and most shameful occurrence, by labelling what is a political party's own private militias, which have morphed into state-sponsored paramilitary forces, as vigilante groups. They are not. There is a world of difference between vigilante groups and private militias bearing arms provided by the state.
As a matter of fact, vigilante groups often have common-good underpinnings, and arise when thoroughly-fed-up community groups feel that law enforcement agencies consistently fail to punish wrongdoers in their midst, and therefore take the law into their own hands to exact justice, by meting out punishment to wrongdoers themselves.
An example of such vigilantism, is the recent phenomenon of angry youth in Asante Akim, directly confronting nomadic herdsmen, who allegedly have been raping local women, and also murdering protesting farmers, who complain that the herdsmen's cattle have been destroying their farms.
We are not a conquered and subjugated people, whom the New Patriotic Party (NPP) vanquished in a battle, for us to come under the jackboots of brutish and uncivilised myrmidons-in-uniform, controlled by wealthy and powerful men with dubious backgrounds, such as the Bernard Antwi-Bosiakos and Kennedy Adjapongs. One of the reasons some voted for Akufo-Addo to lead Ghana, was hope that he would instil discipline into society.
Conversely, we can also vote his party out of power again, if that will free us from the clutches of marauding thugs-in-uniform, abusing our human rights with impunity. Furthermore, Parliament must also investigate the matter of the morphing of the NPP's private militias into state-sponsored paramilitary forces, who are now threatening our freedoms, as a people.
Remaining a free people, with constitutionally guaranteed rights, is something that the vast majority of the ordinary people of our country clearly cherish - which is why those bearing ultimate responsibility for the transformation of the NPP's armed private militias, into armed state paramilitary forces, must be tried for treason. Full stop. Haaba. We rest our case.
Bloomberg Technology/Doug Alexander: Crypto CEO Dies Holding Only Passwords That Can Unlock Millions in Customer Coins
Bloomberg
Technology
Crypto CEO Dies Holding Only Passwords That Can Unlock Millions in Customer Coins
By Doug Alexander
4 February 2019, 17:54 UTC
Without digital keys, clients lose access to coins, funds
Board said last week that it was seeking creditor protection
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0915448D
ERNST & YOUNG LTD
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Digital-asset exchange Quadriga CX has a $200 million problem with no obvious solution -- just the latest cautionary tale in the unregulated world of cryptocurrencies.
The online startup can’t retrieve about C$190 million ($145 million) in Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ether and other digital tokens held for its customers, according to court documents filed Jan. 31 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Nor can Vancouver-based Quadriga CX pay the C$70 million in cash they’re owed.
Access to Quadriga CX’s digital “wallets” -- an application that stores the keys to send and receive cryptocurrencies -- appears to have been lost with the passing of Quadriga CX Chief Executive Officer Gerald Cotten, who died Dec. 9 in India from complications of Crohn’s disease. He was 30.
Cotten was always conscious about security -- the laptop, email addresses and messaging system he used to run the 5-year-old business were encrypted, according to an affidavit from his widow, Jennifer Robertson. He took sole responsibility for the handling of funds and coins and the banking and accounting side of the business and, to avoid being hacked, moved the "majority" of digital coins into cold storage.
His security measures are understandable. Virtual currency exchanges suffered at least five major attacks last year. Japan, home to some of the world’s most active digital-asset exchanges, has also hosted two of the biggest known crypto hacks: the Mt. Gox debacle of 2014 and the theft of nearly $500 million in digital tokens from Coincheck Inc. last January.
The problem is, Robertson said she can’t find his passwords or any business records for the company. Experts brought in to try to hack into Cotten’s other computers and mobile phone met with only "limited success" and attempts to circumvent an encrypted USB key have been foiled, his widow, who lives in a suburb of Halifax, said in the court filing.
"After Gerry’s death, Quadriga’s inventory of cryptocurrency has become unavailable and some of it may be lost," Robertson said, adding that the company’s access to currency has been "severely compromised" and the firm has been unable to negotiate bank drafts provided by different payment processors.
Read More: New Crypto Exchanges Don’t Want (to Hold) Your Money
Quadriga CX’s directors posted a notice on the firm’s website on Jan. 31 that it was asking the Nova Scotia court for creditor protection while they address “significant financial issues" affecting their ability to serve customers. A hearing is scheduled for Tuesday, and Ernst & Young has been chosen as a proposed monitor.
“For the past weeks, we have worked extensively to address our liquidity issues, which include attempting to locate and secure our very significant cryptocurrency reserves held in cold wallets, and that are required to satisfy customer cryptocurrency balances on deposit, as well as sourcing a financial institution to accept the bank drafts that are to be transferred to us," the firm said. “Unfortunately, these efforts have not been successful."
As is often the case with crypto, the episode has raised speculation on Reddit’s online forums, where posters are wondering aloud if the business was a scam, calling for class-action lawsuits and even concocting conspiracy theories that call into question whether the CEO is even deceased. The latest online speculation suggests that Quadriga CX funds have been moving -- even though the firm claims they can’t get access.
relates to Crypto CEO Dies Holding Only Passwords That Can Unlock Millions in Customer Coins
Read More: Crypto Exchange Mystery Deepens as Court Protection Sought
— With assistance by Luke Kawa
by Taboola
Sponsored Links
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Flights In Ghana At Ridiculously Low Pricestripsinsider.com
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Technology
Crypto CEO Dies Holding Only Passwords That Can Unlock Millions in Customer Coins
By Doug Alexander
4 February 2019, 17:54 UTC
Without digital keys, clients lose access to coins, funds
Board said last week that it was seeking creditor protection
SHARE THIS ARTICLE
Share
Tweet
Post
In this article
0915448D
ERNST & YOUNG LTD
Private Company
Digital-asset exchange Quadriga CX has a $200 million problem with no obvious solution -- just the latest cautionary tale in the unregulated world of cryptocurrencies.
The online startup can’t retrieve about C$190 million ($145 million) in Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ether and other digital tokens held for its customers, according to court documents filed Jan. 31 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Nor can Vancouver-based Quadriga CX pay the C$70 million in cash they’re owed.
Access to Quadriga CX’s digital “wallets” -- an application that stores the keys to send and receive cryptocurrencies -- appears to have been lost with the passing of Quadriga CX Chief Executive Officer Gerald Cotten, who died Dec. 9 in India from complications of Crohn’s disease. He was 30.
Cotten was always conscious about security -- the laptop, email addresses and messaging system he used to run the 5-year-old business were encrypted, according to an affidavit from his widow, Jennifer Robertson. He took sole responsibility for the handling of funds and coins and the banking and accounting side of the business and, to avoid being hacked, moved the "majority" of digital coins into cold storage.
His security measures are understandable. Virtual currency exchanges suffered at least five major attacks last year. Japan, home to some of the world’s most active digital-asset exchanges, has also hosted two of the biggest known crypto hacks: the Mt. Gox debacle of 2014 and the theft of nearly $500 million in digital tokens from Coincheck Inc. last January.
The problem is, Robertson said she can’t find his passwords or any business records for the company. Experts brought in to try to hack into Cotten’s other computers and mobile phone met with only "limited success" and attempts to circumvent an encrypted USB key have been foiled, his widow, who lives in a suburb of Halifax, said in the court filing.
"After Gerry’s death, Quadriga’s inventory of cryptocurrency has become unavailable and some of it may be lost," Robertson said, adding that the company’s access to currency has been "severely compromised" and the firm has been unable to negotiate bank drafts provided by different payment processors.
Read More: New Crypto Exchanges Don’t Want (to Hold) Your Money
Quadriga CX’s directors posted a notice on the firm’s website on Jan. 31 that it was asking the Nova Scotia court for creditor protection while they address “significant financial issues" affecting their ability to serve customers. A hearing is scheduled for Tuesday, and Ernst & Young has been chosen as a proposed monitor.
“For the past weeks, we have worked extensively to address our liquidity issues, which include attempting to locate and secure our very significant cryptocurrency reserves held in cold wallets, and that are required to satisfy customer cryptocurrency balances on deposit, as well as sourcing a financial institution to accept the bank drafts that are to be transferred to us," the firm said. “Unfortunately, these efforts have not been successful."
As is often the case with crypto, the episode has raised speculation on Reddit’s online forums, where posters are wondering aloud if the business was a scam, calling for class-action lawsuits and even concocting conspiracy theories that call into question whether the CEO is even deceased. The latest online speculation suggests that Quadriga CX funds have been moving -- even though the firm claims they can’t get access.
relates to Crypto CEO Dies Holding Only Passwords That Can Unlock Millions in Customer Coins
Read More: Crypto Exchange Mystery Deepens as Court Protection Sought
— With assistance by Luke Kawa
by Taboola
Sponsored Links
From The Web
Virtually Indestructible Drone Takes Ghan…Dronex Pro
Flights In Ghana At Ridiculously Low Pricestripsinsider.com
This Football Betting Site is Way Better Th…SportyBet
This is the easiest way to move to America!Usafis
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Sunday, 10 February 2019
Investopedia/Brett Relander: Investing in Green Technology – the Future Is Now
Investing Sustainable Investing
Investing in Green Technology – the Future Is Now
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By Brett Relander
Updated Oct 25, 2018
Global new investment in renewable energy increased by 2% in 2017 with total transactions also increasing 1%. The industry ended 2018 with new investments of $279.8 billion and transactions totaling $393.8 billion. 2018 is on track to be another strong year for investment with total new investments in the industry at $211.4 billion through the third quarter. Green technology investments are taking a variety of forms, with increases in wind power and electric vehicle developments, the installation of renewable power capacity reaching new highs and significant increases in public market investments worldwide. Across the globe in 2018, Asia-Pac is leading investment with solar-powered innovations drawing in the greatest funding. Thus, what was once a mere glimpse into the future has indeed now become a reality as countries around the world are making substantial investments year over year in green technology.
What's Behind Green Technology Investing
Green technology investing, also referred to as clean technology investing, typically involves the selection of investments in companies with sustainable and environmentally friendly practices and products/services. While some clean technologies offer improvements that increase resource productivity and efficiency, others decrease environmental impact. As green technology continues to emerge as a growing force, several strong industry clusters have emerged with varying levels of investment as innovation trends emerge and change. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) breaks the industry into the following categories: wind, solar, biofuels, biomass, small hydro, geothermal and marine. (For more, see also: Top 10 Green Industries.) As global green technology investments have grown so to have the number of countries participating. The UNEP breaks down global investing by United States, Brazil, Americas (excluding U.S. and Brazil), Europe, Middle East & Africa, China, India and ASOC (excluding China and India).
In 2018, Bloomberg reports Asia-Pac at large as the leader in investments with just under $40 billion total.
Industries
In 2017 green technology continued to dominate new power generating capacity with greater than 60%. Solar and wind specifically have continued their lead receiving $161 billion and $107 billion in new investments respectively in 2017. With the trend for solar and wind maintaining its momentum in 2018, electric vehicles have also been gaining attention. The initial public offering (IPO) of NIO has boosted interest. NIO is China’s rival to Tesla. The company’s IPO raised $1 billion. NIO trades on the NYSE with a price that has gained to $7.96. China overall was also reported as the leader in electric vehicle sales for 2017 with a total of 533,000.
Countries
Public and private markets have been steadily allocating funds to green technology with more IPOs occurring all over the world. In 2017, the developing countries outspent the developed with investment of $177 billion. This can be mainly attributed to the spending of China, India and Brazil which reported a total investment of $144 billion in 2017. Among the nations of the world, China led in 2017 with $126.6 billion.
Public market investment reached a peak in 2014 at $15.1 billion and has dwindled to$ 5.7 billion in 2017. Public markets, however, are pouring most of their investments in solar and wind. In the private market, IPOs were occurring all over the world with share sales from China Everbright Greentech, Omega Geração, New Energy Solar and Windlab.
In the UK, the government continues to maintain its £24.5 million in funding for the Energy Catalyst, established by the Department of Energy and Climate Change, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, and Innovate UK. During the first round of funding, 40 different technologies received a share of the funds. The Energy Catalyst is open to researchers and businesses from any sector that is able to address energy challenges related to energy cost savings and reduction of carbon emissions. (See article: Why You Should Invest in Green Energy Right Now.)
Green Technology Investments Abound
Investors who are considering taking the plunge into green technology would do well to take the time to understand a bit of background behind this sector, including the goals that serve as the foundation for this rapidly growing field. Those goals include:
Source Reduction: This is the goal of reducing pollution and waste by changing production and consumption patterns.
Sustainability: This is an effort to meet societal needs with methods that can continue to be used into the future indefinitely without depleting or damaging natural resources.
Innovation: The focus is on developing alternatives to types of technology that have been shown to be harmful to the environment.
Cradle-to-cradle design: This involves the creation of products that can be reused or reclaimed, thus ending the cradle-to-grave cycle of manufactured products.
Viability: The aim is to create an economic activity center that focuses on products and technologies that are beneficial to the environment, thus increasing the speed at which such technology and product concepts can be implemented.
Investors will find there are numerous subsectors in green technology that currently provide excellent opportunities for investments. They include:
Energy: With energy often being considered the most pressing issue in the green technology sector, the energy sector focuses on the development of alternative fuels.
Green Nanotechnology: This includes the manipulation of various materials at the nanometer level, which could transform the way in which products are manufactured.
Green Chemistry: This encompasses the invention, development and application of chemical processes and products that are designed to eliminate or reduce the generation and use of hazardous substances.
Planning Your Green Tech Investment Strategy
In choosing a sector for green technology investment, focus on finding not only the most lucrative opportunities but also one that aligns with your own personal and environmental interests. New IPOs can also top prospects as many smaller, successful private companies grow and list on exchanges.
Ideally, all green tech investments can usually be considered as good investments, but keep in mind that there are risks associated with investing in any new technology as well as unknown and emerging companies. Diversification is vital to any successful investment strategy. Investing in different green sectors can help you to diversify your portfolio while protecting your funds. Managed exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and mutual funds can also be good investments leaving the active stock picking to professionals (To learn more about a conscientious, green approach to shaping one's portfolio, see article: Go Green with Socially Responsible Investing.)
Keep in mind that it can be easy to fall into a trap known as greenwashing, in which a company or service claims to be green but actually is not. Take the time to do your research and understand the basis of the technology that is being developed before you decide whether to financially back a particular company. The best way to determine whether the environmental practices and technology behind a company are solid, or are simply greenwashing, is to ask questions.
The Bottom Line
Investors searching for environmentally responsible, financially sound investments will find abundant opportunities. The challenge of investing in green technology is often twofold; the objective is to increase personal wealth and to make the world a better place through socially responsible investing. Admittedly, this can be a somewhat daunting task, but taking the time to conduct your research prior to making an investment can help you to select opportunities that will help you to protect your personal wealth, as well as the environment. Remember to consider the investment level that best aligns with your level of financial commitment, risk tolerance and goals, while also supporting environmental goals and sustainable practices through the latest technological advances.
Compare Popular Online Brokers
Related Articles
Sustainable Investing
What Does It Mean To Be Green?
Sustainable Investing
Go Green With Socially Responsible Investing
Sustainable Investing
Comparing Impact Investing & Venture Philanthropy
Sustainable Investing
Data Availability Drives ESG Investing Surge
Sustainable Investing
Impact Investing: Making A Difference And A Profit
Sustainable Investing
A Brief History of Impact Investing
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Investopedia is part of the Dotdash publishing family.
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Investing in Green Technology – the Future Is Now
By Brett Relander
Updated Oct 25, 2018
Global new investment in renewable energy increased by 2% in 2017 with total transactions also increasing 1%. The industry ended 2018 with new investments of $279.8 billion and transactions totaling $393.8 billion. 2018 is on track to be another strong year for investment with total new investments in the industry at $211.4 billion through the third quarter. Green technology investments are taking a variety of forms, with increases in wind power and electric vehicle developments, the installation of renewable power capacity reaching new highs and significant increases in public market investments worldwide. Across the globe in 2018, Asia-Pac is leading investment with solar-powered innovations drawing in the greatest funding. Thus, what was once a mere glimpse into the future has indeed now become a reality as countries around the world are making substantial investments year over year in green technology.
What's Behind Green Technology Investing
Green technology investing, also referred to as clean technology investing, typically involves the selection of investments in companies with sustainable and environmentally friendly practices and products/services. While some clean technologies offer improvements that increase resource productivity and efficiency, others decrease environmental impact. As green technology continues to emerge as a growing force, several strong industry clusters have emerged with varying levels of investment as innovation trends emerge and change. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) breaks the industry into the following categories: wind, solar, biofuels, biomass, small hydro, geothermal and marine. (For more, see also: Top 10 Green Industries.) As global green technology investments have grown so to have the number of countries participating. The UNEP breaks down global investing by United States, Brazil, Americas (excluding U.S. and Brazil), Europe, Middle East & Africa, China, India and ASOC (excluding China and India).
In 2018, Bloomberg reports Asia-Pac at large as the leader in investments with just under $40 billion total.
Industries
In 2017 green technology continued to dominate new power generating capacity with greater than 60%. Solar and wind specifically have continued their lead receiving $161 billion and $107 billion in new investments respectively in 2017. With the trend for solar and wind maintaining its momentum in 2018, electric vehicles have also been gaining attention. The initial public offering (IPO) of NIO has boosted interest. NIO is China’s rival to Tesla. The company’s IPO raised $1 billion. NIO trades on the NYSE with a price that has gained to $7.96. China overall was also reported as the leader in electric vehicle sales for 2017 with a total of 533,000.
Countries
Public and private markets have been steadily allocating funds to green technology with more IPOs occurring all over the world. In 2017, the developing countries outspent the developed with investment of $177 billion. This can be mainly attributed to the spending of China, India and Brazil which reported a total investment of $144 billion in 2017. Among the nations of the world, China led in 2017 with $126.6 billion.
Public market investment reached a peak in 2014 at $15.1 billion and has dwindled to$ 5.7 billion in 2017. Public markets, however, are pouring most of their investments in solar and wind. In the private market, IPOs were occurring all over the world with share sales from China Everbright Greentech, Omega Geração, New Energy Solar and Windlab.
In the UK, the government continues to maintain its £24.5 million in funding for the Energy Catalyst, established by the Department of Energy and Climate Change, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, and Innovate UK. During the first round of funding, 40 different technologies received a share of the funds. The Energy Catalyst is open to researchers and businesses from any sector that is able to address energy challenges related to energy cost savings and reduction of carbon emissions. (See article: Why You Should Invest in Green Energy Right Now.)
Green Technology Investments Abound
Investors who are considering taking the plunge into green technology would do well to take the time to understand a bit of background behind this sector, including the goals that serve as the foundation for this rapidly growing field. Those goals include:
Source Reduction: This is the goal of reducing pollution and waste by changing production and consumption patterns.
Sustainability: This is an effort to meet societal needs with methods that can continue to be used into the future indefinitely without depleting or damaging natural resources.
Innovation: The focus is on developing alternatives to types of technology that have been shown to be harmful to the environment.
Cradle-to-cradle design: This involves the creation of products that can be reused or reclaimed, thus ending the cradle-to-grave cycle of manufactured products.
Viability: The aim is to create an economic activity center that focuses on products and technologies that are beneficial to the environment, thus increasing the speed at which such technology and product concepts can be implemented.
Investors will find there are numerous subsectors in green technology that currently provide excellent opportunities for investments. They include:
Energy: With energy often being considered the most pressing issue in the green technology sector, the energy sector focuses on the development of alternative fuels.
Green Nanotechnology: This includes the manipulation of various materials at the nanometer level, which could transform the way in which products are manufactured.
Green Chemistry: This encompasses the invention, development and application of chemical processes and products that are designed to eliminate or reduce the generation and use of hazardous substances.
Planning Your Green Tech Investment Strategy
In choosing a sector for green technology investment, focus on finding not only the most lucrative opportunities but also one that aligns with your own personal and environmental interests. New IPOs can also top prospects as many smaller, successful private companies grow and list on exchanges.
Ideally, all green tech investments can usually be considered as good investments, but keep in mind that there are risks associated with investing in any new technology as well as unknown and emerging companies. Diversification is vital to any successful investment strategy. Investing in different green sectors can help you to diversify your portfolio while protecting your funds. Managed exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and mutual funds can also be good investments leaving the active stock picking to professionals (To learn more about a conscientious, green approach to shaping one's portfolio, see article: Go Green with Socially Responsible Investing.)
Keep in mind that it can be easy to fall into a trap known as greenwashing, in which a company or service claims to be green but actually is not. Take the time to do your research and understand the basis of the technology that is being developed before you decide whether to financially back a particular company. The best way to determine whether the environmental practices and technology behind a company are solid, or are simply greenwashing, is to ask questions.
The Bottom Line
Investors searching for environmentally responsible, financially sound investments will find abundant opportunities. The challenge of investing in green technology is often twofold; the objective is to increase personal wealth and to make the world a better place through socially responsible investing. Admittedly, this can be a somewhat daunting task, but taking the time to conduct your research prior to making an investment can help you to select opportunities that will help you to protect your personal wealth, as well as the environment. Remember to consider the investment level that best aligns with your level of financial commitment, risk tolerance and goals, while also supporting environmental goals and sustainable practices through the latest technological advances.
Compare Popular Online Brokers
Related Articles
Sustainable Investing
What Does It Mean To Be Green?
Sustainable Investing
Go Green With Socially Responsible Investing
Sustainable Investing
Comparing Impact Investing & Venture Philanthropy
Sustainable Investing
Data Availability Drives ESG Investing Surge
Sustainable Investing
Impact Investing: Making A Difference And A Profit
Sustainable Investing
A Brief History of Impact Investing
About Us
Advertise
Contact
Privacy Policy
Terms of Use
Careers
Investopedia is part of the Dotdash publishing family.
The Balance
Lifewire
TripSavvy
The Spruce
and more
Thrive Global/Stephanie Fairyington: Jeff Bezos’s Reaction to a Blackmail Attempt Teaches Us the Power of Defusing Shame A psychologist breaks down why his approach was so effective
Thrive Global
Thrive News//February 8, 2019
Jeff Bezos’s Reaction to a Blackmail Attempt Teaches Us the Power of Defusing Shame
A psychologist breaks down why his approach was so effective.
By Stephanie Fairyington, Thrive Global Senior Staff Writer
Photo credit: Jim Watson/Getty Images
Photo credit: Jim Watson/Getty Images
If you’ve ever felt all the blood in your body rush to your face in embarrassment, you’ll understand where science fiction writer Janet Morris was coming from when she wrote: “Humiliation sets armies marching, empires falling, breaks hearts and minds and souls.” The war that has broken out between Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon and owner of the Washington Post, and David Pecker, chairman of American Media Inc. (AMI), proves the keenness of Morris’s observation.
On February 8, Bezos wrote an explosive essay detailing how AMI’s National Enquirer attempted to blackmail him with personal photos and texts between him and girlfriend Lauren Sanchez, a former co-host of Fox’s Good Day L.A., if Bezos didn’t stop his investigation into how AMI obtained his texts, and publicly declare the Enquirer’s coverage of Bezos as not “politically motivated or influenced by political forces.” Even though the raunchy news outlet claimed to have a “below the belt selfie” of Bezos, as well as other sexually explicit images of him and Sanchez, Bezos walked right through the flames of shame for a larger cause. “Rather than capitulate to extortion and blackmail, I’ve decided to publish exactly what they sent me, despite the personal cost and embarrassment they threaten,” he wrote.
His bold approach to confronting potential humiliation head-on is extremely effective, says Alicia Clark, Ph.D., a licensed psychologist and author of Hack Your Anxiety: How to Make Anxiety Work for You in Life, Love, and All That You Do. “He did an excellent job of taking control of the situation and not bowing to the threat of humiliation. He fought back,” she says.
The lessons learned from this bombshell news story will be increasingly important, says Clark, as an entire generation of young people, who grew up digital natives, experience the fallout of sharing personal photos, videos and comments, which can — and often do — haunt them long afterwards.
In fact, Scott Galloway, Ph.D., a professor of marketing at the NYU Stern School of Business, called the digitization of our private lives — especially as it concerns teens — a “public health crisis” on Live With Stephanie Ruhl on MSNBC. Along with educating our kids about the consequences of what they reveal online, Clark says we should teach them how to depersonalize an embarrassing digital experience and take control of how they feel about it. “If a peer is trying to shame them, it says more about their peer or the culture at their school than it does about them. It’s about showing them how they can make the experience less personal,” she says.
Clark offers four tips on how we can reclaim our power and footing when something humiliating threatens to throw us off balance.
Take control of the story
Like Bezos, we can quickly and succinctly take control of the narrative. Don’t let it fester into something that feels insurmountable. For example, if you accidentally sent a personal text to your boss instead of your partner, you can quickly respond that you’re sorry and note that your message was obviously meant for someone else. Clark suggests employing a “fake it till you make it” posture of composure even if you’re dying inside the next time you see your boss. Likewise, if you said something you regret to a coworker, you can swiftly apologize and take ownership of any wrongdoings.
Know that you get to decide how you feel
Clark emphatically points out that whatever might have happened, you get to decide how you feel about it. “You give it power,” she says. “We can’t feel bad about something unless we agree it’s bad. We get to decide if we’re adequate or not, if we’re ashamed or not.”
Use humor to defuse the drama
While Clark isn’t a huge fan of self-deprecation — “it’s a deft tool, but if used in excess people start to believe its self-disparaging narrative” — she’s all for using comedy to break up the tension. “If you can laugh at yourself or the situation, you allow other people to laugh without it being negative. It’s a brilliant thing that we all can do to defuse uncomfortable situations and conflicts,” she says.
Remember: You are not your mistake
Whatever misstep you made — trusting someone you shouldn’t have with personal selfies, or saying something off-color that ruffled feathers — acknowledge that you made a mistake and learn from it if the fault lies with you, Clark says, but stop yourself from a full-fledged assault on your value as a human being.
Follow us here and subscribe here for all the latest news on how you can keep Thriving.
Stay up to date or catch-up on all our podcasts with Arianna Huffington here.
— Published on February 8, 2019
Jeff Bezos
Stephanie Fairyington, Thrive Global Senior Staff Writer
Stephanie Fairyington is a senior staff writer at Thrive Global. A New York-based journalist, her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic (online), The New Republic (online), The Boston Globe, and several other publications. She lives in Brooklyn, NY with her spouse Sabrina and daughter Marty.
The Thrive Global Community welcomes voices from many spheres. We publish pieces written by outside contributors with a wide range of opinions, which don’t necessarily reflect our own. Learn more or join us as a community member!
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Wisdom//September 21, 2018
Why Jeff Bezos Takes His Most Important Meetings at This Time
by Business Insider
MANDEL NGAN / Contributor / Getty Images
Wisdom//January 14, 2019
It Took Jeff Bezos Exactly 5 Words to Teach a Major Lesson in Emotional Intelligence
by Justin Bariso
Westend61/Getty Images
Work Smarter//June 27, 2018
These Top Execs Don't Practice Work-Life Balance
by Business Insider
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“People look for retreats for themselves, in the country, by the coast, or in the hills . . . There is nowhere that a person can find a more peaceful and trouble-free retreat than in his own mind. . . . So constantly give yourself this retreat, and renew yourself.”
- MARCUS AURELIUS
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Thrive News//February 8, 2019
Jeff Bezos’s Reaction to a Blackmail Attempt Teaches Us the Power of Defusing Shame
A psychologist breaks down why his approach was so effective.
By Stephanie Fairyington, Thrive Global Senior Staff Writer
Photo credit: Jim Watson/Getty Images
Photo credit: Jim Watson/Getty Images
If you’ve ever felt all the blood in your body rush to your face in embarrassment, you’ll understand where science fiction writer Janet Morris was coming from when she wrote: “Humiliation sets armies marching, empires falling, breaks hearts and minds and souls.” The war that has broken out between Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon and owner of the Washington Post, and David Pecker, chairman of American Media Inc. (AMI), proves the keenness of Morris’s observation.
On February 8, Bezos wrote an explosive essay detailing how AMI’s National Enquirer attempted to blackmail him with personal photos and texts between him and girlfriend Lauren Sanchez, a former co-host of Fox’s Good Day L.A., if Bezos didn’t stop his investigation into how AMI obtained his texts, and publicly declare the Enquirer’s coverage of Bezos as not “politically motivated or influenced by political forces.” Even though the raunchy news outlet claimed to have a “below the belt selfie” of Bezos, as well as other sexually explicit images of him and Sanchez, Bezos walked right through the flames of shame for a larger cause. “Rather than capitulate to extortion and blackmail, I’ve decided to publish exactly what they sent me, despite the personal cost and embarrassment they threaten,” he wrote.
His bold approach to confronting potential humiliation head-on is extremely effective, says Alicia Clark, Ph.D., a licensed psychologist and author of Hack Your Anxiety: How to Make Anxiety Work for You in Life, Love, and All That You Do. “He did an excellent job of taking control of the situation and not bowing to the threat of humiliation. He fought back,” she says.
The lessons learned from this bombshell news story will be increasingly important, says Clark, as an entire generation of young people, who grew up digital natives, experience the fallout of sharing personal photos, videos and comments, which can — and often do — haunt them long afterwards.
In fact, Scott Galloway, Ph.D., a professor of marketing at the NYU Stern School of Business, called the digitization of our private lives — especially as it concerns teens — a “public health crisis” on Live With Stephanie Ruhl on MSNBC. Along with educating our kids about the consequences of what they reveal online, Clark says we should teach them how to depersonalize an embarrassing digital experience and take control of how they feel about it. “If a peer is trying to shame them, it says more about their peer or the culture at their school than it does about them. It’s about showing them how they can make the experience less personal,” she says.
Clark offers four tips on how we can reclaim our power and footing when something humiliating threatens to throw us off balance.
Take control of the story
Like Bezos, we can quickly and succinctly take control of the narrative. Don’t let it fester into something that feels insurmountable. For example, if you accidentally sent a personal text to your boss instead of your partner, you can quickly respond that you’re sorry and note that your message was obviously meant for someone else. Clark suggests employing a “fake it till you make it” posture of composure even if you’re dying inside the next time you see your boss. Likewise, if you said something you regret to a coworker, you can swiftly apologize and take ownership of any wrongdoings.
Know that you get to decide how you feel
Clark emphatically points out that whatever might have happened, you get to decide how you feel about it. “You give it power,” she says. “We can’t feel bad about something unless we agree it’s bad. We get to decide if we’re adequate or not, if we’re ashamed or not.”
Use humor to defuse the drama
While Clark isn’t a huge fan of self-deprecation — “it’s a deft tool, but if used in excess people start to believe its self-disparaging narrative” — she’s all for using comedy to break up the tension. “If you can laugh at yourself or the situation, you allow other people to laugh without it being negative. It’s a brilliant thing that we all can do to defuse uncomfortable situations and conflicts,” she says.
Remember: You are not your mistake
Whatever misstep you made — trusting someone you shouldn’t have with personal selfies, or saying something off-color that ruffled feathers — acknowledge that you made a mistake and learn from it if the fault lies with you, Clark says, but stop yourself from a full-fledged assault on your value as a human being.
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Stay up to date or catch-up on all our podcasts with Arianna Huffington here.
— Published on February 8, 2019
Jeff Bezos
Stephanie Fairyington, Thrive Global Senior Staff Writer
Stephanie Fairyington is a senior staff writer at Thrive Global. A New York-based journalist, her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic (online), The New Republic (online), The Boston Globe, and several other publications. She lives in Brooklyn, NY with her spouse Sabrina and daughter Marty.
The Thrive Global Community welcomes voices from many spheres. We publish pieces written by outside contributors with a wide range of opinions, which don’t necessarily reflect our own. Learn more or join us as a community member!
Share your comments below. Please read our commenting guidelines before posting. If you have a concern about a comment, report it here.
You might also like...
Wisdom//September 21, 2018
Why Jeff Bezos Takes His Most Important Meetings at This Time
by Business Insider
MANDEL NGAN / Contributor / Getty Images
Wisdom//January 14, 2019
It Took Jeff Bezos Exactly 5 Words to Teach a Major Lesson in Emotional Intelligence
by Justin Bariso
Westend61/Getty Images
Work Smarter//June 27, 2018
These Top Execs Don't Practice Work-Life Balance
by Business Insider
Sign up for the Thrive Global newsletter
Will be used in accordance with our privacy policy.
“People look for retreats for themselves, in the country, by the coast, or in the hills . . . There is nowhere that a person can find a more peaceful and trouble-free retreat than in his own mind. . . . So constantly give yourself this retreat, and renew yourself.”
- MARCUS AURELIUS
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Corporate
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Let Us Make The Ghana Beyond Aid A Prosperous Society That Is A Share-Owning Democray.
There is no question that most Ghanaians have an appetite for earned income from sundry investment schemes. Unfortunately, over the years, that aspirational Ghanaian characteristic, has driven many into the arms of various con-artists, who have duped the unwary and innocent-abroads, out of hard-earned cash running into zillions of hard-to-find cedis.
The question is: Why does President Akufo-Addo not tap into that yearning for investment income amongst ordinary Ghanaians, by starting an initiative to make the Ghana beyond aid, a prosperous society, which is also a share-owning democracy?
Could that noble societal objective, not be kick-started, by floating the government's 30% stake in Vodafone - enabling our country to cock a snook at Vodafone's sly and greedy executives: who are dead set against listing that opaque company on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE)? Haaba.
With the shinning example of the Ghana Oil Company (GOIL), to guide us, all state-owned enterprises (SOEs) that have the potential to pay regular dividends to shareholders, if privatised, ought to be floated on the GSE - so that ordinary people in this marvellous country of ours (not "...a powerful few with greedy ambitions", to paraphrase President Nkrumah's apt description of our vampire-elites), can acquire shares in them too. Cool.
Potentially viable SOEs, such as the Ghana Airports Company; GIHOC Distilleries; Gridco; VRA; Bui Dam Authority; etc., etc., can all fare better as listed companies on the GSE - with the not-to-be-sneezed-at added bonus of the state successfully raising interest-free cash to help modernise them, gained on top of that too. Let us make the Ghana beyond aid a prosperous society that is a share-owning democracy.
The question is: Why does President Akufo-Addo not tap into that yearning for investment income amongst ordinary Ghanaians, by starting an initiative to make the Ghana beyond aid, a prosperous society, which is also a share-owning democracy?
Could that noble societal objective, not be kick-started, by floating the government's 30% stake in Vodafone - enabling our country to cock a snook at Vodafone's sly and greedy executives: who are dead set against listing that opaque company on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE)? Haaba.
With the shinning example of the Ghana Oil Company (GOIL), to guide us, all state-owned enterprises (SOEs) that have the potential to pay regular dividends to shareholders, if privatised, ought to be floated on the GSE - so that ordinary people in this marvellous country of ours (not "...a powerful few with greedy ambitions", to paraphrase President Nkrumah's apt description of our vampire-elites), can acquire shares in them too. Cool.
Potentially viable SOEs, such as the Ghana Airports Company; GIHOC Distilleries; Gridco; VRA; Bui Dam Authority; etc., etc., can all fare better as listed companies on the GSE - with the not-to-be-sneezed-at added bonus of the state successfully raising interest-free cash to help modernise them, gained on top of that too. Let us make the Ghana beyond aid a prosperous society that is a share-owning democracy.
Thursday, 7 February 2019
Kweku Ananse Nyantakyi: Anas & Co, terrorists? What infernal cheek. Who born dog?
So Kweku Ananse Nyantakyi has now found his voice again - and is apparently calling Anas Amereyaw's Tiger Eye Private Investigators, terrorists. Ebeeii. How typical. Hmmm, Oman Ghana - eyeasem o: asem kesie ebeba debi ankasa.
Perhaps it ought to be pointed out to that Okro-mouthed genius that it doesn't matter what lengths investigative journalists go, to entrap truly honest individuals, the plain truth, is that they will never get principled people who are individuals with integrity to do what is either morally wrong, or patently unlawful. Haaba.
Precisely because by definition, Nyantakyi & Co lack moral compasses, no one had to force sly rogues like them to do anything against their will. Did they not turn Ghana into a global soccer match-fixing power - to enrich themselves? And what are all those sodden betting companies doing here?
The question is: When they were in charge of the Ghana Football Association (GFA), did they not allegedly pocket secret payments - running into millions: which enabled even money-launderers and ponzi-scheme operators, for example, to sponsor our football leagues?
That greedy hypocrite, whose overweening ambition led him to fight tooth and nail to join FIFA's top brass, has no one but himself to blame, for his plight today - for it was his egregious manipulations, which eventually led directly to the decline of our country as a continental soccer power.
Indeed, he it is, who is rather the terrorist - who destroyed Ghanaian soccer with his unfathomable greed - not the brave Anas Amereyaw and his Tiger Eye investigative team. What infernal cheek.
Finally, it will be recalled that Nyantakyi once threatened journalists from the UK's Daily Telegraph newspaper, who confronted him with what they said was evidence of match-fixing, with a legal suit. As it happens, today, he has at long last been hoisted on his own petard. Anas & Co, terrorists? What infernal cheek. Kweku Ananse Nyantakyi: Who born dog? Saajewa.
Perhaps it ought to be pointed out to that Okro-mouthed genius that it doesn't matter what lengths investigative journalists go, to entrap truly honest individuals, the plain truth, is that they will never get principled people who are individuals with integrity to do what is either morally wrong, or patently unlawful. Haaba.
Precisely because by definition, Nyantakyi & Co lack moral compasses, no one had to force sly rogues like them to do anything against their will. Did they not turn Ghana into a global soccer match-fixing power - to enrich themselves? And what are all those sodden betting companies doing here?
The question is: When they were in charge of the Ghana Football Association (GFA), did they not allegedly pocket secret payments - running into millions: which enabled even money-launderers and ponzi-scheme operators, for example, to sponsor our football leagues?
That greedy hypocrite, whose overweening ambition led him to fight tooth and nail to join FIFA's top brass, has no one but himself to blame, for his plight today - for it was his egregious manipulations, which eventually led directly to the decline of our country as a continental soccer power.
Indeed, he it is, who is rather the terrorist - who destroyed Ghanaian soccer with his unfathomable greed - not the brave Anas Amereyaw and his Tiger Eye investigative team. What infernal cheek.
Finally, it will be recalled that Nyantakyi once threatened journalists from the UK's Daily Telegraph newspaper, who confronted him with what they said was evidence of match-fixing, with a legal suit. As it happens, today, he has at long last been hoisted on his own petard. Anas & Co, terrorists? What infernal cheek. Kweku Ananse Nyantakyi: Who born dog? Saajewa.
Why President Akufo-Addo Must Rein In The Bernard Antwi-Bosiakos And Kennedy Adjapongs
If we are to prosper as a people, our homeland Ghana must have a tough-minded leader, who has the strength of character needed to discipline those he appoints to help him govern the nation.
It is for that reason that many independent-minded Ghanaians, who care about preserving our country's natural heritage, back President Akufo-Addo 100%. The paradox, is that some of those selfsame Ghanaians - including me - also loathe the president's party, the New Patriotic Party (NPP), passionately, for patriotic reasons.
That loathing for the NPP, results directly from the fact that the party and its antecedents have a history of embracing vile tribal-supremacists, whom not many decent people would ordinarily associate with - because of their addiction to the use of violence, both verbal and physical, as political weaponry.
For such patriotic Ghanaians, it is heart-wrenching that a political party with so many decent people in its membership, also has uncouth and ever-boastful characters, such as the Bernard Antwi-Bosiakos and Kennedy Adjapongs, wielding great influence over it - yet it is a party that never tires of telling the world that it is anchored on the twin-bedrocks of the rule of law and individual liberty.
If President Akufo-Addo does not rein them in, and discipline them, then, as sure as day follows night, in the final analysis, it will be the egregious actions, and unpardonable inactions, of the Bernard Antwi-Bosiakos and Kennedy Adjapongs, which will prevent him from having a legacy as a great president. Definitely. Hmmm, Oman Ghana, eyeasem o: asem kesie ebeba debi ankasa.
It is for that reason that many independent-minded Ghanaians, who care about preserving our country's natural heritage, back President Akufo-Addo 100%. The paradox, is that some of those selfsame Ghanaians - including me - also loathe the president's party, the New Patriotic Party (NPP), passionately, for patriotic reasons.
That loathing for the NPP, results directly from the fact that the party and its antecedents have a history of embracing vile tribal-supremacists, whom not many decent people would ordinarily associate with - because of their addiction to the use of violence, both verbal and physical, as political weaponry.
For such patriotic Ghanaians, it is heart-wrenching that a political party with so many decent people in its membership, also has uncouth and ever-boastful characters, such as the Bernard Antwi-Bosiakos and Kennedy Adjapongs, wielding great influence over it - yet it is a party that never tires of telling the world that it is anchored on the twin-bedrocks of the rule of law and individual liberty.
If President Akufo-Addo does not rein them in, and discipline them, then, as sure as day follows night, in the final analysis, it will be the egregious actions, and unpardonable inactions, of the Bernard Antwi-Bosiakos and Kennedy Adjapongs, which will prevent him from having a legacy as a great president. Definitely. Hmmm, Oman Ghana, eyeasem o: asem kesie ebeba debi ankasa.
Wednesday, 6 February 2019
Will Adopting New Technologies Transform Ghana's Oil Industry's Audit Process, Decrease Costs And Improve Reliability?
If the main source of funding for President Akufo-Addo's free senior high school initiative, will be revenues from our oil industry, then it is vital that tabs are kept on funds generated by the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation's (GNPC) stakes in sundry oilfields off our shores.
To inspire the more responsible sections of the Ghanaian media, to get the energy ministry to encourage the GNPC to leverage new state-of-the-art technologies to audit it's share of oil and gas revenues, today, we are posting a culled Accenture blog post authored by Peggy Krendl and Monil Ruparel, entitled:"The new oil & gas audit: Technology shakes up the industry". We do hope this blog's many brilliant young Ghanaian readers will also enjoy reading it.
Please read on:
"Accenture
United States
BLOG
BLOG MAIN PAGE
January 22, 2019
The new oil & gas audit: Technology shakes up the industry
By: Peggy Krendl and Monil Ruparel
Digital innovation has disrupted many industries, but the audit function has remained largely unchanged.
Audits continue to represent a drain on corporate resources, both in terms of financial cost and in the number of staff dedicated to audit activities. According to a 2017 survey of 161 US public companies conducted by The Financial Executives Research Foundation, audit fees averaged $7.4 million, with a median of $2.8 million. The average percentage increase in audit fees reported was 6.9 percent from 2016 to 2017, and the median increase was 1.3 percent. Audits are also time-consuming, typically taking from one to three months to complete.
The oil and gas industry spends billions of dollars on audit services and employs hundreds of employees working full-time on audit-related activities. Auditors in the industry must deal with elements that add complexity to the process. These include whole or partial government ownership; fluctuating oil prices; and the involvement of multiple parties.
Now, however, new technologies are beginning to transform the audit process, decreasing costs while improving reliability. This is taking place at a time of increased regulatory complexity and demands by investors for more information and greater transparency.
We believe that technological transformation will reshape oil and gas companies’ internal auditing procedures. They will also disrupt the competitive landscape for auditing firms. Companies should learn how to use internal audit procedures to gain information to support critical management decisions. With the availability of state-of-the-art technology at affordable prices, audit teams can identify and control costs at a micro level.
We anticipate that a combination of new technologies will help transform the audit process over the next three to five years.
Blockchain: We expect blockchain or distributed ledger technology to fundamentally change the nature of auditing due to its ability to automate the tracking and recording of every transaction.
Smart Contracts: Smart contracts are self-executing contracts with the terms of the agreement between buyer and seller written into lines of code. The code and the agreements it contains then exist across a distributed, decentralized blockchain network.
Analytics: Analytics can improve operating efficiency through root cause analysis and industry benchmarking, enabling external audit to provide diagnostic and prescriptive offerings and predict behavior before it happens.
Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning: Artificial Intelligence (AI) will support the identification of systematic errors in the auditing process, while helping devise ways to eliminate such errors through reinforcement learning. AI can also review high volumes of contracts in connection with RPA.
Robotic Process Automation: Robotic process automation (RPA) can be deployed to replace manual tasks like reconciling data, copy-pasting content and cross-referencing data during audits.
The audit process, once relatively static, is now on the verge of unprecedented change. Company stakeholders will find little resemblance between today’s audit process and that in place 20 years from now.
A formal strategy and roadmap will provide the level of rigor for the transformation initiative that is required to deliver and maintain the desired results. Well-designed and well-delivered training can arm internal audit end users with the skills necessary to execute a long-term, sustainable digital workforce in the new operating model.
With the strategy and roadmap in place, the company should be better positioned to determine what it wants from its external auditor, and how to work with the auditor to achieve the outcome it seeks.
RELATED CONTENT
Building a business case for RPA in oil and gas
Demystify robotic process automation
Automation of routine procure-to-pay tasks delivers benefits for oil and gas
Better with ‘bots? Five questions to ask before automating oil and gas processes
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Peggy Krendl
Peggy Krendl
Peggy Krendl is a Senior Management Consulting Executive for Accenture's Resources operating groups (Energy, Utilities, Mining, Metals & Chemicals).
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The new oil & gas audit: Technology shakes up the industry
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End of culled content from the Accenture blog,
To inspire the more responsible sections of the Ghanaian media, to get the energy ministry to encourage the GNPC to leverage new state-of-the-art technologies to audit it's share of oil and gas revenues, today, we are posting a culled Accenture blog post authored by Peggy Krendl and Monil Ruparel, entitled:"The new oil & gas audit: Technology shakes up the industry". We do hope this blog's many brilliant young Ghanaian readers will also enjoy reading it.
Please read on:
"Accenture
United States
BLOG
BLOG MAIN PAGE
January 22, 2019
The new oil & gas audit: Technology shakes up the industry
By: Peggy Krendl and Monil Ruparel
Digital innovation has disrupted many industries, but the audit function has remained largely unchanged.
Audits continue to represent a drain on corporate resources, both in terms of financial cost and in the number of staff dedicated to audit activities. According to a 2017 survey of 161 US public companies conducted by The Financial Executives Research Foundation, audit fees averaged $7.4 million, with a median of $2.8 million. The average percentage increase in audit fees reported was 6.9 percent from 2016 to 2017, and the median increase was 1.3 percent. Audits are also time-consuming, typically taking from one to three months to complete.
The oil and gas industry spends billions of dollars on audit services and employs hundreds of employees working full-time on audit-related activities. Auditors in the industry must deal with elements that add complexity to the process. These include whole or partial government ownership; fluctuating oil prices; and the involvement of multiple parties.
Now, however, new technologies are beginning to transform the audit process, decreasing costs while improving reliability. This is taking place at a time of increased regulatory complexity and demands by investors for more information and greater transparency.
We believe that technological transformation will reshape oil and gas companies’ internal auditing procedures. They will also disrupt the competitive landscape for auditing firms. Companies should learn how to use internal audit procedures to gain information to support critical management decisions. With the availability of state-of-the-art technology at affordable prices, audit teams can identify and control costs at a micro level.
We anticipate that a combination of new technologies will help transform the audit process over the next three to five years.
Blockchain: We expect blockchain or distributed ledger technology to fundamentally change the nature of auditing due to its ability to automate the tracking and recording of every transaction.
Smart Contracts: Smart contracts are self-executing contracts with the terms of the agreement between buyer and seller written into lines of code. The code and the agreements it contains then exist across a distributed, decentralized blockchain network.
Analytics: Analytics can improve operating efficiency through root cause analysis and industry benchmarking, enabling external audit to provide diagnostic and prescriptive offerings and predict behavior before it happens.
Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning: Artificial Intelligence (AI) will support the identification of systematic errors in the auditing process, while helping devise ways to eliminate such errors through reinforcement learning. AI can also review high volumes of contracts in connection with RPA.
Robotic Process Automation: Robotic process automation (RPA) can be deployed to replace manual tasks like reconciling data, copy-pasting content and cross-referencing data during audits.
The audit process, once relatively static, is now on the verge of unprecedented change. Company stakeholders will find little resemblance between today’s audit process and that in place 20 years from now.
A formal strategy and roadmap will provide the level of rigor for the transformation initiative that is required to deliver and maintain the desired results. Well-designed and well-delivered training can arm internal audit end users with the skills necessary to execute a long-term, sustainable digital workforce in the new operating model.
With the strategy and roadmap in place, the company should be better positioned to determine what it wants from its external auditor, and how to work with the auditor to achieve the outcome it seeks.
RELATED CONTENT
Building a business case for RPA in oil and gas
Demystify robotic process automation
Automation of routine procure-to-pay tasks delivers benefits for oil and gas
Better with ‘bots? Five questions to ask before automating oil and gas processes
BLOG MAIN PAGE
Peggy Krendl
Peggy Krendl
Peggy Krendl is a Senior Management Consulting Executive for Accenture's Resources operating groups (Energy, Utilities, Mining, Metals & Chemicals).
Full Bio
Popular Tags
Automation
Blockchain
More blogs on this topic
The new oil & gas audit: Technology shakes up the industry
Building a business case for RPA in oil and gas
Better with ‘bots? Five questions to ask before automating oil and gas processes
Archive
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
2014
Show All
Share This Page:
Contact Us
Find a Location
Local: 1 (571) 434-5003
Toll Free: 1 (877) 889-9009
About Accenture Privacy Policy Cookie Policy Terms of Use Site Map Accessibility Statement Careers
© 2019 Accenture. All Rights Reserved."
End of culled content from the Accenture blog,
Monday, 4 February 2019
Oil Sector Civil Society Groups In Ghana Should Collaborate With Their Overseas Counterparts To Expose Corruption In The Sector
Civil society groups in Ghana, fighting for transparency in our national economy's oil sector, must collaborate with counterpart organisations abroad - if they are to be successful in ending the high-level corruption that has resulted in our oil and gas deposits falling into the hands of foreigners.
An example of such collaboration in Nigeria, resulted in the exposure of shady dealings and pressure from Shell that enabled it acquire a particularly lucrative oil block in Nigeria - with most of the money ending up in the pockets of corrupt Nigerian officials. Italy is currently prosecuting ENI and Shell over the matter. The question is: Could the Italian government not be persuaded to prosecute ENI over its gas deal with Ghana, in which regardless of global market conditions, our gas will always be the most expensive on the planet Earth? Haaba.
To inspire civil society groups focused on Ghana's oil sector, today, we are posting a culled article from SOMO, entitled: "Shell put Nigeria under pressure with ISDS process to obtain oil field OPL 245". Such collaboration could empower foreign governments to prosecute oil companies that bribe corrupt Ghanaian officials. The ENI gas with Ghana should be a prime candidate. Why should we be paying the highest gas prices in the world - and to add insult to injury pay ENI millions monthly whether or not we take the gas the Sankofa field produces? Haaba.
Please read on:
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Shell put Nigeria under pressure with ISDS process to obtain oil field OPL 245
Shell used the investment agreement between the Netherlands and Nigeria to obtain a lucrative oil field at remarkably good conditions. This follows from internal e-mails from the oil company. Friends of the Earth Netherlands and the Dutch Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO), publish the reconstruction of the case today (in Dutch only).
Corruption
Shell and the Italian ENI paid 1.3 billion dollars for the rights to the oil field. A large part of this money did not end up with the Nigerian government but disappeared in the pockets of corrupt politicians. Shell and ENI are accused of having known this and are being prosecuted about this by the Italian government.
The ISDS-clause
Shell used the investment agreement between Nigeria and the Netherlands to file an ISDS claim. ISDS (Investor-to-State Dispute Settlement) gives multinationals a powerful tool to sue a government and claim compensation if the company thinks it is disadvantaged by government policies. Very little is known about the course of most ISDS cases, but the internal emails from Shell provide a unique insight into how a multinational can use an ISDS case to put pressure on a government.
Deal with Nigeria
Former Shell-CEO Jeroen van de Veer threatened the Nigerian president with a claim for damages if Shell would not get the concession. However, the leaked emails and documents show that Shell never expected a compensation; the company was only interested in obtaining the rights to the oil field back. “It is clear that in almost all cases a deal generates more money […] than an arbitration case”, Shell’s lawyers write in 2007.
Eventually, after a long process, Nigeria gives in and Shell and ENI obtain the rights to OPL 245 under very favourable conditions. A few weeks after the deal is signed Shell officially withdraws the claim. Nigeria misses out on an estimated 4.5 billion dollar in tax revenues from this oil field, according to research from Resources for Development Consultancy.
Freek Bersch, campaign manager at FOE Netherlands: “Shell’s appetite for oil has no limits. They blackmail with claims for damages, conclude deals involving bribes and pump up huge quantities of oil despite the Paris Climate Agreement.”
Bart-Jaap Verbeek, a researcher at SOMO states: “For years, Shell claims that it has no legal ties with their subsidiaries in Nigeria. This case shows that they are very opportunistic with their complex structure.”
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Bart-Jaap Verbeek
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An example of such collaboration in Nigeria, resulted in the exposure of shady dealings and pressure from Shell that enabled it acquire a particularly lucrative oil block in Nigeria - with most of the money ending up in the pockets of corrupt Nigerian officials. Italy is currently prosecuting ENI and Shell over the matter. The question is: Could the Italian government not be persuaded to prosecute ENI over its gas deal with Ghana, in which regardless of global market conditions, our gas will always be the most expensive on the planet Earth? Haaba.
To inspire civil society groups focused on Ghana's oil sector, today, we are posting a culled article from SOMO, entitled: "Shell put Nigeria under pressure with ISDS process to obtain oil field OPL 245". Such collaboration could empower foreign governments to prosecute oil companies that bribe corrupt Ghanaian officials. The ENI gas with Ghana should be a prime candidate. Why should we be paying the highest gas prices in the world - and to add insult to injury pay ENI millions monthly whether or not we take the gas the Sankofa field produces? Haaba.
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Shell put Nigeria under pressure with ISDS process to obtain oil field OPL 245
Shell used the investment agreement between the Netherlands and Nigeria to obtain a lucrative oil field at remarkably good conditions. This follows from internal e-mails from the oil company. Friends of the Earth Netherlands and the Dutch Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO), publish the reconstruction of the case today (in Dutch only).
Corruption
Shell and the Italian ENI paid 1.3 billion dollars for the rights to the oil field. A large part of this money did not end up with the Nigerian government but disappeared in the pockets of corrupt politicians. Shell and ENI are accused of having known this and are being prosecuted about this by the Italian government.
The ISDS-clause
Shell used the investment agreement between Nigeria and the Netherlands to file an ISDS claim. ISDS (Investor-to-State Dispute Settlement) gives multinationals a powerful tool to sue a government and claim compensation if the company thinks it is disadvantaged by government policies. Very little is known about the course of most ISDS cases, but the internal emails from Shell provide a unique insight into how a multinational can use an ISDS case to put pressure on a government.
Deal with Nigeria
Former Shell-CEO Jeroen van de Veer threatened the Nigerian president with a claim for damages if Shell would not get the concession. However, the leaked emails and documents show that Shell never expected a compensation; the company was only interested in obtaining the rights to the oil field back. “It is clear that in almost all cases a deal generates more money […] than an arbitration case”, Shell’s lawyers write in 2007.
Eventually, after a long process, Nigeria gives in and Shell and ENI obtain the rights to OPL 245 under very favourable conditions. A few weeks after the deal is signed Shell officially withdraws the claim. Nigeria misses out on an estimated 4.5 billion dollar in tax revenues from this oil field, according to research from Resources for Development Consultancy.
Freek Bersch, campaign manager at FOE Netherlands: “Shell’s appetite for oil has no limits. They blackmail with claims for damages, conclude deals involving bribes and pump up huge quantities of oil despite the Paris Climate Agreement.”
Bart-Jaap Verbeek, a researcher at SOMO states: “For years, Shell claims that it has no legal ties with their subsidiaries in Nigeria. This case shows that they are very opportunistic with their complex structure.”
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Sunday, 3 February 2019
Gulf Business: Sheikh Mohammed launches new global tolerance initiative
Gulf Business
Quantcast - GDPR Consent Solution
[Gulf Business]
Sheikh Mohammed launches new global tolerance initiative
The initiative will include an award to “honour champions of tolerance throughout the world”
Staff writer
Sunday 09 October 2016
UAE Vice President and Prime Minister and Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum has launched a global initiative to encourage tolerance.
The initiative will include an award to “honour champions of tolerance throughout the world,” official news agency WAM reported.
The ‘Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Award for Tolerance’ will provide support to the “intellectual, cultural and media promotions of values of tolerance and openness”.
Sheikh Mohammed also announced the establishment of the International Institute for Tolerance – the first of its kind in the Arab world to offer advice and expert views on policies for promoting values of tolerance among nations.
The institute will also publish studies and research reports on tolerance, release social studies on the root causes of fundamentalism, seclusion and sectarianism and work with relevant authorities to instill principles of tolerance in the younger generations, the report said.
It will further provide support to Arab and international experts and specialists in tolerance and contribute to developing educational systems.
“The UAE has established itself as a global role model for tolerance. We cherish tolerance as a key value. Yet, we intend to transform that value into a sustainable institutional work that will reflect positively on our peoples in the Arab world,” Sheikh Mohammed said.
“Our Arab societies need to be prepared intellectually to embed the culture of tolerance, openness and peaceful co-existence.”
The new programme is part of the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives, which includes 30-plus entities that will reach out to more than 130 million people in the next 10 years and focus on developmental and relief efforts across the Arab region and internationally.
Read more: Dubai’s ruler launches Dhs 1bn global aid foundation
The Initiatives will include five categories, three of which will be dedicated to honouring champions of tolerance in human thought, literary creativity and the arts. The other two categories will focus on youth projects and new media.
Mohammad bin Abdullah Al Gergawi, minister of Cabinet Affairs and The Future, and secretary general of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives, described the tolerance award as a “practical response” to the sources of tension in the region.
Copyright © 2019 by Gulf Business.
Quantcast - GDPR Consent Solution
[Gulf Business]
Sheikh Mohammed launches new global tolerance initiative
The initiative will include an award to “honour champions of tolerance throughout the world”
Staff writer
Sunday 09 October 2016
UAE Vice President and Prime Minister and Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum has launched a global initiative to encourage tolerance.
The initiative will include an award to “honour champions of tolerance throughout the world,” official news agency WAM reported.
The ‘Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Award for Tolerance’ will provide support to the “intellectual, cultural and media promotions of values of tolerance and openness”.
Sheikh Mohammed also announced the establishment of the International Institute for Tolerance – the first of its kind in the Arab world to offer advice and expert views on policies for promoting values of tolerance among nations.
The institute will also publish studies and research reports on tolerance, release social studies on the root causes of fundamentalism, seclusion and sectarianism and work with relevant authorities to instill principles of tolerance in the younger generations, the report said.
It will further provide support to Arab and international experts and specialists in tolerance and contribute to developing educational systems.
“The UAE has established itself as a global role model for tolerance. We cherish tolerance as a key value. Yet, we intend to transform that value into a sustainable institutional work that will reflect positively on our peoples in the Arab world,” Sheikh Mohammed said.
“Our Arab societies need to be prepared intellectually to embed the culture of tolerance, openness and peaceful co-existence.”
The new programme is part of the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives, which includes 30-plus entities that will reach out to more than 130 million people in the next 10 years and focus on developmental and relief efforts across the Arab region and internationally.
Read more: Dubai’s ruler launches Dhs 1bn global aid foundation
The Initiatives will include five categories, three of which will be dedicated to honouring champions of tolerance in human thought, literary creativity and the arts. The other two categories will focus on youth projects and new media.
Mohammad bin Abdullah Al Gergawi, minister of Cabinet Affairs and The Future, and secretary general of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives, described the tolerance award as a “practical response” to the sources of tension in the region.
Copyright © 2019 by Gulf Business.
Saturday, 2 February 2019
The Men And Women Of Violence In Our Nation"s Political World Can Never Cow Ghanaians
Ghanaians are a long-suffering people, who had the presence of mind, and endless patience, to wait to finally see out a brutal military dictatorship - and replace it with a constitutional democracy in 1992. Although our democracy isn't a perfect system of government, and has many shortcomings, it is much better than unfettered rule by a dictatorship. For, at the very least, we have the opportunity to change our leaders in nationwide elections, every four years.
That is why the men and women of violence who now dominate the two biggest political parties in our country, the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), and the biggest opposition party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), must be careful not to take the ordinary people of Ghana for granted. That mindset will not help them, when we next go to the polls, to elect a president and members of Parliament, in the 2020 elections.
It is said that those who live by the sword, also die by the sword, in the end. What the hotheads in the NPP and NDC must understand, clearly, is that Ghanaians value their freedoms greatly. As a people, they will never exchange living in a free society, governed by laws, for life in a new tyranny, in which the law of the jungle operates.
No sane Ghanaian wants to live in a society dominated by ruthless rogues with questionable backgrounds, who have amassed great wealth through dubious means, and now seek to enslave ordinary people - through a reign of terror unleashed on us by brutish-myrmidons-in-uniforns, acting as party enforcers. The NPP's decent silent -majority should take note of that reality and act quickly to take back control of their party from those vile characters now dominating it - before it is too late.
Finally, for the information of the Bernard Antwi-Bosiakos, the Henry Nana Boakyes, and Sammy Gyamfis, ordinary Ghanaians will never sit idly by to be enslaved again, by yet another tyranny. No. Never. After all, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that to avoid a bloodbath in the 2020 elections, a coalition with a credible consensus candidate, who is a world-class achiever, such as Dr. Patrick Awuah, the founder of Ashesi University, could be drafted as a candidate to lead a government of national unity. Let them do their worst: Regardless of what they threaten to do, the men and women of violence amongst our political class, can never cow ordinary Ghanaians. Ever. Haaba.
That is why the men and women of violence who now dominate the two biggest political parties in our country, the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), and the biggest opposition party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), must be careful not to take the ordinary people of Ghana for granted. That mindset will not help them, when we next go to the polls, to elect a president and members of Parliament, in the 2020 elections.
It is said that those who live by the sword, also die by the sword, in the end. What the hotheads in the NPP and NDC must understand, clearly, is that Ghanaians value their freedoms greatly. As a people, they will never exchange living in a free society, governed by laws, for life in a new tyranny, in which the law of the jungle operates.
No sane Ghanaian wants to live in a society dominated by ruthless rogues with questionable backgrounds, who have amassed great wealth through dubious means, and now seek to enslave ordinary people - through a reign of terror unleashed on us by brutish-myrmidons-in-uniforns, acting as party enforcers. The NPP's decent silent -majority should take note of that reality and act quickly to take back control of their party from those vile characters now dominating it - before it is too late.
Finally, for the information of the Bernard Antwi-Bosiakos, the Henry Nana Boakyes, and Sammy Gyamfis, ordinary Ghanaians will never sit idly by to be enslaved again, by yet another tyranny. No. Never. After all, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that to avoid a bloodbath in the 2020 elections, a coalition with a credible consensus candidate, who is a world-class achiever, such as Dr. Patrick Awuah, the founder of Ashesi University, could be drafted as a candidate to lead a government of national unity. Let them do their worst: Regardless of what they threaten to do, the men and women of violence amongst our political class, can never cow ordinary Ghanaians. Ever. Haaba.
NASA HQ NEWS: California Students to Speak with NASA Astronaut Aboard Space Station
February 01, 2019
MEDIA ADVISORY M19-001
California Students to Speak with NASA Astronaut Aboard Space Station
Expedition 58 Flight Engineer Anne McClain conducts a science experiment aboard the International Space Station.
Expedition 58 Flight Engineer Anne McClain conducts a science experiment aboard the International Space Station.
Credits: NASA
Elementary school students from California will have an opportunity to talk with a NASA astronaut aboard the International Space Station next week. The Earth-to-space call will air on NASA television and the agency’s website.
Anne McClain will speak with students from William Brooks and Buckeye elementary schools in El Dorado Hills, California, at 1:35 p.m. EST Tuesday, Feb. 5. Students at both schools have prepared for the event through participation in space station and other space-related STEM events and activities as a part of the schools’ “Year in Space.”
The event will be held at William Brooks Elementary, 3610 Park Drive, El Dorado Hills. Media interested in covering should contact Alicia Smith at aliciarsmith@gmail.com or 916-747-7654.
Linking students directly to astronauts aboard the space station provides unique, authentic experiences designed to enhance student learning, performance and interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Astronauts living in space on the orbiting laboratory communicate with NASA’s Mission Control Center in Houston 24 hours a day through the Space Network’sTracking and Data Relay Satellites (TDRS).
Follow the astronauts on social media at:
https://www.twitter.com/NASA_astronauts
See videos and lesson plans highlighting research on the International Space Station at:
https://www.nasa.gov/stemonstation
MEDIA ADVISORY M19-001
California Students to Speak with NASA Astronaut Aboard Space Station
Expedition 58 Flight Engineer Anne McClain conducts a science experiment aboard the International Space Station.
Expedition 58 Flight Engineer Anne McClain conducts a science experiment aboard the International Space Station.
Credits: NASA
Elementary school students from California will have an opportunity to talk with a NASA astronaut aboard the International Space Station next week. The Earth-to-space call will air on NASA television and the agency’s website.
Anne McClain will speak with students from William Brooks and Buckeye elementary schools in El Dorado Hills, California, at 1:35 p.m. EST Tuesday, Feb. 5. Students at both schools have prepared for the event through participation in space station and other space-related STEM events and activities as a part of the schools’ “Year in Space.”
The event will be held at William Brooks Elementary, 3610 Park Drive, El Dorado Hills. Media interested in covering should contact Alicia Smith at aliciarsmith@gmail.com or 916-747-7654.
Linking students directly to astronauts aboard the space station provides unique, authentic experiences designed to enhance student learning, performance and interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Astronauts living in space on the orbiting laboratory communicate with NASA’s Mission Control Center in Houston 24 hours a day through the Space Network’sTracking and Data Relay Satellites (TDRS).
Follow the astronauts on social media at:
https://www.twitter.com/NASA_astronauts
See videos and lesson plans highlighting research on the International Space Station at:
https://www.nasa.gov/stemonstation
Friday, 1 February 2019
McKinsey & Company/Alexander Cummings and Acha Leke: Three imperatives for winning in Africa: An interview with Coca-Cola’s former president of Africa
McKinsey & Company
Three imperatives for winning in Africa: An interview with Coca-Cola’s former president of Africa
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Alexander Cummings discusses the continent’s potential and ways companies can establish a presence there by partnering for development and building local relevance.
Coca-Cola has had a presence in Africa since 1928, when the first bottle was sold in Cape Town, South Africa. But its approach has changed in the past 90 years. Liberia-born Alexander Cummings served as president of Coca-Cola’s Africa Group and later as the company’s chief administrative officer. He retired to focus on philanthropic efforts, including the Cummings Foundation, which he launched in 2015. In this interview with McKinsey’s Acha Leke, he talks through opportunities on the continent, as well as how to craft a strategy for doing business in Africa and nurture lasting relationships with local customers. An edited transcript of his remarks follows.
Interview transcript
Video
The value is here—the opportunity to be first in many categories still exists. If you have a medium- to long-term point of view, if you want to be first, if you want to build your brands, if you want to become a part of the fabric of communities around the world: Africa is the place you need to consider.
Mapping Coca-Cola’s Africa strategy
Africa is a very large continent. Most people don’t realize that you can fit three North Americas in this continent—it’s quite big, 50-plus countries.
While [Coca-Cola] wanted to have a broad presence across the continent, it was also important to us to focus and prioritize. We looked at things like per capita incomes in the countries around Africa. We looked at population; we looked at economic growth; we looked at governance in various countries. Given all that information and data, we identified something like seven or eight markets that we wanted to focus on.
In strategy and in business, [making] choices and prioritizing are where you can have the most impact. We chose to map our strategy around these key countries, these key markets, these key cities. I would encourage anybody considering coming to Africa to think along those lines, as opposed to trying to go too broad—because it’s a complex continent.
Partnering in Africa’s development
It’s important that multinationals engage government—whether it’s a ministry of finance, a ministry of trade and industry, directed territories—to make sure they understand the proposition, what your business offers, what it does.
Governments are interested in job creation, so to the extent—either directly or through your value chain, your supply chain—you can create jobs, you will typically get a very receptive ear from governments in that area, because that’s the biggest challenge.
To the extent you can provide training and development for young people in African countries, you will get a receptive ear. The triangle—working with civil society, working with government, and [working with] the private sector—is the ultimate way we will solve a lot of our challenges in Africa.
Building local relevance
I recall when we set up the 50th anniversary of Coca-Cola in Kenya. We were all sampling and handing out cold Cokes, and this young man came up to me and asked me where I was from. I said I was from Liberia, but I lived in the United States.
And he said, “So, is Coca-Cola sold in the United States as well?” It might sound unbelievable, but it is a true story. That said to us that our brands were loved, and people understood the connection and the benefits we brought.
These are stories that talk about the fact that we are local: we employ locally, we purchase locally, and we give back to communities and societies. And having the local insights—people who understand the continent, who believe in the continent, who believe in themselves, who will advocate for the continent—is something I think is important.
[You also need] to make sure that everybody along the supply chain makes a buck. Coca-Cola’s very intentional about understanding not just what we make—or just selling to the next person in supply chain—but understanding all the way to the village that everybody makes a buck, and that the product [needs to end] up being affordable. When that happens, there’s a natural incentive. Capitalism works.
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About the author(s)
Alexander Cummings is the former president of the Coca-Cola Africa Group and former chief administrative officer of Coca-Cola. Acha Leke is a senior partner in McKinsey’s Johannesburg office.
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Africa’s overlooked business revolution
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Africa’s Business Revolution: How to Succeed in the World’s Next Big Growth Market
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Three imperatives for winning in Africa: An interview with Coca-Cola’s former president of Africa
Article Actions
Share this article on LinkedIn
Share this article on Twitter
Share this article on Facebook
Email this article
Alexander Cummings discusses the continent’s potential and ways companies can establish a presence there by partnering for development and building local relevance.
Coca-Cola has had a presence in Africa since 1928, when the first bottle was sold in Cape Town, South Africa. But its approach has changed in the past 90 years. Liberia-born Alexander Cummings served as president of Coca-Cola’s Africa Group and later as the company’s chief administrative officer. He retired to focus on philanthropic efforts, including the Cummings Foundation, which he launched in 2015. In this interview with McKinsey’s Acha Leke, he talks through opportunities on the continent, as well as how to craft a strategy for doing business in Africa and nurture lasting relationships with local customers. An edited transcript of his remarks follows.
Interview transcript
Video
The value is here—the opportunity to be first in many categories still exists. If you have a medium- to long-term point of view, if you want to be first, if you want to build your brands, if you want to become a part of the fabric of communities around the world: Africa is the place you need to consider.
Mapping Coca-Cola’s Africa strategy
Africa is a very large continent. Most people don’t realize that you can fit three North Americas in this continent—it’s quite big, 50-plus countries.
While [Coca-Cola] wanted to have a broad presence across the continent, it was also important to us to focus and prioritize. We looked at things like per capita incomes in the countries around Africa. We looked at population; we looked at economic growth; we looked at governance in various countries. Given all that information and data, we identified something like seven or eight markets that we wanted to focus on.
In strategy and in business, [making] choices and prioritizing are where you can have the most impact. We chose to map our strategy around these key countries, these key markets, these key cities. I would encourage anybody considering coming to Africa to think along those lines, as opposed to trying to go too broad—because it’s a complex continent.
Partnering in Africa’s development
It’s important that multinationals engage government—whether it’s a ministry of finance, a ministry of trade and industry, directed territories—to make sure they understand the proposition, what your business offers, what it does.
Governments are interested in job creation, so to the extent—either directly or through your value chain, your supply chain—you can create jobs, you will typically get a very receptive ear from governments in that area, because that’s the biggest challenge.
To the extent you can provide training and development for young people in African countries, you will get a receptive ear. The triangle—working with civil society, working with government, and [working with] the private sector—is the ultimate way we will solve a lot of our challenges in Africa.
Building local relevance
I recall when we set up the 50th anniversary of Coca-Cola in Kenya. We were all sampling and handing out cold Cokes, and this young man came up to me and asked me where I was from. I said I was from Liberia, but I lived in the United States.
And he said, “So, is Coca-Cola sold in the United States as well?” It might sound unbelievable, but it is a true story. That said to us that our brands were loved, and people understood the connection and the benefits we brought.
These are stories that talk about the fact that we are local: we employ locally, we purchase locally, and we give back to communities and societies. And having the local insights—people who understand the continent, who believe in the continent, who believe in themselves, who will advocate for the continent—is something I think is important.
[You also need] to make sure that everybody along the supply chain makes a buck. Coca-Cola’s very intentional about understanding not just what we make—or just selling to the next person in supply chain—but understanding all the way to the village that everybody makes a buck, and that the product [needs to end] up being affordable. When that happens, there’s a natural incentive. Capitalism works.
Stay current on your favorite topics
Subscribe
About the author(s)
Alexander Cummings is the former president of the Coca-Cola Africa Group and former chief administrative officer of Coca-Cola. Acha Leke is a senior partner in McKinsey’s Johannesburg office.
Article Actions
Share this article on LinkedIn Share this article on Twitter Share this article on Facebook Email this article Print this article Download this article
Related Articles
Book Excerpt - McKinsey Quarterly
Africa’s overlooked business revolution
Survey
Rethinking the African business opportunity
Article
Africa’s Business Revolution: How to Succeed in the World’s Next Big Growth Market
McKinsey uses cookies to improve site functionality, provide you with a better browsing experience, and to enable our partners to advertise to you. Detailed information on the use of cookies on this Site, and how you can decline them, is provided in our cookie policy. By using this Site or clicking on "OK", you consent to the use of cookies.
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An Open Letter To U. S. Senator Hank Johnson
Dear SenatorJohnson,
I shall go straight to the point: For the sake of the ordinary people of our homeland Ghana, you must persuade the U.S State Department to issue an immediate travel ban, on Hon. Kennedy Agyapong. Sir, the painful reality of our society, is that our nation's only hope, in the fight against high-level corruption, is a free press. We cannot rely on our political class to do so willingly. A Rght to Information Bill has languished in Parliament for over a decade, for example.
By his barbaric actions over the years - including publicly revealing the identity of Ahmed Hussein-Suale - who was subsequently murdered - Kennedy Adjapong has acted in ways that constantly jeopardise the stability of Ghanaian democracy. Reckless politicians like him must be stopped from finally tipping our country over the precipice.
In any serious nation, he would have been expelled from Parliament, and from his political party, long ago. Yet, he continues to wield considerable influence in our country - mostly through the issuance of public threats that amount to holding the governing party (ironically a political party full of decent men and women frightened of this ogre) to ransom.
Sir, please do everything in your power, to get the U. S. State Department to place a travel ban on Hon. Kennedy Adjapong, as soon as practicable. And, for good measure, get your counterparts in the European Parliament, to do same too.
That is the only way to get verbally-aggressive politicians like him in our country to understand clearly that they cannot play fast and lose with the human rights of journalists in Ghana, without attracting international opprobrium, which stops them from traveling to the U.S. and Europe - and also results in the freezing of their offshore bank accounts and assets too.
Enough is enough. We refuse to be cowed by the powerful people in Ghana who instigate violence against journalists. Help those of us within Ghana's media fraternity, who do not fear the barbarians in the midst of our nation's political class, to empower our younger colleagues to stand up against these would-be oppressors - hypocrites posing as believers in democracy: but who in reality are greed-filled oligarchs, who brook no opposition to the realisation of the selfish ends they seek, in our fear-laden society of today. Haaba.
Thanks.
Kind regards,
Kofi Thompson
I shall go straight to the point: For the sake of the ordinary people of our homeland Ghana, you must persuade the U.S State Department to issue an immediate travel ban, on Hon. Kennedy Agyapong. Sir, the painful reality of our society, is that our nation's only hope, in the fight against high-level corruption, is a free press. We cannot rely on our political class to do so willingly. A Rght to Information Bill has languished in Parliament for over a decade, for example.
By his barbaric actions over the years - including publicly revealing the identity of Ahmed Hussein-Suale - who was subsequently murdered - Kennedy Adjapong has acted in ways that constantly jeopardise the stability of Ghanaian democracy. Reckless politicians like him must be stopped from finally tipping our country over the precipice.
In any serious nation, he would have been expelled from Parliament, and from his political party, long ago. Yet, he continues to wield considerable influence in our country - mostly through the issuance of public threats that amount to holding the governing party (ironically a political party full of decent men and women frightened of this ogre) to ransom.
Sir, please do everything in your power, to get the U. S. State Department to place a travel ban on Hon. Kennedy Adjapong, as soon as practicable. And, for good measure, get your counterparts in the European Parliament, to do same too.
That is the only way to get verbally-aggressive politicians like him in our country to understand clearly that they cannot play fast and lose with the human rights of journalists in Ghana, without attracting international opprobrium, which stops them from traveling to the U.S. and Europe - and also results in the freezing of their offshore bank accounts and assets too.
Enough is enough. We refuse to be cowed by the powerful people in Ghana who instigate violence against journalists. Help those of us within Ghana's media fraternity, who do not fear the barbarians in the midst of our nation's political class, to empower our younger colleagues to stand up against these would-be oppressors - hypocrites posing as believers in democracy: but who in reality are greed-filled oligarchs, who brook no opposition to the realisation of the selfish ends they seek, in our fear-laden society of today. Haaba.
Thanks.
Kind regards,
Kofi Thompson
Thursday, 31 January 2019
Hon. Kyremateng Agyarko Must Be Turning In His Grave
Electoral violence invariably tarnish the image of nations in which they occur. Naturally, Ghana is no exception. The shocking and completely unacceptable scenes of violence shown on television screens across the globe - showing heavily-built uniformed men beating up people whom one presumes were in the area just to cast votes to select a replacement to succeed the late Hon. Kyremateng Agyarko as the new member of Parliament for the Ayawaso West Wuogon constituency - ought to be condemned in no uncertain terms, by all who love Mother Ghana passionately, and care deeply about Ghanaian democracy. Disgraceful. Unspeakable. Abominable.
The barbarism seen in the environs of the La-Bawaleshie Presby JHS polling station was particularly revolting. It was as if those brutes-in-uniform beating up people performing their civic duty of going to vote in a by-election - with such impunity - had contrived to destroy Ghana's hard-won reputation as a civilised nation. The New Patriotic Party's (NPP) hotheads who got those thugs into the national security apparatus, have stabbed President Akufo-Addo in the back. They must never be allowed to get away with their abominable and unpardonable actions today. Ever.
The question is: Is it not time the decent members of both the governing NPP, and
opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), understood clearly that if they do not rein in the hardliners and hotheads in their respective parties, they will eventually lose the support of the ordinary people of our homeland Ghana? They must sieze their respective parties back from the hands of the violent individuals into which both parties have fallen - who unfortunately now dominate both parties. It is so ironical that such gratitous violence was perpetrated by the NPP's thuggish militia, the Invincible Forces, in a constitency once held by Hon. Kyremateng Agyarko - who was such a gentleman and a reconciliatory personality: who must be turning in his grave as we speak. Pity. Hmmm,
Oman Ghana eyeasem o - asem kesie ebeba debi ankasa.
The barbarism seen in the environs of the La-Bawaleshie Presby JHS polling station was particularly revolting. It was as if those brutes-in-uniform beating up people performing their civic duty of going to vote in a by-election - with such impunity - had contrived to destroy Ghana's hard-won reputation as a civilised nation. The New Patriotic Party's (NPP) hotheads who got those thugs into the national security apparatus, have stabbed President Akufo-Addo in the back. They must never be allowed to get away with their abominable and unpardonable actions today. Ever.
The question is: Is it not time the decent members of both the governing NPP, and
opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), understood clearly that if they do not rein in the hardliners and hotheads in their respective parties, they will eventually lose the support of the ordinary people of our homeland Ghana? They must sieze their respective parties back from the hands of the violent individuals into which both parties have fallen - who unfortunately now dominate both parties. It is so ironical that such gratitous violence was perpetrated by the NPP's thuggish militia, the Invincible Forces, in a constitency once held by Hon. Kyremateng Agyarko - who was such a gentleman and a reconciliatory personality: who must be turning in his grave as we speak. Pity. Hmmm,
Oman Ghana eyeasem o - asem kesie ebeba debi ankasa.
Wednesday, 30 January 2019
Why We Must Root Out Corrupt Security Agency Personnel From Our System Quickly
When Nigeria’s billionaire Kidnapper-In-Chief, Chikwudubem Onwuamadike, was arrested by the Nigerian authorities last year, it emerged that his wife and children were actually living in Ghana. He apparently had two luxury homes here, and lived under the assumed name, Mr. Asare. Compared to Ghana, Nigeria has a long history of kidnapping. Indeed, it has made the boldest and most hardened criminals involved in it very wealthy individuals.
In light of that, perhaps the question we must pose is: Are minnows from Nigeria’s kidnapping-for-ransom-industry using the kidnapping of young women from ordinary backgrounds in Ghana, as a dry run, to test our system's response to kidnapping - so they can target high-value victims, here, such as expatriate oil company employees: safe in the knowledge that they can devise strategies to outwit Ghana's security agencies?
It is instructive that before the latest allegations of criminal conduct against him were made public, Samuel Udoetuk Wills, the Nigerian man said to be responsible for the Takoradi kidnappings, was apparently on the run after escaping from the cells of a police station where he was being held on a different charge. And from his reported pronouncements, he was a foreigner who was clearly contemptuous of the police in Ghana. Why so, one wonders?
Clearly, if the personnel of our security agencies are to be able to successfully combat serous crimes such as kidnapping, and contract killings, they must henceforth be more professional in their approach to work. Taking bribes compromises every police officer who does so. Ditto a police officer who demands money from suspects.
We can neither assure the security of our homeland Ghana, nor ensure the safety of every resident of this beautiful and relatively peaceful country of ours, if personnel of the security agencies are corruptible. In the wake of the recent kidnappings, and high profile killings, our system must no longer tolerate corrupt security agency personnel. They are a danger to us all - and must be rooted out of our system quickly. Haaba.
In light of that, perhaps the question we must pose is: Are minnows from Nigeria’s kidnapping-for-ransom-industry using the kidnapping of young women from ordinary backgrounds in Ghana, as a dry run, to test our system's response to kidnapping - so they can target high-value victims, here, such as expatriate oil company employees: safe in the knowledge that they can devise strategies to outwit Ghana's security agencies?
It is instructive that before the latest allegations of criminal conduct against him were made public, Samuel Udoetuk Wills, the Nigerian man said to be responsible for the Takoradi kidnappings, was apparently on the run after escaping from the cells of a police station where he was being held on a different charge. And from his reported pronouncements, he was a foreigner who was clearly contemptuous of the police in Ghana. Why so, one wonders?
Clearly, if the personnel of our security agencies are to be able to successfully combat serous crimes such as kidnapping, and contract killings, they must henceforth be more professional in their approach to work. Taking bribes compromises every police officer who does so. Ditto a police officer who demands money from suspects.
We can neither assure the security of our homeland Ghana, nor ensure the safety of every resident of this beautiful and relatively peaceful country of ours, if personnel of the security agencies are corruptible. In the wake of the recent kidnappings, and high profile killings, our system must no longer tolerate corrupt security agency personnel. They are a danger to us all - and must be rooted out of our system quickly. Haaba.
Tuesday, 29 January 2019
"Fake News"? What Fake News? What Bloody Cheek!
The trouble about your average Ghanaian politician, given a high-level position by a serving president, is that some of them eventually become so power-drunk that they succeed in deluding themselves into thinking that somehow they are invincible - veritable masters of the universe. Hon. Patrick Omane Boamah and Stan Dogbe come easily to mind from the years of high-level-impunity that characterised most of the Mahama era.
It never once occurred to either of those geniuses that the judgement of history can neither be purchased by media manipulation, nor secured by clever strategising, in collaborative-scheming with their big-ego media co-conspirators. Sadly, in the end, they both lost all credibility with most discerning minds in Ghana. President Akufo-Addo's regime's Hon. Kwadwo Oppong Nkrumah's 'smoothness' reminds one so much of the aforementioned Mahama-era National Democratic Congress (NDC) regime's Goebbels-like spokespersons.
Alas, what such present-day regime-geniuses forget, is that unlike the indecisive Mahama, President Akufo-Addo is a very serious-minded leader, who will never put personal loyalty (to those appointees who can't deliver world-class performance in office after being appointed by him), above the well-being of Mother Ghana, and the all-important government business, of the promotion of the welfare of the ordinary people of our country.
In any case, in the fullness of time, we will all get to know which 'Kwadwo Oppong Nkrumah ''fake-news'' high-level appointee, gets turfed out of office - by a serious -minded and very determined president keen to leave a lasting legacy: by transforming our homeland Ghana into a prosperous society, which achieves the most of the seventeen United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), in the continent of Africa. When that happens, perhaps the Kwadwo Oppong Nkrumahs will finally come to understand why President Akufo-Addo did not consult geniuses like them when appointing Hon. Martin Amidu as our nation's first Special Prosecutor. Hmmm, Oman Ghana - eyeasem o: asem kesie ebeba debi ankasa. ''Fake news"? What fake news? What bloody cheek!
It never once occurred to either of those geniuses that the judgement of history can neither be purchased by media manipulation, nor secured by clever strategising, in collaborative-scheming with their big-ego media co-conspirators. Sadly, in the end, they both lost all credibility with most discerning minds in Ghana. President Akufo-Addo's regime's Hon. Kwadwo Oppong Nkrumah's 'smoothness' reminds one so much of the aforementioned Mahama-era National Democratic Congress (NDC) regime's Goebbels-like spokespersons.
Alas, what such present-day regime-geniuses forget, is that unlike the indecisive Mahama, President Akufo-Addo is a very serious-minded leader, who will never put personal loyalty (to those appointees who can't deliver world-class performance in office after being appointed by him), above the well-being of Mother Ghana, and the all-important government business, of the promotion of the welfare of the ordinary people of our country.
In any case, in the fullness of time, we will all get to know which 'Kwadwo Oppong Nkrumah ''fake-news'' high-level appointee, gets turfed out of office - by a serious -minded and very determined president keen to leave a lasting legacy: by transforming our homeland Ghana into a prosperous society, which achieves the most of the seventeen United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), in the continent of Africa. When that happens, perhaps the Kwadwo Oppong Nkrumahs will finally come to understand why President Akufo-Addo did not consult geniuses like them when appointing Hon. Martin Amidu as our nation's first Special Prosecutor. Hmmm, Oman Ghana - eyeasem o: asem kesie ebeba debi ankasa. ''Fake news"? What fake news? What bloody cheek!
Sunday, 27 January 2019
Ghana's Politicians Must Not Be Allowed To Turn The Menzgold Fraud Into Political Football
Is there any way the government of Ghana can possibly assist Menzgold's victims? There are some in Ghana who posit that if the government wants to find creative ways to help retrieve some of the money Menzgold's much-traumatised victims have lost, it must begin by locating any assets that Nana Appiah Mensah owns overseas.
Lawyers for the victims cold then go after those assets in the law courts of the jurisdictions they are located in. Not a bad idea, actually. The question is: Did Menzgold repatriate all the $60 million it made officially from the gold it has apparently exported over the past five years - and if not, what exactly did it do with all that money? Good question.
And should the authorities not persuade Nana Appiah Mensah to reveal all the bribes he offered to currupt individuals whose help he needed, and the disloyal payments he made over the years, to enable him grow his brand and obtain credibility that way? Could it be the case, for example, that he paid bribes to be allowed to sponsor the premiere league - by the greedy mafia that controlled the Ghana Football Association (GFA) during the now-discredited Kwesi Nyantakyi era?
Ditto funded public oficials, inividual politicians and political parties too? And should all those disloyal and illegal payments not be recovered and distributed to Menzgold's hapless victims? Hmmm, Oman Ghana - eye asem o: asem kesie ebeba debi ankasa.
Instead of turning this terrible tragedy - that has resulted in many financially-unsophisticated individuals being ruined - into political football, our nation"s politicians ought to rather collaborate to help Menzgold's victims retrieve some of the money, which that opaque company's promoters allegedly duped them out of.
Perhaps as a people, the question we must pose to ourselves is: Must we allow members of our nation's political class to turn the Mengold fraud into a political football - in order to enable them score cheap propaganda points? No. Definitely, not. Haaba.
Lawyers for the victims cold then go after those assets in the law courts of the jurisdictions they are located in. Not a bad idea, actually. The question is: Did Menzgold repatriate all the $60 million it made officially from the gold it has apparently exported over the past five years - and if not, what exactly did it do with all that money? Good question.
And should the authorities not persuade Nana Appiah Mensah to reveal all the bribes he offered to currupt individuals whose help he needed, and the disloyal payments he made over the years, to enable him grow his brand and obtain credibility that way? Could it be the case, for example, that he paid bribes to be allowed to sponsor the premiere league - by the greedy mafia that controlled the Ghana Football Association (GFA) during the now-discredited Kwesi Nyantakyi era?
Ditto funded public oficials, inividual politicians and political parties too? And should all those disloyal and illegal payments not be recovered and distributed to Menzgold's hapless victims? Hmmm, Oman Ghana - eye asem o: asem kesie ebeba debi ankasa.
Instead of turning this terrible tragedy - that has resulted in many financially-unsophisticated individuals being ruined - into political football, our nation"s politicians ought to rather collaborate to help Menzgold's victims retrieve some of the money, which that opaque company's promoters allegedly duped them out of.
Perhaps as a people, the question we must pose to ourselves is: Must we allow members of our nation's political class to turn the Mengold fraud into a political football - in order to enable them score cheap propaganda points? No. Definitely, not. Haaba.
Ghana"s Forestry Commission Could Earn Us More Money Than Combined Export Revenues From Cocoa And Gold
The Forestry Commission of Ghana (FC) now has the opportunity to be led by a new CEO. Hallelujah! One hopes that President Akufo-Addo will appoint a truly world-class female CEO, to lead the FC into a new era.
She must be someone who is well-connected globally, and understands the positive impact on our national economy, which an FC underpinned by an ethos of constantly leveraging the massive pool of low-carbon green funds available today - instead of relying on income from timber utilisation contracts and granting mining permits - could have on our ability to meet most of the United Nations Sustainanable Development Goals (UN SDGs), and become a prosperous nation whose people enjoy a good quality of life, in all the three strata of Ghanaian society.
The FC actually has the potential to earn more money for our country, annually, than combined revenues from the export of cocoa beans and gold. Above all, the FC could pay all its employees as well as nations such as Norway and Sweden pay those who manage their forests. The time has come for a new CEO for the FC - who understands clearly that the FC has the potential to earn Ghana more money than combined revenues from the export of cocoa and gold do: and has the nous and gumption to put the FC on the path to those stellar profits. Haaba.
She must be someone who is well-connected globally, and understands the positive impact on our national economy, which an FC underpinned by an ethos of constantly leveraging the massive pool of low-carbon green funds available today - instead of relying on income from timber utilisation contracts and granting mining permits - could have on our ability to meet most of the United Nations Sustainanable Development Goals (UN SDGs), and become a prosperous nation whose people enjoy a good quality of life, in all the three strata of Ghanaian society.
The FC actually has the potential to earn more money for our country, annually, than combined revenues from the export of cocoa beans and gold. Above all, the FC could pay all its employees as well as nations such as Norway and Sweden pay those who manage their forests. The time has come for a new CEO for the FC - who understands clearly that the FC has the potential to earn Ghana more money than combined revenues from the export of cocoa and gold do: and has the nous and gumption to put the FC on the path to those stellar profits. Haaba.
Can Dagombas Not Build A Palace Fit For Their King Themselves?
Should those who wrote the inaugural speech delivered on behalf of the newly-installed Yaa Naa, on the day of his enskinment, have paused for a moment, before penning the appeal to President Akufo-Addo's regime to build a new palace for Dagbon's ruler?
The question is: Does Dagbon not count many enterprising and highly-intelligent men and women among its teeming youth - who could marshal the resources needed to build a befitting palace for their king through creative thinking? Haaba. And would the brilliant Ghanaian architect, Kojo Derban, not be happy to design a magnificent edifice for Dagbon's new ruler, if asked to do so by the Yaa Naa himself? Indeed, it would be an honour for any architect, would it not?
Be that as it may, as this blog's widow's mite contribution to the pooling of ideas for raising funds for such a project, we humbly recommend that the traditional outfitters of the kings of Dagbon, should be asked to produce the handmade leather boots, hat, and fugu top/trouser ensemble, such as that worn by President Akufo-Addo on that historic occasion, for sale to the world, on a Gbewaah Palace ecommerce website.
Since the sundry handmade products on the aforementioned ecommerce website will be produced by master craftsmen and women, they will definitely be of superb quality and classified as luxury fashion items that will last a lifetime for those lucky enough to purchase them - and priced accordingly. A thousand dollars per set of leather boots, hat, trousers and fugu top with the seal of the king of Dagbon embossed on them, would be quite a bargain.
And, no one who listened to the royal praise-singer, who strutted his stuff so brilliantly on that joyous occassion, would doubt that the blues genre of music actually originated from the palace of Dagbon's rulers. The possibility of Yendi becoming a mecca for blues singers from around the world, seeking collaborations with Gbewaah Palace praise-singers to produce truly authentic blues songs, is not beyond the realms of possibility. Cool.
That never-ending specialist tourist traffic, could also become a nice little earner for Dagbon, could it not? Combined with contributions from wealthy Ghanaians from across the nation - happy that Dagbon at long last now has a new beginning - surely, Dagombas could put together all the funding needed to build the new Yaa Naa a befitting palace? Indeed, they can - and ought to be encouraged to do so: because they are such an enterprising and dynamic people.
The question is: Does Dagbon not count many enterprising and highly-intelligent men and women among its teeming youth - who could marshal the resources needed to build a befitting palace for their king through creative thinking? Haaba. And would the brilliant Ghanaian architect, Kojo Derban, not be happy to design a magnificent edifice for Dagbon's new ruler, if asked to do so by the Yaa Naa himself? Indeed, it would be an honour for any architect, would it not?
Be that as it may, as this blog's widow's mite contribution to the pooling of ideas for raising funds for such a project, we humbly recommend that the traditional outfitters of the kings of Dagbon, should be asked to produce the handmade leather boots, hat, and fugu top/trouser ensemble, such as that worn by President Akufo-Addo on that historic occasion, for sale to the world, on a Gbewaah Palace ecommerce website.
Since the sundry handmade products on the aforementioned ecommerce website will be produced by master craftsmen and women, they will definitely be of superb quality and classified as luxury fashion items that will last a lifetime for those lucky enough to purchase them - and priced accordingly. A thousand dollars per set of leather boots, hat, trousers and fugu top with the seal of the king of Dagbon embossed on them, would be quite a bargain.
And, no one who listened to the royal praise-singer, who strutted his stuff so brilliantly on that joyous occassion, would doubt that the blues genre of music actually originated from the palace of Dagbon's rulers. The possibility of Yendi becoming a mecca for blues singers from around the world, seeking collaborations with Gbewaah Palace praise-singers to produce truly authentic blues songs, is not beyond the realms of possibility. Cool.
That never-ending specialist tourist traffic, could also become a nice little earner for Dagbon, could it not? Combined with contributions from wealthy Ghanaians from across the nation - happy that Dagbon at long last now has a new beginning - surely, Dagombas could put together all the funding needed to build the new Yaa Naa a befitting palace? Indeed, they can - and ought to be encouraged to do so: because they are such an enterprising and dynamic people.
Sunday, 20 January 2019
We Must Not Allow Faceless Cowards To Get Away With Murdering Journalists In Ghana
The murder of the young Ghanaian investigative journalist, Ahmed Hussein-Suale, shows just how far the ruthless and super-greedy oligarchs, whose baleful influence has enabled them dominate our country for decades - regardless of the party in power - are prepared to go, to silence those who they think pose a real threat to them in Ghanaian society. May the brave Ahmed's soul rest in peace. And may his murder be avenged swiftly.
This blog's humble advice to Tiger Eye Private Investigators, is that they should contact London's Forensic Architecture, quickly, to help reveal the identities of the two suspects-on-a-motorbike, who are alleged to have killed Ahmed. That is the surest way to help speed up investigations by the Criminal Investigations Department of the Ghana Police Service into Ahmed's murder.
Since they apparently killed considerable time, in a betting shop during daylight hours, before murdering Ahmed at night on the day of his killing, coordinates of the betting shop will help Forensic Architecture and its technical partners to use satellite images of the area, to enable them get composite pictures of the faces of the two alleged murderers put together - and subsequently published in the Ghanaian media by the CID investigative team assigned to the case.
By working together with their foreign media partners such as Al Jazeera, to collaborate with Forensic Architecture, Tiger Eye Private Investigators can help bring those behind the cowardly killing of Ahmed Hussein-Suale to book quickly - and get justice for his traumatised family members that way. We must not allow those faceless cowards who target individual journalists and instigate their killing - to ensure that the nefarious activities of our vampire-elites are not revealed to the nation - to get away with such heinous and abominable crimes. Haaba.
This blog's humble advice to Tiger Eye Private Investigators, is that they should contact London's Forensic Architecture, quickly, to help reveal the identities of the two suspects-on-a-motorbike, who are alleged to have killed Ahmed. That is the surest way to help speed up investigations by the Criminal Investigations Department of the Ghana Police Service into Ahmed's murder.
Since they apparently killed considerable time, in a betting shop during daylight hours, before murdering Ahmed at night on the day of his killing, coordinates of the betting shop will help Forensic Architecture and its technical partners to use satellite images of the area, to enable them get composite pictures of the faces of the two alleged murderers put together - and subsequently published in the Ghanaian media by the CID investigative team assigned to the case.
By working together with their foreign media partners such as Al Jazeera, to collaborate with Forensic Architecture, Tiger Eye Private Investigators can help bring those behind the cowardly killing of Ahmed Hussein-Suale to book quickly - and get justice for his traumatised family members that way. We must not allow those faceless cowards who target individual journalists and instigate their killing - to ensure that the nefarious activities of our vampire-elites are not revealed to the nation - to get away with such heinous and abominable crimes. Haaba.
Monday, 7 January 2019
Should Ghana Demand A Revision Of The ECOWAS Protocols Allowing The Free Movement Of Citizens Of Member-States Across The Sub-Region?
The recent arrest of a Nigerian who had rented a property at Ofanko, and had turned it into a shrine full of filth, shocked many in Ghana who witnessed it whiles watching television news reports of the incident. The hapless landlord, who had finally managed to secure a court order for the tenant to be ejected, was clearly relieved that the nightmare he had been going through, was coming to an end. Poor man.
That horrific story, illustrates perfectly, why Ghana should take the lead and demand an immediate revision of the relevant Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) protocols that allow the free movement of the citizens of member states - which enables West Africans to move freely and live in member-nations of their choice in the sub-region. They are now untenable and counter-productive. Full stop.
All ECOWAS citizens must now be compelled to obtain clearance from their national police criminal investigations departments' headquarters before entering another member-state. Ditto clearance from their national immigration service headquarters. They should be made to provide DNA samples, too, in addition to their submitted bio-data. Such data should be shared among the police and immigration authorities in all the ECOWAS states regularly. Nigeria in particular, can post police and immigration officers here, to assist Ghana to screen all Nigerian citizens currently resident in our country.
That will enable us deport the Nigerian crooks ruining the good name of their homeland here with their criminal activities. Far too many ECOWAS citizens with dubious backgrounds have been able to enter our country to live here freely - dreadful individuals who should never have been allowed to do so in the first place. It is such shady characters that have partnered Ghanaian fraudsters to turn our nation into a global power in internet fraud, for example. We must now get rid of all such foreign criminal-types in our midst as quickly as is practicable.
They are abusing our famed hospitality and should no longer be tolerated here. Once that is done, we will begin to see the many benefits of living with law-abiding fellow ECOWAS citizens - benefits that accrue to melting-pot-societies globally: which make their economies dynamic and growth-oriented. The question is: Should Ghana now demand a revision of the ECOWAS Protocols that allow the free movement of the citizens of member-states across the sub-region? Enough is enough. Haaba.
That horrific story, illustrates perfectly, why Ghana should take the lead and demand an immediate revision of the relevant Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) protocols that allow the free movement of the citizens of member states - which enables West Africans to move freely and live in member-nations of their choice in the sub-region. They are now untenable and counter-productive. Full stop.
All ECOWAS citizens must now be compelled to obtain clearance from their national police criminal investigations departments' headquarters before entering another member-state. Ditto clearance from their national immigration service headquarters. They should be made to provide DNA samples, too, in addition to their submitted bio-data. Such data should be shared among the police and immigration authorities in all the ECOWAS states regularly. Nigeria in particular, can post police and immigration officers here, to assist Ghana to screen all Nigerian citizens currently resident in our country.
That will enable us deport the Nigerian crooks ruining the good name of their homeland here with their criminal activities. Far too many ECOWAS citizens with dubious backgrounds have been able to enter our country to live here freely - dreadful individuals who should never have been allowed to do so in the first place. It is such shady characters that have partnered Ghanaian fraudsters to turn our nation into a global power in internet fraud, for example. We must now get rid of all such foreign criminal-types in our midst as quickly as is practicable.
They are abusing our famed hospitality and should no longer be tolerated here. Once that is done, we will begin to see the many benefits of living with law-abiding fellow ECOWAS citizens - benefits that accrue to melting-pot-societies globally: which make their economies dynamic and growth-oriented. The question is: Should Ghana now demand a revision of the ECOWAS Protocols that allow the free movement of the citizens of member-states across the sub-region? Enough is enough. Haaba.
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