It seems like this is becoming second nature, of sorts. So, I have started to get myself soaked up with this phenomenon called blogging. I’ll ask for you to pardon me, not like a turkey, but just in case my daily nuggets of things about Africa is becoming a nuisance to you.

In any case, one of my “motivation buddies”, I am not going to call his name, but he is popular in the motivation circles , emailed me something very striking Friday evening and I thought it was worth talking about.

He said, “Everybody is a leader and entrepreneur, unfortunately, most people die before they realize it.”The implications of this thought are wide butI like to apply this to Africa.

Let me amplify this in a few paragraphs. If all the talents that Africa has can be put to use right now, we would be the most productive continent in the world. Unfortunately that is not the case.

We are moving in that direction with the internet. The internet in Africa is  now everybody’s thing. Even though not everyone can afford it, we’re hoping that someday it will become “the peoples protest weapon”. Even grandma is using the internet in Africa and I get emails, including text messages, from everyone these days. Cell phones are also big too. No more “Dark Ages” in Africa. Huh. I am not blowing up anything here. I just wish this were the case.

Anyway, I think we can return back to the basics and focus more on the continent and stop focusing more on those countries where a lot of us have moved into. What does this mean? I am not saying that we should not think outside of Africa. What I am saying is that when Africa becomes a priority, then everything else becomes secondary. It means borrowing ideas from these great nations that have proved to be successful and trying out those ideas in Africa. Please don’t tell me about African circumstances, African solutions to African problems and things like that. I have heard that argument before but that is not what I am talking about right now.

This means not only complaining that we lack opportunities or that our colonial masters treated us badly but realizing that we too can become the entrepreneurs that we want to be in Africa, if we create the right conditions in our minds.

The worst has already happened in Zimbabwe. When there is a cholera outbreak in which at least 500 people have already died in Zimbabwe, coupled with a political crisis that bears implications for all of Africa, we hear new screaming that it is time for President Robert Mugabe to go. I think a little differently about what is now taking place in Zimbabwe.

I don’t think it is time for Mugabe to leave when there are signs that a peace deal might be signed with the opposition MDC. I don’t think it is time for him to leave when he is beginning to loosen up a little bit. I don’t think it is time to leave when he needs to stay behind and help fix all the problems that he has helped create. It might be time that we carefully think through the problems in Zimbabwe instead of quickly calling for the president to go.

I am amused each time my friends send me invitations to either join a new Africa discussion group  or to help start another one and to see if that might be a place to spread much information about the Africa Agenda organization. The argument, they tell me, is to get noticed and perhaps build membership of this organization. Oftentimes there is an eagerness to join one of these groups. The problem is, i like to know more about what it is that takes place at these online chat rooms about Africa?

Having been a member of a few discussions groups about Africa in the past, i must say there is plenty of buzz with ideas that can really help move and propel the entire continent into a haven of progress, development and democracy. Only problem is, much of these ideas are far from taking root into real action that would actually help.

While i stand to benefit from many ideas about Africa that intend to add zest to much of the accomplishments of Africa in the 21st century, i also stand to ask my Africa comrades to do more and to move away from too much talk and online discussion forums into real organizations with an impact throughout the world.  Th first step in this direction is an “actionable” agenda that translates words into moveable plans. It may not be a perfect plan carved out by the best brains in the world but something worth showing to the world even in an imperfect form. If you disagree with me, i like to hear your take on this matter. Email us or post a comment on this blog

It’s the season for more despair about Africa. It’s the season of not only Christmas and the merrymaking that goes with it but also the season for another juggernaut of “Four D’s” out of Africa. Just a few days ago, it was another recounting on CNN of the 1994 genocide that took place in Rwanda and Burundi in “Scream Bloody Murder”. We’ll, they say everyone has learnt the lessons and it’s time to move on. Apparently, the media giant called CNN has not moved on from telling and re-telling the stories over and over. It is a nice lesson in history for those still concerned that similar calamities might be taking place in Darfur. But at the same time, it appears that Four D’s, disease, desperation, despair and disaster is all that the world will continue to know about Africa and its people.

Watch out December 11 when Anderson Cooper begins the “Planet in Peril” series about global warming. There is a boat load of stuff and surprises about Africa in it that you don’t want to miss.

If you are crazy about nuclear power in Africa, please check out the BBC’s series on this topic coming up Dec 4. read the below notes or follow the attached link to learn more.

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Africa is searching for future sources of energy. Vera Kwakofi looks at whether the continent should go nuclear or use solar power.

If you’ve ever flown over Africa at night, there’s no escaping the fact that it is a continent of darkness.  Lights twinkle only around the northern and southern tips of the continent. That’s because only one in three of Africa’s 700 million people has electricity, and in the countryside only one in ten has light at the flick of a switch.

After years of underinvestment in its energy sectors, Africa is suddenly at an energy crossroads. It has to bring desperately-needed power to students forced to close their books when the sun goes down and to the girls and women who, every single day, spend hours scavenging for firewood.

Even where there is power, frequent blackouts are crippling economic and social development.  So which way will the continent head? As the world once again turns its attention to nuclear energy as an answer to rising demands and fears over carbon emissions, should uranium-rich Africa become part of this nuclear renaissance? Or should the continent look to what are arguably some of greatest natural assets: the powerful African sun and the thundering geothermal energy bubbling away under the huge Rift Valley stretching through east Africa.

∙Part One
Vera Kwakofi travels to Africa’s only nuclear country, South Africa, to investigate the development of a new generation of nuclear reactors designed to meet Africa’s specific needs. She also visits Namibia, where the government is determined to exploit vast uranium resources and go nuclear.

∙Part Two
Vera turns to renewable energy, visiting Africa’s largest solar farm in Rwanda to explore the role of sun in powering up remote communities. In Kenya, it’s what’s below the earth – the Rift Valley’s geothermal power – that is attracting foreign investor interest.