"Why is Africa Poor?" Re-Dux

My twitter comments last Monday went thus:

wondering what to say to BBC Mark Doyle when BBC's Over To You team call re:my complaint about Doyle's prog title "Why is Africa Poor?"

Shortly after, BBC did indeed call me. I talked. This is what I put in the status:

Emmanuel K Bensah Jr

Just finished speaking to BBC Mark Doyle, and Rajun of BBC's "Over to You" programme. Mark Doyle sounds like a nice guy. Story behind the title dates back to no less than a Ghanaian friend of his who posed that title a while back when ...Doyle was in Ghana, as they travelled to Cape Coast from Accra! What I said was all over the place, but next Saturday's BBC "Over to You" will summarize it;-)Read More

August 24 at 2:27pm · Comment · Like.

Now, here's the link to the post of the episode Sunday night: http://www.ekbensah.net/my-podcasts/ekb-bbc-over2u-whyafricapoor.mp3

RE: from Over To You on World Service

Dear Mr.Morris,

Many thanks for getting back to me so quickly--and here's wishing you a belated Happy Easter!

Now, I am based in Accra, GHANA. You can reach me on +233-204-311.789. I resume work on Tuesday, but you can kindly reach me around 12.30pm GMT.

Hope to hear from you soon.
Best wishes,
Emmanuel.K.Bensah
----

-Original Message-----
From: Andrie Morris <>
Date: 12/04/09 21:56
To:
Cc:
Subject: from Over To You on World Service

Hello Mr Bensah,

Many thanks for your note to Over To You and the voicemail message you left us.

I'd very like to phone you, to record your comments on what you thought about Saturday's edition of NewsHour, when it tackled the issue of human rights.

I'd be grateful if you could tell me where you're based, the best number to reach you on and time to call.

This is is something I'm keen to do on Tuesday pm in order to make my deadline.

Looking forward to hearing from you very soon.

With best wishes,

Andrie Morris
Reporter / Producer
BBC World Service: Over To You programme made by City Broadcasting
43-51 Great Titchfield Street, London W1W 7DA

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/over_to_you.shtml
mobile: +44 7545 214 355

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Comment re: BBC News Hour programme

Dear Sir/Madam,

I thoroughly enjoyed the second part of Saturday 11 April edition of News Hour. However just to clarify on my call to OVER TO YOU, I want to state that the panel could have included a member of the Arusha-based African Commission on Human & People's Rights, which plans to be subsumed under the African Court of Justice this year.

To boot, a March 2009 report by Chatham House entitled "Africa's New Human Rights Court: Whistling in the Wind" serves to address some of the issues about what African Union is already doing on human rights.

To ask whether the Peru case is a precedent for Africa is, in my view, myopic on the part of a veteran service like the BBC that has great researchers who could have found this report right under their noses, and thus helped inform the programme with a better perspective on Africa.

Thanks.

___sent: e.k.bensah (OGO device)+233.208.891.841/ekbensah AT ekbensah.net

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