Glo Ghana may not have launched on 19th January but...

...it sure is reminding us that it has not forgotten the customer!

I would have thought, though, that the media would have been awash with this very important information.

Rush and reserve before someone gets your favourite number. You have maximum 5 numbers per each mobile number you own.

Good luck!

Things to Do in Accra When...Abuja's dead!

Arguably, it's a terrible title for a Ghana-based blog, but the situation behind the title is equally terrible.

As you may know by now, President Goodluck Jonathon was inaugurated yesterday to the usual pomp and pageantry that accompanies such events. BBC Worldservice was there and covered it extensively on the hour--every hour!

The New York-based Sahara Reporters -- reporting mostly about Nigeria -- explained that in an unprecedented move to shore up security "mobile phone companies were compelled to switch off their transmitters in Abuja and its environs, apparently to forestall any attacks that might be attempted by means of mobile phones to detonate explosive devices at the venue".

Now there's no gainsaying that there's a love-hate relationship between Ghana and Nigeria on account of a number of reasons. The most superficial ones have to do with the fact that we share common language of English; we both enjoy Nollywood movies (though I believe Ghana does so at a naturally-disproportionate rate!!); we both marry across our cultures, resulting in many couples who bear children that are half-Nigerian, half Ghanaian. So it was always going to be normal that small Ghana would be interested in its bigger Nigeria neighbour--pretty much like Canada and the US relate.

Regrettably, the very important point of all phone providers being compelled to shut down their services in Abuja has not featured thus far in any Ghanaian radio or newspaper, prompting personal speculation that Ghanaian media men are just not that into Nigeria as one might have thought.

Given the volume of Ghanaian media men that flow into and out of their big brother, as well as the preponderance on Nigerian banks in this country, I would have thought an interest in how the inauguration went--with all its attendant issues--might be of interest. Were the situation reversed, I doubt Nigeria would have paid that much attention however, but it still does not make it right.

I called one friend in Lagos who's line was working alright; another in Abuja had it "switched off" throughout the day--as well as my close relative in Abuja's MTN phone line that he took from Ghana.

A quick scanning of websites coupled with the report on Sahara Reporters suggested that hours after the inauguration, neither MTN and AIRTEL (both available in Ghana) nor ETILSAT and GLO and others in Nigeria had resumed service. I cannot begin to think of the impact it would have had on emergency services.

Though internal security is not to be sneezed at--anywhere--I debated with myself throughout the day whether Ghana would have done something like this without causing a furore among citizens? While some providers sent messages to their customers (I understand local VISAPHONE in Nigeria did so), I cannot but wonder whether all did so.

Given the reality of the situation in Abuja, I wonder how prepared Ghana would be to a situation like this, and it has got me thinking of a short list for those with relatives in the federal capital territory (FCT) of Abuja:

1. make friends with Nigerians in Ghana. If possible get both their Nigerian and Ghana mobile numbers

2. read Nigerian press online regularly. If your relative has just landed in Nigeria at an auspicious event, there might be security constraints and/or issues he or she would be oblivious to

3. call your Nigerian friends regularly so that in the even of any emergency, they might be able to attend to your relative -- irrespective of the part of the country they might be in.

4. If you have Facebook, monitor Nigerians on Facebook, and connect with them!

Abuja Spaghetti This Side of Midnight

I know I jump to conclusions too easily at times, so I am going to take a sober approach to this: Abuja rocks!

Seriously.

I am sitting in an internet cafe (homepage set at google.com.ng) trying to expatiate aspects of sights and sounds of Abuja and feed them into the mundane activities one gets down to--like having spaghetti.

So, it is true that, like in Ghana, I had to grow a gray beard before my food arrived from the 24hr restaurant here at 3-star Nugget Hotel, but when it arrived, it was the bomb: spaghetti, white sauce, vegetables, and boiled fish (that was very reminiscent of mackerel) lying in some sumptious sauce. Could not be more sated!

Sated, however, is not what I was this afternoon after experiencing--not having--lunch at the so-called luxury Hotel Nicon Luxury. Lunch was a buffet, with the most bland rice and jollof I have ever had. Well not quite "the most", but close enough! Worst of all, there was no fish--and one of the desserts had gone rancid!


The cake for dessert was as dry as a harmattan leaf! What to do? Don't ever confuse the semantics of "luxury" with the real McCoy...

Still, it cannot always be excellent, so cannot really complain as I am still enjoying Abuja.

As a Facebooker Olalade rightly said earlier today:

all of Nigeria is not as prosperous as Abuja and that's why it angers the boys in the Delta that their money has built such a grandiose project as Abuja but they don't have a corresponding city like that in the land where the money comes from

I don't want to get into politics right now, but the post had tremendous resonance with the developments aorund Nigerian politics, especially with the passing of the late Yar'Adua. Whether the former President was an effete individual who spent most of his time ill or not, the guy will go down in history as being instrumental in bringing a degree of closure to the Niger Delta crisis. This is how the Nigerian Compass puts it:

...when you now relate that to President Yar’Adua you would then discover that Nigerians would miss him. He was a fine gentleman and it is even on record that he was the most educated President that Nigeria has ever had. His simplicity, his approach to issues and his life style stood him out from all other leaders that Nigeria has ever had. He saw himself as an ordinary person who found himself in the presidency.

So he never saw anything extraordinary in his position as the president of the country. He had come, he had seen and to some extent , he had conquered but you cannot wish away his contribution to this country. His singular approach to the issue of the Niger-Delta where Obasanjo thought using the military option would solve the problem. What President Yar’Adua has taught us is that jaw jaw against war war can achieve so much. To that extent, I commend him because the relative peace that the Niger-Delta and indeed Nigeria is enjoying today was due to his approach.

So, bottom line is that it is alright to assume quite a bit of things about a country, but it is also alright to take the time to dispel stereotypes by taking the time to work through the narrative of assumptions.

I know Nigeria is far from a perfect place, and being in Ghana, I know Nigerians love the country for its relative and quintessential peace and quiet prosperity, but I think Nigerians have got to love their country more as well.

They have a great future going. Forget the oil. Remember the strong opinions; the strong minds; the regular appearances and contributions the the BBC Worldservice's programmes--especially SPORTSWORLD; the

GLO MOBILE indigenous service, the sharp contrasts...and you got yourself a developing country that is as beautiful as it is paradoxical.

If everything were supposed to be perfect about systems and governments, why on Earth would we now be having an unimaginable coalition exemplified by the strange bedfellows that the Liberal Democrats have become to the Tories.

I don't know, it's all Greek to me!

As the Week Draws to a Close in Accra…Thoughts on Liberia Dressing; MTN Benin Bites the Dust…by Getting Bitten?

I woke up Monday morning to the news that Liberia was cracking down on “immoral” dressing in the country. None of us could do anything but give a mental thumbs-up to the female president Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. For a second, I wished that our President John Agyekum Kufuor was a member of the opposite sex, because she would then pay some greater attention to the increasingly scantily-clad manner in which university girls in particular dress. I’m not of the creed of people who believe that women who dress in such a manner ought to have something bad happen to them, because I think we all have free will and choices, and we should be able to decide to look—and look away.

All that said, I think Liberia has done well, and should be a lesson for a country like Ghana that claims to be the putative, or so-called, gateway to West Africa.

Still in West Africa, I’ve been rolling around myself with glee over what has been transpiring in the ECOWAS country of Benin and MTN. You may recall that a few weeks ago, I reported that I was bored by the Y’ellowness associated MTN, and I am not really that impressed. So it’s great news to see that the Beninois phone regulator—Telecommunications Regulation Authority—is giving MTN a biting hard time.

The crux of the story resides in the fact that when MTN changed its name in Benin, it failed to inform the regulator—or so the regulators claim—and has, consequently led the two entities of MTN and the regulator in a stand-off that has endured since 9 July when the regulators indefinitely switched off MTN in Benin!

This means that as I write, it’s been SIX good weeks since MTN has not been given the nod. Okay, with one exception—it pay a sum of -- what was originally $10million, but has been increased to – a vertiginous $620million! This is in effect 620% increase, and let’s face it: it’s not something that the MTN corporation cannot afford, what with its networks all over the Middle East and much of Africa.



Observers are crying foul, blue murder and all that, because they are saying it’s about the principles inherent in international law, and the breach thereof that is problematic. Beyond that, it’s also about the signal that MTN feels other ECOWAS neighbours might get, though MTN group CEO Phuthuma Nhleko, in an article by ITWEB.CO.ZA maintains (in my view, rather complacently) that it’s not going to happen.

Of course it won’t, especially when MTN ensures it has greased the palms of regulators. I’ve no proof, but speculation has been rife in Ghana—for ages—that this is why National Communications Authority (NCA), despite the fine it imposed on what was then AREEBA last year, never managed to break the defiance of AREEBA in paying the sum!

To top it all off, with the South Africa-based MTN’s network switched off, it’s none other than the (much-maligned) country of an ECOWAS giant Nigeria, and its GLOBACOM that has been granted a ten-year licence to operate in the small ECOWAS country of Benin.

What, for me, is significant about this development is that despite the regionalization of power politics world-wide--as exemplified by multinational-extraordinaire Chevron’s involvement with the West African Gas Pipeline--serious tectonic shifts might just be in the offing in the ECOWAS sub-region as a result of this David-versus-Goliath fight.

The CITI Just Gets Better…
I think CITI 97.3FM has gotten smart by capitalizing on the rather heavy traffic times of 5-7.30pm by introducing a few new programmes on the 7pm slot.



On Mondays, you get a new programme, hosted by veteran Observer columnist Francis Ankrah, which is used for a one-hour interview of statesmen, diplomats, public officials on issues of national development. I had the opportunity of listening to the very first edition some three weeks ago. It was rivetting stuff about the drugs trade. The interviewee was one Gary Nicholls, the Public Relations person at the British High Commission.

On Tuesdays, we get a repeat of a “A Question of Law’, which broadcasts originally on Saturdays for two hours. Thursday, we get a programme called “Sister, Sister: What’s on a Woman’s Mind”, which is a rather thought-provoking one-hour discussion programme seeking to dish out, re-heat and revisit age-old discussions of relationships, and the central role that women play in them.

So, latest news in town is that The Black Starlets beat Brazil 1-0! Despite a good SIX minutes added on as extra time by the Polish referee, the youthful Ghanaian team got one over them, possibly signaling a comeback after many years in the wilderness of bad football…

Have a good weekend!