Under the acacias blogs about a recent flood in Burkina Faso – Update on Gorom-Gorom flood and emergency aid:
The Broken DamI went to see the dam on Wednesday. It is about 1km long, mostly built of stone and mud, with a cement spillway in the centre. It is about 3m deep at the deepest part.
The dam itself was mostly in one piece, with parts of it eroded from where water had flowed over the top. But where the dam actually burst was in the two spots where the cement spillway joined with the main stone and mud part of the dam, as you can see in these photos.
The Trials & Tribulations of a Freshly-Arrived Denizen…of Ghana is one the other-hand, worried about the poor electricity supply in Ghana: As the Week Drew to a Close in Accra: Thoughts on Spintex Traffic; Utility Prices; Lessons of Belgian Energy Liberalisation for Ghana:
It was polio immunization week, and as a result, as I heard on Tv3 evening news on 31 October, there was not going to be any load shedding (read: “of the scale there has been”).
In any event, I cannot help but wonder whether the load-shedding exercise is not one too many, having outlived its usefulness. First, the holiday of 23rd October was granted a load-management-free day by the government. Now, this: a good four or five days, where electricity won’t go off for 12 hours.
Ramblings of An African Geek, another Ghanaian blog has Workflow issues:
I have a problem.
Blog writing for me has tended to be something that happens in the middle of the night when its quiet out, i have some privacy and I can spend as long as I need over the keyboard getting my thoughts in shape. Now I don’t get that anymore. The house is full and there really isn’t a secluded corner I can go sit in and work on my posting. Hence I have a long list of things I mean to write about, but I don’t get a solid block of me time to do it.
Maybe I need to wake up earlier in the morning and write then. Or find a place to hide after work where I can pull out a laptop.
I’ll figure something out.
Suggestions are always welcome
We move over to Cameroon where Scribbles from the Den writes about How an Idyllic Transfer of Power Turned Sour (II): The Ahidjo – Biya Honeymoon Ends in Acrimony and Blood:
By Francis K. Wache (Originally published in Cameroon Life, 1(11), Sept. 1991)
Biya is a weak man, a double dealer with a phobia for coups d’etat”. Ahmadou Ahidjo – RFI, August 23, 1983.
Paul BiyaBiya’s first government caused no stir… To all intents and purposes, [it] was Ahidjo’s. Bello Bouba Maigari, a young, soft-spoken, affable Northerner was appointed Prime Minister. At 35, Bello Bouba had been enmeshed in the intricacies and intrigues of behind-the-door politics. In fact, he traveled constantly to foreign capitals as a private Ahidjo envoy. He was publicly known Ahidjo’s protégé. It was murmured that Ahidjo was grooming him for power. In this light, Biya would have served as a caretaker President until 1985 when elections were due and Bello Bouba Maigari would have become President.
That is why, observers reasoned, he had worked as an attaché and Assistant Secretary General of the Presidency – to watch at close range the day-to-day art of ruling; he had been Secretary General of the Armed Forces – to get acquainted with the military; and lately, as Minister of Economy and Plan, he was to acquire first-hand knowledge of the country’s economic machinery.
