— Biography of Thomas Sankara.
Thomas Sankara was Burkina Faso’s president from August 1983 until his assassination on October 15, 1987. Perhaps, more than any other African president in living memory, Thomas Sankara, in four years, transformed Burkina Faso from a poor country, dependent on aid, to an economically independent and socially progressive nation.
Thomas Sankara began by purging the deeply entrenched bureaucratic and institutional corruption in Burkina Faso.
He slashed the salaries of ministers and sold off the fleet of exotic cars in the president’s convoy, opting instead for the cheapest brand of car available in Burkina Faso, Renault 5. His salary was $450 per month and he refused to use the air conditioning units in his office, saying that he felt guilty doing so, since very few of his country people could afford it.
Thomas Sankara would not let his portrait be hung in offices and government institutions in Burkina Faso, because every Burkinabe is a Thomas Sankara, he declared. Sankara changed the name of the country from the colonially imposed Upper Volta to Burkina Faso, which means land of upright men.
Thomas Sankara’s achievements are numerous and can only be summarized briefly; within the first year of his leadership, Sankara embarked on an unprecedented mass vaccination program that saw 2.5 million Burkinabe children vaccinated. From an alarming 280 deaths for every 1,000 births, infant mortality was immediately slashed to below 145 deaths per 1,000 live births. Sankara preached self-reliance, he banned the importation of several items into Burkina Faso, and encouraged the growth of the local industry. It was not long before Burkinabes were wearing 100% cotton sourced, woven and tailored in Burkina Faso. From being a net importer of food, Thomas Sankara began to aggressively promote agriculture in Burkina Faso, telling his country people to quit eating imported rice and grain from Europe, said, “let us consume what we ourselves control,” he emphasized.
In less than 4 years, Burkina Faso became self-sufficientin foods production through the redistribution of lands from the hands of corrupt chiefs and land owners to local farmers, and through massive irrigation and fertilizer distribution programs. Thomas Sankara utilized various policies and government assistance to encourage Burkinabes to get education. In less than two years as a president, school attendance jumped from about 10% to a little below 25%, thus overturning the 90% illiteracy rate he met upon assumption of office.
Living way ahead of his time, within 12 months of his leadership, Sankara vigorously pursued a reforestation program that saw over 10 million trees planted around the country in order to push back the encroachment of the Sahara Desert. Uncommon at the time he lived, Sankara stressed women empowerment and campaigned for the dignity of women in a traditional patriarchal society. He also employed women in several government positions and declared a day of solidarity with housewives by mandating their husbands to take on their roles for 24 hours.
A personal fitness enthusiast, Sankara encouraged Burkinabes to be fitted and was regularly seen jogging unaccompanied on the streets of Ouagadougou; his waistline remained the same throughout his tenure as president.
In 1987, during a meeting of African leaders under the auspices of the Organization of African Unity, Thomas Sankara tried to convince his peers to turn their backs on the debt owed western nations. According to him, “debt is a cleverly managed reconquest of Africa. It is a reconquest that turns each one of us into a financial slave.” He would not request for, nor accept aid from the west, noting that “…welfare and aid policies have only ended up disorganizing us, subjugating us, and robbing us of a sense of responsibility for our own economic, political, and cultural affairs. We chose to risk new paths to achieve greater well-being.”
Thomas Sankara was a pan-Africanist who spoke out against apartheid, telling French President Jacques Chirac, during his visit to Burkina Faso, that it was wrong for him to support the apartheid government and that he must be ready to bear the consequences of his actions. Sankara’s policies and his unapologetic anti-imperialist stand made him an enemy of France, Burkina Faso’s former colonial master.
He spoke truth to power fearlessly and paid with his life before which one week before his assassination, he declared: "While revolutionaries as individuals can be murdered, you cannot kill ideas." On October 15, 1987, Sankara was killed by an armed group with twelve other officials in acoup d'étatorganised by his former colleague Blaise Compaoré.
Upon his assassination, his most valuable possessions were a car, a refrigerator, three guitars, motorcycles, a broken down freezer and about $400 in cash.
In death, Thomas Sankara’s burial place is unkempt and filled with weeds (click to see Thomas Sankara’s graveyard
http://youtube/ bY2UpSxXPlw).
The question is do fine Africans like Sankara n Madiba still exist?
Sunday 13 December 2015
Thursday 19 November 2015
21 Year Old Nigerian Wins 2015 Anzisha Price for young entrepreneurs
In South Africa, a 21-year-old Nigerian was announced as the winner of the 2015 Anzisha prize for young entrepreneurs.
Chris Kwekowe is the founder of Slatecube, which offers job placement services online. He won the $25,000 first place price money.
He is a true survival and through his Job platform for youths.
Chris Kwekowe is the founder of Slatecube, which offers job placement services online. He won the $25,000 first place price money.
He is a true survival and through his Job platform for youths.
Wednesday 18 November 2015
Santa came to Christmas early;Ebola gone before year Ends
A 3-week-old girl in Guinea believed to be the last victim of Ebola has recovered, potentially signaling the end of an unprecedented two-year epidemic in West Africa that claimed more than 11,300 lives.
"It suddenly looks like we really could be at an end before Christmas," said Margaret Harris, a spokeswoman for the World Health Organization (WHO).
By global health standards, 42 days must pass without another case of Ebola for Guinea to be declared free of the disease. The incubation period for Ebola is 21 days and out of an abundance of caution, twice that period of time must pass before the WHO declares the disease is defeated in Guinea.
Two neighboring countries also ravaged by the Ebola epidemic, Liberia and Sierra Leone, have already been declared Ebola free.
Guinea was the last country plagued by the deadly virus, which at its peak last year infected 400 to 500 people a week in West Africa. Health workers say the poverty stricken nation remains particularly vulnerable to new cases because many of the latest victims were people not known to have been exposed to the virus.
"In Guinea, it's been a lot more difficult," Harris said. "A year and a half later, we're still getting people diagnosed after death. It means that the messages (about vigilance) are still not percolating through and all the importance of those actions are not being realized."
The potential final victim is a girl named Nubia who was born Oct. 27 in a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders in Conakry. She is the first infant born with the deadly virus to have survived.
Nubia's mother died of Ebola hours after giving birth and the infant was found to be infected with the virus. But Nubia responded well to treatment at the facility where she was born and on Monday tested negative for Ebola, said Laurence Sailly, an emergency coordinator in Guinea for Doctors Without Borders.
Throughout her three weeks of life, Nubia has never felt a human touch because all medical care has been done by doctors and nurses wearing protective clothing. That may finally end next week, Sailly said.
"We've never had such a young survivor. So there are still a lot of things we are learning in taking care of her," Sailly said. "She's doing fine. She's eating well. She's gaining weight every day."
Sailly said the 42-day countdown toward declaring Guinea Ebola-free began Tuesday. "The government and communities have worked hard with us to arrive at this result. We must still remain vigilant for any potential new cases so that our achievements will not be destroyed," Sailly said.
The epidemic in West Africa triggered a global humanitarian response — and set off far-ranging fears, including in the United States, when a few cases surfaced of infected people who had returned to their home countries from Africa. Last year, President Obama dispatched 3,000 U.S. troops to assist in building clinics and training health care workers in Liberia.
Liberia was declared Ebola-free earlier this year. Sierra Leone followed suit earlier this month.
Harris said the challenge of defeating Ebola in Guinea was overcoming stigma and suspicions of outsiders in remote villages where the disease would surface. Guinea is geographically a far larger country than either Liberia or Sierra Leone and this allowed the virus to spread long distances to communities where health workers had to overcome local resistance toward them to defeat the disease.
Harris said a key factor in defeating the virus in recent months was a new vaccine known as rVSV developed by Iowa-based NewLink Genetics that has been administered to anyone exposed to Ebola in Guinea, as well as to an outer circle of people exposed to those who had been near the virus.
"The case numbers have really begun to come down," Harris said.
Only pregnant women and young children are not eligible for the vaccine because of safety reasons. Harris said that of the last six cases of Ebola in Guinea, two were pregnant women and the other four were children. In recent days, with the exception Nubia, all of those other patients had either died or recovered. Now that Nubia is testing negative for the virus, no other known cases exist, Harris said.
Still, there have been previous countdowns toward Ebola-free status in West Africa that have failed when new cases surfaced.
"We are in need of very strong surveillance for the next 42 days and even longer than that," Sailly said. "We are very happy. But we are very cautious."
Source:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/11/17/last-known-ebola-patient-baby-girl-recovers/75916410/
"It suddenly looks like we really could be at an end before Christmas," said Margaret Harris, a spokeswoman for the World Health Organization (WHO).
By global health standards, 42 days must pass without another case of Ebola for Guinea to be declared free of the disease. The incubation period for Ebola is 21 days and out of an abundance of caution, twice that period of time must pass before the WHO declares the disease is defeated in Guinea.
Two neighboring countries also ravaged by the Ebola epidemic, Liberia and Sierra Leone, have already been declared Ebola free.
Guinea was the last country plagued by the deadly virus, which at its peak last year infected 400 to 500 people a week in West Africa. Health workers say the poverty stricken nation remains particularly vulnerable to new cases because many of the latest victims were people not known to have been exposed to the virus.
"In Guinea, it's been a lot more difficult," Harris said. "A year and a half later, we're still getting people diagnosed after death. It means that the messages (about vigilance) are still not percolating through and all the importance of those actions are not being realized."
The potential final victim is a girl named Nubia who was born Oct. 27 in a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders in Conakry. She is the first infant born with the deadly virus to have survived.
Nubia's mother died of Ebola hours after giving birth and the infant was found to be infected with the virus. But Nubia responded well to treatment at the facility where she was born and on Monday tested negative for Ebola, said Laurence Sailly, an emergency coordinator in Guinea for Doctors Without Borders.
Throughout her three weeks of life, Nubia has never felt a human touch because all medical care has been done by doctors and nurses wearing protective clothing. That may finally end next week, Sailly said.
"We've never had such a young survivor. So there are still a lot of things we are learning in taking care of her," Sailly said. "She's doing fine. She's eating well. She's gaining weight every day."
Sailly said the 42-day countdown toward declaring Guinea Ebola-free began Tuesday. "The government and communities have worked hard with us to arrive at this result. We must still remain vigilant for any potential new cases so that our achievements will not be destroyed," Sailly said.
The epidemic in West Africa triggered a global humanitarian response — and set off far-ranging fears, including in the United States, when a few cases surfaced of infected people who had returned to their home countries from Africa. Last year, President Obama dispatched 3,000 U.S. troops to assist in building clinics and training health care workers in Liberia.
Liberia was declared Ebola-free earlier this year. Sierra Leone followed suit earlier this month.
Harris said the challenge of defeating Ebola in Guinea was overcoming stigma and suspicions of outsiders in remote villages where the disease would surface. Guinea is geographically a far larger country than either Liberia or Sierra Leone and this allowed the virus to spread long distances to communities where health workers had to overcome local resistance toward them to defeat the disease.
Harris said a key factor in defeating the virus in recent months was a new vaccine known as rVSV developed by Iowa-based NewLink Genetics that has been administered to anyone exposed to Ebola in Guinea, as well as to an outer circle of people exposed to those who had been near the virus.
"The case numbers have really begun to come down," Harris said.
Only pregnant women and young children are not eligible for the vaccine because of safety reasons. Harris said that of the last six cases of Ebola in Guinea, two were pregnant women and the other four were children. In recent days, with the exception Nubia, all of those other patients had either died or recovered. Now that Nubia is testing negative for the virus, no other known cases exist, Harris said.
Still, there have been previous countdowns toward Ebola-free status in West Africa that have failed when new cases surfaced.
"We are in need of very strong surveillance for the next 42 days and even longer than that," Sailly said. "We are very happy. But we are very cautious."
Source:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/11/17/last-known-ebola-patient-baby-girl-recovers/75916410/
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