This last publication for the month of September goes the extra mile to get scintillating reports aimed at preparing you to feel the pulse in Africa every week. The fact that new reports hit the website at the end of the week is a deliberate strategy to draw from fading times and events in embracing a new week with all its concomitants, its expectations and irrelevances. For instance, the opening session of the 2017 UN General Assembly has come and gone but the echoes it generated have continued to vibrate. The tempo of the music may be over but certainly, the melody continues.
African First Ladies did not just accompany their husbands to New York for the UN General Assembly. They were not there merely to serve as spare tires or room warmers. They found time to review the progress so far made on issues concerning the women folk in the continent. We have a report on one of the Round-table events the women organised in New York last week.
But some of the First Ladies will certainly not want to hear this – their husbands have no business remaining in office. They are spent forces that have nothing else to give. About ten or eleven Presidents in Africa have spent twenty or more years as Head of State and have become sit-tight rulers and dictators. These dictators are holding their countries, and indeed, Africa to ransom. Some are on the verge of becoming President for life. Africa cannot make meaningful progress until we do away with rulers who do not believe in term limits and the rule of law. Read our political analysis of the pathetic situation.
We are glad to publish our first Personality Profile. No matter how dark our political leaders want to paint the cloud in Africa, the stellar system will never stop turning out great stars and meteors. We found such a rare star, a man who has been able to bestride various disciplines with ease while still looking innocent and undefiled. Open the door and usher in our man, Professor Kingsley Chiedu Moghalu. His life story is as captivating as it is engaging. Although we did not originate the story, it is still a must read. We look forward to catching such change agents and presenting them to you, gratis.
The Catholic Pontiff, Pope Francis 1, is irrepressible. No one can stop him from saying it as he sees it. His remarks can be the delight of writers and reporters looking for honesty, innocence and humility. See the meekness with which he makes light of words that ordinarily look heavy and difficult.
If you are not a football or soccer fan, pardon us. Our reporters are crazy about the on-going qualifying stage of the 2018 World Cup. Very soon, it will be over and we will turn our searchlight elsewhere. Keep your sunny side up.
Pat I. Chukwuelue
Editor-in-Chief
