On 21 August, the BBC carried a story of an 84 year old man who had been sentenced to death for refusing to divorce all but four of his wives.
On 31 August, the BBC said that he had finally divorced 82 of them.
I read the story only last week and discussed it with some people. Our initial response was amusement. It is interesting to consider how conjugal rights of the more physical kind would be organised in such a household
The man also has “at least” 170 children. In order to have 170 children, you would have to be prepared to plan your nights with close attention to your wives’ cycles. I suggested, to some amusement, that he would need a special kind of software to organise how his wives would come to his bed.
After the amusement and the slightly off-colour jokes, however, the anger and disgust set in.
About Rosemary
Blogosphere
Jimbi Media Sites
- AFRICAphonie
AFRICAphonie is a Pan African Association which operates on the premise that AFRICA can only be what AFRICANS and their friends want AFRICA to be. - Bakwerirama
Spotlight on Bakweri Society and Culture. The Bakweri are an indigenous African nation. - Bate Besong
Bate Besong, award-winning firebrand poet and playwright. - Bernard Fonlon
Dr Bernard Fonlon was an extraordinary figure who left a large footprint in Cameroonian intellectual, social and political life. - Fonlon-Nichols Award
Website of the Literary Award established to honor the memory of BERNARD FONLON, the great Cameroonian teacher, writer, poet, and philosopher, who passionately defended human rights in an often oppressive political atmosphere. - France Watcher
Purpose of this advocacy site: To aggregate all available information about French terror, exploitation and manipulation of Africa - George Ngwane: Public Intellectual
George Ngwane is a prominent author, activist and intellectual. - Jacob Nguni
Virtuoso guitarist, writer and humorist. Former lead guitarist of Rocafil, led by Prince Nico Mbarga. - Martin Jumbam
The refreshingly, unique, incisive and generally hilarous writings about the foibles of African society and politics by former Cameroon Life Magazine columnist Martin Jumbam. - Nowa Omoigui
Professor of Medicine and interventional cardiologist, Nowa Omoigui is also one of the foremost experts and scholars on the history of the Nigerian Military and the Nigerian Civil War. This site contains many of his writings and comments on military subjects and history. - Postwatch Magazine
A UMI (United Media Incorporated) publication. Specializing in well researched investigative reports, it focuses on the Cameroonian scene, particular issues of interest to the former British Southern Cameroons. - Simon Mol
Cameroonian poet, writer, journalist and Human Rights activist living in Warsaw, Poland - Victor Mbarika ICT Weblog
Victor Wacham Agwe Mbarika is one of Africa's foremost experts on Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Dr. Mbarika's research interests are in the areas of information infrastructure diffusion in developing countries and multimedia learning. - Tunduzi
A West African in Arusha at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda on the angst, contradictions and rewards of that process. - Dr Godfrey Tangwa (Gobata)
Renaissance man, philosophy professor, actor and newspaper columnist, Godfrey Tangwa aka Rotcod Gobata touches a wide array of subjects. Always entertaining and eminently readable. Visit for frequent updates. - Francis Nyamnjoh
Prolific writer, social and political commentator, he was a professor at University of Buea and University of Botswana. Currently he is Head of Publications and Dissemination at CODESRIA in Dakar, Senegal. His writings are socially relevant and engaging even to the non specialist. - Ilongo Sphere: Writer and Poet
Novelist and poet Ilongo Fritz Ngalle, long concealed his artist's wings behind the firm exterior of a University administrator and guidance counsellor. No longer. Enjoy his unique poems and glimpses of upcoming novels and short stories. - Scribbles from the Den
The award-winning blog of Dibussi Tande, Cameroon's leading blogger. - Enanga's POV
Rosemary Ekosso, a Cameroonian novelist and blogger who lives and works in Cambodia. - GEF's Outlook
Blog of George Esunge Fominyen, former CRTV journalist and currently Coordinator of the Multi-Media Editorial Unit of the PANOS Institute West Africa (PIWA) in Dakar, Senegal. - The Chia Report
The incisive commentary of Chicago-based former CRTV journalist Chia Innocent - Voice Of The Oppressed
Stephen Neba-Fuh is a political and social critic, human rights activist and poet who lives in Norway. - Bate Besong
Bate Besong, award-winning firebrand poet and playwright. - Up Station Mountain Club
A no holds barred group blog for all things Cameroonian. "Man no run!" - Bakwerirama
Spotlight on the Bakweri Society and Culture. The Bakweri are an indigenous African nation. - Fonlon-Nichols Award
Website of the Literary Award established to honor the memory of BERNARD FONLON, the great Cameroonian teacher, writer, poet, and philosopher, who passionately defended human rights in an often oppressive political atmosphere. - Bernard Fonlon
Dr Bernard Fonlon was an extraordinary figure who left a large footprint in Cameroonian intellectual, social and political life. - AFRICAphonie
AFRICAphonie is a Pan African Association which operates on the premise that AFRICA can only be what AFRICANS and their friends want AFRICA to be. - Canute - Chronicles from the Heartland
Professional translator, freelance writer and a regular contributor to THE POST newspaper. Lives in Douala, Cameroon
14 posts categorized "Sounding Off"
THE STRANGE STORY OF THE BREAST-LOVING TORTOISE
There used to be a blogger in Arusha, Tanzania called Tunduzi who sometimes wrote human interest stories. The blogger remained anonymous, but admitted to working for the international tribunal based there. He has unfortunately gone off the ether, but I was able to obtain one of his stories, written in 2006, I believe, which I reproduce here for your amusement.
There was a meeting held recently about a tortoise. Yes, you read right. A tortoise. There has been some sort of urban legend circulating about a tribunal employee who picks (or at least used to pick) up local girls in the street, take them to his house and ask them to let their mammary glands be interfered with by a tortoise. After that, the girls generally died, it was said.
It so happened, the story goes, that on one occasion, a girl who was picked up and taken to the man’s house managed to end up in hospital after her breast-feeding episode. With her dying breath, she told the medics the story of how a man had picked her up in the street, taken her to his home and made her indulge the tortoise. Before she could reveal the name or other identifying particulars of this strange pervert, she died, thus conveniently preventing anyone from finding out if the story really is true.
Continue reading "THE STRANGE STORY OF THE BREAST-LOVING TORTOISE" »
SO WE'RE CANNIBALS, ARE WE?
Sometime in 1992, I was talking to the nursemaid who lived with one of my sisters. Her name was Emilia, and she was an Ibibio girl from Nigeria. We were expounding on the relative merits of our countries. Then Emilia said a startling thing:
“I don’t like Cameroonians because they eat people.”
I had been doing quite well in the argument, but this gave me pause. I had grown up “knowing” that though not all Nigerians ate people, some of them did. Obviously, Emilia had been brought up to believe the same thing of Cameroonians.
Time passed.
A few months ago, I was talking to a European friend in the office, and we got on to this cannibalism business. I said many of those stories were made by Europeans who wanted to find an excuse to steal from people with impunity. But she mentioned that there had been cultures where this thing was accepted practice, like those people in the New Guinea who got a strange disease, kuru, from eating people. I blustered a little after that, but I was stumped. This is what I also “knew”. I decided to find out more about cannibalism.
On reading a great man: Chinua Achebe's famous Conrad essay
I studied Joseph Conrad’s novel, Heart of Darkness, as an undergraduate. The Norton edition of the novel I used at the time included several critical articles. One of them was Chinua 
Achebe’s essay, An image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Never have I, on reading something, agreed with someone so strongly that it brought the tears to my eyes. Never have I admired a writer more.
That was fifteen or so years ago. I have just reread the article again, and it has lost none of his power. It has caused me to start thinking of two main aspects of my relationship with the people on this continent. I am referring how much the people I rub shoulders with know about the world I come from. I am also referring to the things that make me different from them.
In this post, I shall rant and rave a little about what the article brings to mind, but I shall publish another post, possibly next week, which deals with the essay in greater detail.
Achebe is an excellent writer. But though his style makes the article delightful to read, it is the content that is gripping. I can hardly describe the exhilaration that his words inspire. For African lovers of football, imagine if your country were to win the world cup. Then think of this from an intellectual viewpoint. Think of it in terms of cogent, beautiful argument that allows no intelligent or honest riposte.
Continue reading "On reading a great man: Chinua Achebe's famous Conrad essay" »
Mr. Blair and Africa: first, do no harm
I love this blogger’s satire:
Tony Blair is to launch a range of cosmetics upon leaving office, DeadBrain can reveal. The first of those, Blair Foundation, has already been developed and was discovered by our intrepid reporter during a bored afternoon searching the internet.
It’s alright to send Mr. Blair up, I suppose. If you cannot get rid of a leader you do not like, you might as well laugh at him.
But I’m picking another bone here.
Continue reading "Mr. Blair and Africa: first, do no harm" »
Are we Failed States?
In a 16 November 2006 New York Times article by one Howard French, Africa is described as follows: “home to the greatest collection of failed states and underdeveloped nations anywhere”.
I take issue, with this. I take issue really bad.
Mr. French is by no means the first person to use this term, and he may be guilty of nothing more than subscribing to received wisdom. Lord knows there are enough people out there writing about failed states, and even, in the case of this website and this one, publishing a failed state index. I do not really quibble with the failed states indices as such, although one might say that such indices should examine the underlying causes of what they describe as state failure rather than dwelling on the results.
But how long does a state exist before it can be described as having failed?
STARBUCKS AND ETHIOPIAN COFFEE: THE BITTER TASTE OF EXPLOITATION
If you go to the website of Starbucks, the international coffee chain, this is what you will read:
Starbucks strongly believes in the importance of building mutually-beneficial relationships with coffee farmers and coffee communities with which we work. The success of the farmers with whom we do business is a critical component of our own success. We are taking an integrated approach to building relationships with coffee communities.
So why is Oxfam accusing Starbucks of preventing Ethiopia from seeking to gain more control over its coffee trade by opposing that government’s application to have some of its most famous coffee beans trademarked?
Continue reading "STARBUCKS AND ETHIOPIAN COFFEE: THE BITTER TASTE OF EXPLOITATION" »
December 2009
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | ||
| 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 |
| 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 |
| 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 |
Recent Posts
- Entering Fortress Europe
- Bolloré in Cameroon: Another fox in charge of the hen-house?
- Cathloic shenanigans in Cameroon over abortion and homosexuality
- Bolivia: the lithium battle
- Review - From Colonization to Globalization: Difference or Repetition?
- Taxing Bananas
- Somali pirates: The Whole Truth
- The G20: Seizing the wheel and crashing the car
- The man with 86 wives
- An Interview with Rosemary E. Ekosso Author of "House of Falling Women"
Recent Comments