• Waning Strength of Government: Essays on Nigerian Governance

    In Waning Strength of Government, Obaze draws on twenty-three of his various speeches, policy briefs, lectures and op-eds, to render exploratory essays that dissect some common patterns and trajectories that point anthetically to factors and conducts, which ought to constitute the strength of government, but don’t.  In so doing, he unmasks the prevailing weaknesses and waning strength of government – the attendant consequences, and their prevalence and implications for Nigeria.

    Such developments, with the attendant reversals, some nondescript and some dramatic, but replete with absence of resilience, leads the author to assert that democracy, “once characterized as probably the greatest expansion of freedom,” has come under assault from within its ranks, as shifts in geopolitics combine with ascendancy of non-state actors to undercut democracy.  Cognizant of the suggestion that the democratic system as conceptualized, has not just worked as expected, but is rather dysfunctional, the author asserts that nowhere is this consideration more evident and concrete than in Africa, Nigeria included.

    Waning Strength of Government piggybacks on the assertion that Nigeria’s “democracy is in reverse gear” and “the story is that of regrets and missteps.” Obaze employs an inquiry and excursion model using the flipside of McGeorge Bundy’s 1968 seminal book, The Strength of Government, to analyze leadership, political and governance challenges that continue to dog Nigeria’s nascent democracy.  The essays in this volume, which are clustered into four groupings; democratic imperatives; domestic development challenges; foreign policy dimensions and leadership and governance, explore some Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT), as well as general challenges and uncertain aspects of Nigeria’s affected democracy.

    In this very important work on Nigerian contemporary politics, leadership and dilemmas confronting the nation, the point is made severally, and vehemently too, that the strength of government is not about military capacity or use of force; but about the upholding the rule of law, consolidating democratic institutions and entrenching the social contract between the government and the governed.

  • Tour Guiding: The Ultimate Guide to Theory and Practice

    **Available from 16 October, 2021

    Guides are tourism professionals who lead their guests through the most interesting parts of their region. It is their task to engage visitors and to help interpret the sights that they visit. They please tourists by telling interesting but relevant narratives and respond in proactive ways to their complaints and requests. Guides are trained to always have enough knowledge and insight about the subject of the tour and ensure the safety and satisfaction of their guests.

    In this handy resource book, two seasoned practitioners have combined their working experience of a lifetime. What makes this book priceless is that it is enriched by over two decades of guide training experience as well as engagements with colleague guides, tourism professionals and a cross-section of tourists.

    “The scope of coverage is vast and will be very useful as a general guidebook for any reader seeking access to our history, geography and our rich cultural heritage.” – Mrs. Stella W. Appenteng, CEO, Apstar Tours Limited

    “Tour guiding is a bridging process around which the tourism experience revolves. This book comes to edify our tour guides on the substance and mechanics of their profession. It comes at a time when the industry has become more dynamic and in need of accurate, adequate, culture-nuanced interpretations.” – Tata Nkunu Akyea, Tourism Consultant & Tour Guide Extraordinaire

  • Nyakyusa-English-Swahili & English-Nyakyusa Dictionary

    Unhappy with the policy of using English as the medium of instruction in secondary schools in Tanzania which left his students bewildered, a Norwegian volunteer teacher in Ipinda, Tukuyu, south western region of Tanzania decided that his students would probably cope with the foreign language only after they were grounded first in the structure of their own languages — Nyakyusa and Swahili. As a trilingual dictionary was not available, he set out to compile one and this well-produced dictionary is the product. Words, examples and usages are included.

  • Leadership in Africa Redefined – Untold Stories

    The story on leadership in Africa is not a good one. It is a story in which the key actors are often corrupt, authoritarian politicians. And yet, this is only one side of the story.

    The untold story is that Africa is also home to leaders who are imaginative, adaptable, ethical, and empowering. These are leaders who are transforming the spaces they serve on this continent. They are redefining leadership in Africa.

    The time has come where we need to stop defining our leadership by the worst of us. We need to learn from the best of us.

    Taaka Awori’s Leadership in Africa Redefined offers concrete principles to guide the practice of this form of leadership. Using the stories and lessons from outstanding leaders on the continent, Taaka Awori illustrates the idea that your leadership reflects who you are as a person. Her hope is that this book will be an inspiration and a practical guide to support each reader in becoming the leader Africa needs and deserves.

  • Letter To My Grand Children

    Full of short observations about life, this book provides great parental guidance on life issues. It comes from the experiences, observations and lessons of a well-travelled man and his friends who want to leave something for the current and next generation to store in their heart.

    75.00
  • Amu the African: A Study in Vision and Courage

    This book is an account of the life and work of Dr. Ephraim Amu, the renowned Ghanaian educationist and reformist — a great creative musician of world rank whose contributions are a cultural heritage for the world. It gives the story of Amu’s life and the contribution he has made to the development of the Church, Education, Morality, the Youth, Agriculture, Nutrition, Ghanaian Cultural Nationalism and, especially, the evolution of Ghanaian music.

    Not since Dr Kwegyir Aggrey has any other Ghanaian influenced more positively the development of Ghanaian culture and pride in the African Personality than Dr Ephraim Amu.

  • These Bones Will Rise Again

    What are the right questions to ask when seeking out the true spirit of a nation?

     In November 2017 the people of Zimbabwe took to the streets in an unprecedented alliance with the military. Their goal, to restore the legacy of Chimurenga, the liberation struggle, and wrest their country back from over thirty years of Robert Mugabe’s rule.

    In an essay that combines bold reportage, memoir and critical analysis, Zimbabwean novelist and journalist Panashe Chigumadzi reflects on the ‘coup that was not a coup’, the telling of history and manipulation of time and the ancestral spirts of two women – her own grandmother and Mbuya Nehanda, the grandmother of the nation.

    Chigumadzi successfully nests the intimate charge of her poignant personal story in the sweeping historical account and mythology of Zimbabwe. – Brian Chikwava, author of Harare North

    Chigumadzi’s exploration of personal, family and national history reincarnates in stark, vivid images, many of those interred in the shadows of her country’s ‘Big Men’. – Tsitsi Dangarembga, author of Nervous Conditions

  • Kwame Nkrumah: Vision and Tragedy

    The yearlong celebration of Ghana’s Golden Jubilee provides a fitting context for the republication of the book Kwame Nkrumah: Vision and Tragedy. In the lead-up to the celebration and over the course of the year, the life and times of Kwame Nkrumah will receive unprecedented public attention, official and unofficial. Kwame Nkrumah’s very wide name-recognition is, paradoxically, accompanied by sketchy, often oversimplified knowledge about the events and processes of his life and times. For most of those born after independence in 1957, such knowledge does not extend much beyond who Kwame Nkrumah was and vague notions about he won us Independence.

    This book presents new material and new analysis, which helps to clarify aspects of the record, while advancing new perspectives. What comes across clearly throughout the book is the significant contribution of Nkrumah’s vision and personality at a critical moment in the history of Africa and the Third World. He, perhaps more than any other, was able to identify, focus and catalyse the major factors and players driving the struggle for political independence in Ghana and liberation in other parts of Africa. In the process, he committed his life and work totally to a wide variety of activities and processes in Ghana, the continent and in the global Non-Aligned Movement.

    “This is an objective study which should be read by all concerned with the history of post-colonial Africa.” – Conor Cruise O’Brien Former Vice Chancellor, University of Ghana, Legon

  • The Fear of Failure: An Autobiography

    From Agomanya in the Eastern Region of Ghana, a 65 year old J. P. Adjimani narrates his life and how his fear of failure spurred him on instead of derailing him. In his autobiography, the biochemist unravels why he was never promoted to be a professor despite having a 28-year admirable career in Ghana’s premier university, University of Ghana.

  • The Danquah-Busia Tradition in the Politics of Ghana: The Origins, Mission and Achievements of the New Patriotic Party

    The book traces the nation’s political history from its status as a model British African Colony, the Gold Coast, to its attainment of political independence as the modern state of Ghana in 1957, under the leadership of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. The author gives full recognition to the overwhelming debt that Ghana in particular and Africa in general owe to Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s vision as one of the giants of Pan-African Emancipation.

    The book systematically documents the contribution of Dr. Joseph Boakye Danquah and Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia in the freedom struggle. The courageous and impressive role of Professor Adu Boahen in the breaking of the so called “culture of silence” in 1988 at the height of the PNDC regime under Flt. Lt. J. J. Rawlings is acknowledged.

    In the concluding Chapter 13 all the leaders of the tradition are assessed – Dr. Joseph Boakye Danquah passes the litmus test as a doyen of Ghana politics, with impeccable democratic credentials for human rights and the rule of law. The deviation from the ideals of the Danquah-Busia Tradition by Dr. Busia during his two and half years as Head of Government is commented on. Dr. K.A. Busia challenged the rule of law in its response to the ruling of the Supreme Court in the infamous case of Sallah vs. The Republic.

    Other serious deviations from the principles of the Danquah-Busia Tradition were the way in which Dr. Busia implemented the Aliens Compliance Act in 1969. Then also the throwing overboard the belief in meritocracy and the shortcomings of the “zero tolerance of corruption” by President J.A. Kuffour led administration of the Patriotic Party are discussed.

    However, the important and positive achievements of the NPP Government under President Kuffour such as the successes in establishing the Ghanaian economy, upholding the rule of law, enhancing good governance, improving the education and health copulation and thus lifting the flag of Ghana high in Africa and in the international community are not ignored.

    Some of the criticisms may be harsh but the author is a committed member of the Tradition and he justifies his criticism of the Kuffour government with its own commitment to “ensure that the high ideas and objectives which have guided the Tradition through good and bad times should not at any time and under any circumstance be sacrificed for narrow partisan interest or worse still for personal gain”.

    The form and force of the impact of these criticisms must be left to individual assessment and experience. The author has succeeded in intellectually stimulating and provoking democrats and non-democrats of whatever affiliation to digest the contents of this book and make their own judgment. He has opened the door for a fresh appraisal of the noble ideals of the Danquah-Busia Tradition.

    In the Way Forward, the author makes some reflections on the future direction of the NPP.

    Politicians, opinion leaders, the media, social observers and social critics as well as students of history and political science will find this book invaluable.

  • Afajato: Stories from Around the Volta Lake

    In response to the Aidoo Centre’s call for submissions, 144 entries poured in from writers eager to contribute to this literary exploration of the Volta Region and Togo.
    The editors and publishers, committed to fostering diverse voices and storytelling styles, welcomed a range of submissions, including humour, quality flash fiction, and stories with experimental narratives.

    This book is a collection of stories that made the cut. It follows the success of the Centre’s previous publications, including Adabraka: Stories from the Centre of the World, Larabanga: Stories from the Savannah, The Lockdown: creative nonfiction about living with COVID-19, and Untold Stories Vol. 1.

    Each publication has contributed to the Centre’s mission of promoting critical reading, creative writing, and literacy among the youth in Ghana.

  • Diamonds, Gold and War: The Making of South Africa

    Southern Africa was once regarded as a worthless jumble of British colonies, Boer republics, and African chiefdoms, a troublesome region of little interest to the outside world. But then prospectors chanced upon the world’s richest deposits of diamonds and gold, setting off a titanic struggle between the British and the Boers for control of the land. The result was the costliest, bloodiest, and most humiliating war that Britain had waged in nearly a century, and the devastation of the Boer republics.

    The New Yorker calls this magisterial account of those years “[an] astute history…Meredith expertly shows how the exigencies of the diamond (and then gold) rush laid the foundation for apartheid.”

  • Coast of Slaves

    This is the first volume in Hansen’s classic slave trade trilogy. When America was discovered and plantations established, slave labour became the principal export commodity from the Gold Coast. This book is about the history of Danish/Norwegian participation in the trans- Atlantic slave trade. It describes the organisation of the trade, the participants, the challenge, and the link with the West Indies to where the slaves were transported for work on the sugar plantations. It describes Danish purchase of islands in the West Indies, and traces how the decline in Dutch and British trade, and the abilities of the Danish administration led to a golden age in the Danish slave trade in the 1770s and 1780s. In that period, the Danish share in the total slave trade exceeded ten percent; and the decline in the trade with the growth of a new European consciousness, heralded abolition.

    Coast of Slaves, the first volume of the trilogy, was originally published in Danish in 1967. This English translation is edited to provide explanations about inaccessible references as well as established factual misrepresentations.

    Coast of Slaves

    85.00
  • Love Is Power, or Something Like That: Stories

    When it comes to love, things are not always what they seem. In contemporary Lagos, a young boy may pose as a woman online, and a maid may be suspected of sleeping with her employer and yet still become a young wife’s confidante. Men and women can be objects of fantasy, the subject of beery soliloquies. They can be trophies or status symbols. Or they can be overwhelming in their need.
    In the wide-ranging stories in Love Is Power, or Something Like That, A. Igoni Barrett roams the streets with people from all stations of life. A man with acute halitosis navigates the chaos of the Lagos bus system. A minor policeman, full of the authority and corruption of his uniform, beats his wife. A family’s fortunes fall from love and wealth to infidelity and poverty as poor choices unfurl over three generations. With humor and tenderness, Barrett introduces us to an utterly modern Nigeria, where desire is a means to an end, and love is a power as real as money.

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