Yikpa-Au Village

Lucky Dube the great South African reggae man has been murdered by car thieves in the streets of Jahannesburg yesterday. Africa and the the world has just lost not only a great musician but a great man. He always sung about social issues in his country and in Africa. He lived without alcohool or drugs contrary to a lot of rastas. He had been known all over the world. He’s now gone at the age of 43 because of crimes in big cities in south Africa. Can you believe that the rate of crimes in South Africa is 6 times the USA’s???
May Lucky Dube rest in peace! We will never forget him.

The electoral commission of Togo (dominated by RPT members and the president of the comission is from RPT as well) has proclaimed late last night the RPT winner of the congressional elections that took place last sunday October 14th, 2007 in Togo.
Now that I think back about how the actual president came to power in 2005 after his father died on the plane taking him to France for treatment, and how they came back quickly to Togo forbade the airplane that the president of the Assembly (who according to the constitution was supposed to become the interim president) was on to land in Lome and how they made the late dictator’s son president killing more than 500 people according to UN, I ask myself why in the world did I get optimistic about the outcome of last sunday’s election.
They said they won the elections again and it outrages me when western media like RFI and others are saying that this shows that the RPT is the premier political party in Togo, well-established blah blah blah… It seems to me like they don’t know anything about Togo and that they think that a people oppressed by one group of people (RPT) and one man (Eyadema) for 40 years and after the death of whom, his son was put in power by the military (and a fake election), a people who can’t find enough to eat, is so dumb that it would still vote for the RPT (forever and ever).
In congressional elections in the 90’s, it was the CAR of Yawovi Agboyibo that won 36 seats more that the RPT of Eyadema and another opposition party that won 7 seats and then the government had to kill some elected congressmen of CAR and corrupt some opposition leader like Edem Kodjo to get the majority at the National Assembly. And nothing has changed since then if not that more people were killed and the population is hungrier. So saying that the RPT really won these elections is just outrageous to me.
These elections came after long rounds of negotiations and what not and the EU, the Francophonie, and other organizations were involved in the election organization process and that made people believe that maybe something will happen this time and that explains the more than 80 % participation, but what are elections good for in Togo when you know that your votes will not count for anything and that the results will not reflect the elections or what people voted for, when the wrong result will always be given? The proof they truncated the results, according to the results they gave yesterday the participation was 95% and today they are saying it was 85%. We don’t need elections in Togo any more. Togo really seems to me like a God forsaken country.