In attendance was the Senior Economic Adviser to President Paul Kagame, Francis Gatare.

Citing a Kinyarwanda proverb, “Intobyi y’amaraso irayitera” loosely translated as the fate of two fingers is to live together, Ambassador Hong said that bilateral relations between the two countries have kept growing stronger despite changes in international situations.

“Cindy created a strong program and fostered a love and respect for music here,” praised Peterson. “The administrators really help with recognizing the importance of music in the schools, too.”

With her 80 eighth graders, Peterson presents “Pamoja,” with origins in an African proverb.

“It’s a joyful song with rhythmic energy, and the lyrics mean ‘We work together, we reach together, we grow together, we go far,’” she said.

“Over the weekend, our skills were tested the most.  Two young girls — Phylisa and Winshae  —  were abducted by a man who was out on bail.  Madam Speaker, when I heard of the act, I cringed, and as a mother, my heart broke and I cried. Like many others I had several sleepless nights,” she said.

“An African proverb states that it takes a village to raise a child and Madam Speaker, our village came out in droves to rescue our children. We had a manhunt on the ground, including our security forces. People came from near and far and I want to thank each and every citizen and volunteer that assisted the security forces. Thank you to those who prayed for their safety,” she said.

She continued: “Did you see what happened in Eastern St Thomas? An African proverb says, when spider webs unite, they can tie up a lion!  Madam Speaker, my tears of sadness quickly turned to anger and I want to warn those monsters in our society that we are watching and we will not accommodate your nastiness. We will not accommodate your stalking, raping and terrorising our children. I am calling on all well-thinking Jamaicans, men and women, to push them out from the darkness. Let us know who they are. Everything done in the dark must come to light,” she added.

There is this popular African proverb that says, “A child who washes his hands well is given a seat at the table to dine with the elders.” This is because age is no limitation when it comes to greatness. Many African societies believe character is what opens doors of opportunities and respect.

The reverse also holds true. An elder or a chief who, despite the position he holds in the society, decides to play the game of Oware with a commoner, loses the reverence accorded him as he is subject to the rules of the game.

“We had our first (online) convening in March 2021,” Christina said. Since then, Christina has facilitated monthly sessions, recorded live and posted online, with various stakeholders for NetWorked. Topics include various grants, programs and technical assistance that provide cross-sector investment in non-profit community development organizations as well as for-profit businesses. 

“We want to make bold changes and attack real problems,” Christina said. What drives her to do this work?  “I live by the African proverb that says, `I am because we are,’” she said.  “We’re interconnected. I want to bring about changes in people’s lives and make this a better place.” 

We use it to teach valuable lessons. You see, history teaches us lessons that protect the present. We learn how not to treat each other. We learn how to treat each other.

Teaching a full history is vital to our future. Instead of a Bible quote, I want to share an African proverb: “The way out is back through.” Do not fight against teaching our students the truth about our country.

THERE’S an Arabic Bedouin maxim, “Abuses are signs that the bond is deep and strong.” Similarly, a long North African proverb of Tunisia states that “those who don’t abuse occasionally are as dry as a piece of wood in the desert. They die friendless.”

Now this is the most interesting proverbial observation that those who don’t abuse, die friendless. Utter this saying before any true-blue Haryanvi or Punjabi and he’ll latch onto it because in northern India, abuses are like oodles of ketchup on the food of conversation.

There is a popular African proverb that says: “It requires a lot of carefulness to kill the fly that perches on the scrotum”. This saying is indeed what Nd’igbo should be telling themselves in the Anambra gubernatorial election and more importantly the 2023 general elections.

In the recent past, the clamour for secession in Southern Nigeria has grown even stronger especially in the Southeast and Southwest regions of the country. A lot of reasons could be attributed to this clamour but it is instructive to note that this is not the first time that Nd’Igbo is asking to leave the Nigerian state.

The project which is for satellite deployment in the Nigerian market has all the trappings of being a “good thing in a big package” delivered to Nigeria yet again by the Globacom Chairman.

Like a popular Igbo proverb says,”Okuko ga abu oke na-esi na eju” (translates roughly to “the chicken that will be male starts right from the egg”). How big a package the deal signed at the Elysee Palace in Paris is was symbolised by the presence of the French President, Mr. Emmanuel Macron, at the ceremony.

As the Yoruba proverb says, ‘20 children can’t play for 20 years’. Can we really say the same for Basketmouth and Buchi? We doubt it. From hustling as rookie comedians to becoming a formidable force in the comedy world, this duo has shown us how to pull our friends along with us on our success journeys. They are truly deserving of their flowers. 

« Tout a une fin, sauf la banane qui en a deux. » (Proverbe africain)

there is no gainsaying that the higher the numbers, the brighter the collective fortunes of groups or individuals that populate a given political party. This, succinctly, is in sync with a popular African adage, ‘a tree does not make a forest’. Or, perhaps, another that says, ‘when a collective urinates in a spot, it conjures a foam!’

Aux termes des dispositions de l’article 363 du pénal Guinéen « La diffamation est toute allégation ou imputation d’un fait qui porte atteinte à l’honneur ou à la considération de la personne ou de la collectivité à laquelle le fait est imputé. L’injure est constituée par toute expression outrageante, terme de mépris ou invective qui ne renferme l’imputation d’aucun fait précis ».

Il ressort de la lecture de cette disposition que toute expression outrageante ou de mépris proférée contre une personne qu’elle soit publique ou non fait courir à l’auteur des sanctions pécuniaires ou privatives de liberté.

Ce qui implique comme le disait un dicton Africain « qu’il faut plusieurs fois remuer la langue avant de parler » car toute intervention blessante avec des termes de mépris sont sévèrement sanctionnée par la législation guinéenne.

Si la liberté d’expression nous permet de dire tout ce que nous voulons, cependant cette liberté se trouve être encadrer par la loi d’où la l’incrimination de certains comportements liés à l’exercice de cette liberté d’opinion.

If he is, indeed, really interested in raising the level of integrity of the WASSCE, both the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) administered examination and the diploma or certificate annually issued therefrom, we may have to, literally, begin from the beginning in accordance with that evergreen and memorable Ibo/Igbo proverb which my globally celebrated late mentor and teacher, Prof. Chinua Achebe meticulously captured in his classic novel “Things Fall Apart” (1958), which runs as follows: “The man [or woman, for that matter] who does not remember where the rain began to beat him, can also not say [or remember] where he dried his body.”

In short, playing fast and loose or the politics of selective amnesia with the perennially abject and unsavory quality of Ghana’s public education system is highly unlikely to get any of us very far, especially those of us in the public education business who really care about the future destiny of both our beloved country, Ghana, and the destiny of our proverbial Leaders of Tomorrow. You see, it was the Talibanistic or anti-intellectual governance policies of both the Jerry John Rawlings-led junta of the Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC) and, subsequently, the faux-civilianized establishment of the National Democratic Congress that brought the quality of our public education system this scandalously and execrably and abjectly low. And on the latter count, I am thinking about that era of unpardonable and irredeemable criminality when the leaders of the National Democratic Congress, including, of all leaders, the globally respected and expertly erudite Prof. John Evans Atta-Mills, ran a 3-year Senior High School System and Curriculum, scandalously ignoring the morally and academically significant fact that the old British-inherited 5-year system had served us in unquestionably good stead.

But, perhaps, what we ought to be emphatically highlighting here is the respective magnitude of the public education budget and development policies pursued when either of our major political party establishment has been at the helm of our national affairs. I bet my proverbial bottom-dollar, Dr. Apaak, that the rest of the world could care less whether our children and grandchildren sleep their way or bribe their way through their West African School Certificate Examination, trust me. You see, how we prepare our younger generation to effectively compete with or against their counterparts in our highly technological global socioeconomic culture is decidedly our own damn frigging business. The world is much too steadily focused on its progress and development to stop and watch what our chucklehead leaders are doing with the destiny of our youths and our collective national destiny, of which Ghanaians are inescapably and incontrovertibly our own masters and architects.

“Etwitwa mini suro ayaya nna”.

That is an Akan proverb which loosely translates as, “the cut throat fears to sleep in supine position, lest his own throat be slashed”

Muhamadu Bawumia, Ghana’s Vice President, is currently overwhelmed by a mortal fear of the NDC as he is reported to have told participants at a retreat for Majority NPP MPs and members of the Executive, that the NDC is planning to frustrate his party’s efforts at governing.

The exact quote attributed to the loquacious Vice President is as follows, ”the propaganda machinery of the NDC is well oiled using their representation in Parliament. Every conceivable government intervention or intention will be seriously attacked.

They will question the government’s promises, they will question the government’s achievements and they will question the government’s intention, they will unleash attacks both on the floor of Parliament and outside the floor”.

Despite the fact that enforcement of the new fees for motor vehicle numbers and driving licences might have commenced from July 30, this year, the conduct of public hearings in different parts of the country to  enable the motorists to add their voices to the upward review of the fees should have been embraced.

What the JTB has done amounts to going ahead to shove a man’s head in his absence contrary to the wisdom and admonition conveyed to humanity through the treasured Yoruba proverb that “you do not shave a man’s head in his absence.”

Regrettably, the heads of the motorists were shaved in their absence with those behind the haircut failing to do a good job. The upward review is unfriendly; to say the least, with each new fee becoming a giant leap from the old one.

The ATHENA Leadership Award is presented to an outstanding leader who is honored for professional excellence, community service and for actively assisting women in their attainment of professional excellence and leadership skills.

• Roya Bruce | Category Manager, Steelcase Inc.
  

“An African proverb that encapsulates my work and leadership style says, ‘If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.’ This speaks directly to the ATHENA principle at my core: collaboration. It’s why as a lifelong athlete who has played everything from basketball, tennis, volleyball, track, and softball, my favorite sports have always been team-oriented. I know I’m at my best when working with others.”

Loosely translated, an old African proverb says: ‘A person is a person because of other people.’ Many people made Siya Kolisi, the Springboks rugby captain, the person he is today.

Famously, they are the women who raised him, the wife who inspired him, his teammates who seemingly will follow him barefoot over broken glass, his children who remind him why he plays the game that made him a star, and the coaches whose names we know.

This week, I talked to a lesser-known coach of Kolisi’s – Fred Swarbrook, from Derby, England.

Swarbrook is the high school coach we all remember: comfortable with any sport. Because he really is a coach’s coach. He has a great coach’s voice too: “The boys heard me before they saw me.”

Ruddy, plainspoken, and ready to laugh, Swarbrook was a breath of fresh air. By the end of our chat, I was ready to run up Brickmaker’s Kloof for him, a steep hill in Port Elizabeth (renamed Gqeberha, the Xhosa name for the Baakens River that runs through the city to the Indian Ocean). A good, tough man.

So, how did a Derbyshire cricketer come to be in South Africa? It started with a conversation at Lord’s in the 1970s, when Fred was in his early twenties.

“My friend and I were playing at Lord’s,” he recalls. “It was a Monday. In August. We wondered what we were going to do in the winter. So, it was why don’t we go to South Africa? We wrote to the provinces. I got a reply from Griquas in Kimberly. He got a reply from Transvaal. So off we went. When we got to passport control, I told him I would see him in six months’ time at the same place.”

Swarbrook was homesick at first. He walked around the whole town of Kimberly. “It took me 20 minutes.”

Loosely translated, an old African proverb says: 'A person is a person because of other people.' Many people made Siya Kolisi, the Springboks

There is an African proverb which states that “people are like chameleons; circumstances make them change their colors”. This proverb is so true to current political situation in The Gambia. A lot of People who fought against military dictatorship in the country have forgotten so soon and they have changed colors. These chameleons are defending the evil alliance between Former Dictator Yaya Jammeh’s APRC and President Adama Barrow’s NPP. The latest chameleon is Mr Jeffery Smith, a former  Staff of the Robert F. Kennedy Center For Justice & Human Rights.

Breakfast Television’s Sid Seixeiro congratulated the teen for her impressive run leading up to the finals:

Zulu (South Africa) proverb. Sleep on your wound (lala nge-nxeba). Meaning? Bear your pain, disappointment. Leylah Fernandez is doing exactly that, right now. The good news is that she got there, U.S. Open Finals against all odds. Win or lose, Canada love is intact.

An African proverb says that it takes someone who knows the history of a place to locate the boundary of the land. This is the reason we all should be grateful that the teaching of history as a subject in secondary schools has been restored.

The knowledge of history comes in handy in the current conversation on the administration of VAT in Nigeria. It seems, however, antithetical that the people who have the benefit of history on their side are the ones leading agitation that States in Nigeria should begin to collect Value Added Tax (VAT) instead of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), which by extant laws is responsible for collection. To pry further may unearth a different matter altogether.