BBC Focus on Africa Magazine

While I fully commend the efforts of the black community in Britain to emphasise positive aspects of their culture and maintain strong links with Africa, I wonder if a beauty contest really serves as the appropriate platform to do so.

Contests are grounded in objectivity.

However, what benchmarks, if any, can be found to objectively measure what lies in the eye of the beholder?

A less subjective affirmation of our culture would command wider publicity and greater respect.

Timilehin Abayomi, Surulere, Lagos, Nigeria

Empowered through electricity

It is indubitable that provision of adequate electricity to the ever-increasing, power-starved people of Africa is the key towards freeing them from the vicious cycle of poverty with its negative consequences of unemployment, illiteracy,
armed robbery, political instability and a host of other unnameable evils.

As an avid reader of your magazine, the last edition is the most captivatingly apropos and apt I have ever read.

It is high time that African leaders stop frittering away our scarce resources on grandiose white elephant projects that have little or no direct impact on the lives of the African people and instead invest heavily in the crucial power sector so that the much-desired economic growth will be realizable.

To vanquish poverty successfully and permanently, the long-suffering people of Africa should be empowered with electricity through effective generation and distribution.

Yahaya Umar, Public Relations Officer, Projects Monitoring and Evaluation Directorate, Kano, Nigeria

Putting the record straight

I have noted an article in the Focus magazine October-December 2007 issue, which talks about a power crisis in Tanzania.

After reading it I realised that it is a story that is outdated and does not reflect the current situation.

With this concern, I have decided to update you on your article, to help your readers by giving them the current news instead of the history that you have given them to read.

The issue of power crisis in Tanzania was tackled and successfully restored by December 2006; we no longer have power shedding.

• Tanzania now generates 60 per cent of its power from new sources of energy, which were developed after the power crisis was critical and we are now talking of surplus power.
• One of these new sources of energy is gas from the Mnazi Bay in the southern part of Tanzania, which is already generating power to the southern parts of the country such as Lindi and Mtwara.
• The Tanzania Electricity Supply Company (Tanesco) which was privately managed is now managed by Tanzanian nationals, a financial recovery plan has been put in place so as to give the company an independent financial capacity and the government is helping the company borrow from different companies so that it can fulfil its duties and capacity to perform its duties of power supply.

These, to the government of Tanzania and its people, are not seen as minor issues to be ignored compared to where we have come from.

I believe your readers and especially the Tanzanian ones would like to read about and reflect your current article as history, which some of them would not like to be reminded of.

Premi Kibanga, Assistant Press Secretary to the President, Dar-Es-Salaam, Tanzania

Tempted away from the dark

I am inspired by the students in Guinea revising their books at Gbessia International airport in the article "Fuel for Thought", in your October-December issue.

However, I do wonder how much electricity affects the pass rates of students. I think the low pass rates of students in today's Africa are more attributable to the poor education system than the availability of electricity.

I also think that the education departments of African governments should consider reviewing the education curricula and methods of teaching so there is time allocated to revising books before it gets dark.

Besides, the distractions of being in public areas at night and the difficulties this presents for mastering one’s school work may result in long-term habits and behaviour that would be worth preventing now.

Prossy Nannyombi, Entebbe, Uganda

Show more respect

The picture of the shot and battered body of a Somali media personality in the October-December edition of Focus of Africa was in really bad taste.

I believe you should use the same standards set in Europe to report on news of Africa.

It was totally unnecessary and more importantly did not portend any respect for the dead man who was killed in the course of his work, nor for us, the readers of your magazine.

Funmi Balogun, Nairobi, Kenya

This is a small selection of letters published in the January-March 2008 edition of Focus on Africa magazine.

Write to 'Letters', BBC Focus on Africa magazine, Bush House, PO Box 76, Strand, London, WC2B 4PH; fill out the form on the top right hand side of this page; or email us at

focus.magazine@bbc.co.uk