We need to pull the plug on these ‘Radio Africa’ sounds

Long before the FM radio craze took East Africa by storm the state broadcasters ruled the day. The radio dial was often in one position to get the clearest signal of the radio stations that were in some countries more important for announcing military coups than anything developmental. Accidentally moving the dial away from its usual place often earned one a good beating from a father who was addicted to listening to the local news or the BBC feed on a regular basis. In those days the production of music was still quite a tedious process since computers and all their Do-It-Yourself software like fruity loops were not yet in place.This meant that quality songs were being churned out after days and days of hard work as opposed to what we are enduring these days. There is one song that was quite popular back then whose message is now ringing a bell. The song was called ‘Radio Africa’ by a British band of the 1980s and 1990s called Latin Quarter. Steve Skaith, Dave Charles, Martin Lascelles, Richard Wright, and Michael Jones were some of the key members of the band. Their ‘Radio Africa’ hit song was released in 1985 and made it all the way to number 19 on the UK Singles’ chart that year. The signature line in the song was, I am hearing only bad news, from Radio Africa. This was in reference to the sad news dominated by war, disease, poverty and hunger that was coming from Africa at the time. There were military coups here in places like Uganda at the time, famine in Ethiopia and not much good news was finding space in the press. It is interesting to note that the song had a line about South Africa; they’ve still got trouble with a monster in the south. Is it not strange that 27 years later South Africa is still troubled as we are seeing with the Marikana mine massacres? I also noticed that in another line the song refers to Tanzania; Tanzania should be moving up a gear, instead they’ve got to step on the brake. Of late Tanzania which is often considered the more politically stable East African nation has been sounding war drums for its southern neighbour, Malawi over oil exploration in Lake Malawi. It looks like the boundaries that the colonialists drew based on water bodies can turn problematic especially when resources are found to be in a shared water body. Think of oil in the Lake Albert area of Uganda and DRC or the methane gas in Lake Kivu shared by Rwanda and DRC. Already Uganda has clashed with DRC over a border issue not forgetting the Migingo Island saga with Kenya. More sad sounds from Tanzania came in the form of the death of a journalist Daudi Mwangosi, of Channel ten, who is said to have been beaten to death by police after he confronted the police for assaulting another colleague, Godfrey Mushi, a newspaper reporter. They were covering an opposition party gathering in Mwololo in central Tanzania when police clashed with the opposition supporters. If we still have places where the opposition is viewed as a group to be clobbered by the same people paid to protect lives (army and police) then we are only giving credit to that ‘Radio Africa’ song 27 years later. In Kenya, news of eleven people killed in what is believed to be revenge attacks between rival communities at Chamwanamuma village in Tana River Delta was simply unfortunate although the word does not seem to express how I really feel. These deaths came just about two weeks since 52 people were massacred at Riketa village in a fight over water and pasture in Tana River County between the Pokomo and Orma communities. All this happening at a time when Kenyans are supposed to be moving forward and preparing for general elections is quite worrying. The most annoying ‘Radio Africa’ noise I have heard came from Burundi where General Aloys Nzabampema an ex-commander of the National Liberation Forces (FNL) called for war against the current regime led by Pierre Nkurunziza. Is there a sane person who can be talking of war in Burundi again? We keep talking of how the western media only portrays us in a negative way but I think we also need to turn off these stories that made the ‘Radio Africa’ song popular. Enough of the bad news already.