Corruption in Asia and Africa

In the name of journalism, every Tom, Dick and Harry can write nonsense about Africa in order to claim a few dollars from a newspaper. I am referring to an inadequately researched article in The Jakarta Post of Nov. 6 on page five, entitled Corruption disease in Africa more rampant than in Asia.

Clearly, the writer, Mr. Thomas Knemeyer, displays great ignorance concerning Africa in the article. For example, the article states Africa's population as being 600 million, but according to the most recent estimate it is 700 million. In addition, his article wasn't clear on whether or not it was focussing on Africa as a whole or just sub-Saharan Africa. In some of his examples, he mentioned Africa, whereas in others he mentioned sub-Saharan Africa.

According to the article, 40 percent of Africans earn less than a dollar a day. If the man wished to write objectively, I advise him to read the UN global poverty report released on June 12, 1997 which states "... nearly a third of the developing world's population ... live on less than a dollar a day." This report was in fact published by The Jakarta Post on June 13, 1997.

This article no doubt encouraged me to believe that the maxim of Western journalism seems to be "don't let facts get in the way of a good story". While comparing African corruption with that of Asia, I expect a good writer to look at both sides. This moron was throughout his article citing examples only from Africa.

Let him remember the horrible way Ferdinand Marcos looted the Philippines' government treasury to the amount of billions of dollars. Just last year, two former South Korean leaders were on trial for financial corruption involving incredible amounts of money. There are also a number of Asian countries that are internationally notorious for their sex trade, which also involves children. I wonder why he couldn't touch on all these issues happening today in Asia.

I have no intention of embarrassing Asians in this letter. I am only trying to point out to Mr. Thomas that Asia has any type of corruption which he could find in Africa. It is not even clear whether or not he has ever been to many Asian and African countries, otherwise he would have found that quite a few Asian countries are totalitarian. Some of them, like Myanmar, are in fact still ruled by a military junta. My own country, Nigeria, though just on the path of democratization, is also ruled by a military junta.

Last but not least, I say to Mr. Thomas, we black Africans have a simple message: while talking about Africa, mention both the good and the bad together.

BUHARI ABDU

Jakarta