Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, Aug. 24  -  When in February, 2012, the Corporate Council on Africa – the major organization representing more 200 corporations doing business in Africa – blasted out a e-news on the African Union Commission having authorized the African Sun Times, Africa's No.1 newspaper in America, to produce the Global Africa Diaspora Magazine for the Global African Diaspora Summit in South Africa in May, 2012, the Sullivan Foundation was one of the many organizations and corporations that reached out to us for advertisement in the magazine.  After some negotiations, we agreed on a memorandum of understanding.  We kept our promise and the Global Diaspora Summit magazine was a huge success in South Africa, and on the part of the Sullivan Foundation, they kept their promise to us, for after all, I am here in Equatorial Guinea with the Associate Editor of the African Sun Times.

As a Nigerian, though I have stayed for umpteen years in America, one of the first things I watch is our reception at the airport, the airport surroundings compared to what I know exists in Nigeria.  Having read of press freedom suppression in Equatorial Guinea, I was on full alert when the plane banked and the announcement came that members of the media would be the first to disembark.  I said to myself, "Well, here we go."  I don't really understand why this was done, because there was no special treatment given to the media: eventually everybody's passport were taken from them and processed by members of the Sullivan Foundation.  After this, nobody herded the media to a different location; we all got our luggage just like everyone and passed through customs.  There were no guards looking for members of the media like they do in China where you are followed around if you are a journalist.  And before I start the real description of my visit to Equatorial Guinea, let me just say that when we reached our hotel – the Sipopo Sofitel Golf Hotel, we were informed that the hotel has the best internet connection in the country; we could use the Wifi in our rooms or go to the business center to log on to the internet.  As soon as I got into our room, that was the first thing I did: bring out my laptop, plug in the connection to the several electrical outlets provided, boot up the laptop and connect to the internet.

It was quite amazing: here I was with a very fast internet connection able to access any kind of news, being able to read my favorite news from the New York Times, Washington Post, Huffington Post, Politico, Talkiing Points Memo, Yahoo news and of course news from many newspapers the continent. (Read more..)