Sir, can we stick to the crux of the matter. Leave the government official alone.

My contention is that when it comes to being practical, Blacks in the West have a problem. Talk of Nkrumah is fine, but it's just talk. The average Black person in the West will not identify with Africa's day to day issues.

It's not about you and me, I have posed the question of migration to Africa to many people. In fact, the first person who brought up the subject was a Repatriate, a Jamaican. We were watching a video of one of the Rastafarian elders, and he said, "Rubbish!" He felt that none of them had actually moved to Africa- under some lame excuse about having to remain in the West to guide other- but the truth was they still thought the West was best. Whenever he flew back to America, he would be asked questions like "Is the water clean?" etc, the sort of questions that come with an Africa-is-a-jungle mentality.

I have many other examples. We had some South African Rastafarians who launched a repatriation project, they set a deadline- if the people in the West did not come within that time, they would not be getting help from the S. Africans. I spoke to one of them, and he admitted to me that he had started to get the feeling that "our brothers in the West are not sincere." I understand all they got was the repatriation of someone called Elder Joseph. That still leaves millions of Blacks abroad.

Marcus Garvey never set foot on Africa. That is a profound statement. Instead, he sought solace in England, and was given a Catholic burial.

All the Black people I have met here who claim to be "conscious" and have even travelled to Africa do not wish to live there. They will visit, but they are quite happy with their life in Britain.

I find this fascination with ancient Egypt- a culture which doesn't exist, and a thinly veiled contempt for the cultures that exist now. Someone in Brixton showed me a book in what he said was Meroitic. I asked him, seeing as he looked clearly of Ghanaian descent, if he knew any Twi. From the look on his face, I might as well have asked him if he knew how to knit and sew. I have seen many Blacks that go on about how the Egyptians made helicopters and so on, but deny the existence of every other African culture. As someone said, perhaps tribal Africa is not impressive enough for them.

Another occasion, I worked with this Jamaican Rastafarian. I was tuned in to Heart 106.2, one of my favourite station. He complained, asking me to find a station that plays Black music. I did, some reggae station. Yet the next day, he was with the white colleagues in asking me to take that "rubbish" off- my friend had lent me a CD by Salif Keita of Mali. I worked out that African music did not count as Black music.

Oh, and why should it bother you how we give out land in my tribe? If, as you say, your forefathers left land when they were taken away, should you be more concerned about that first?

Peace.