Author of Anansi's Gold: The Man Who Looted the West, Outfoxed Washington and Swindled the World linktr.ee/yepoka
Is this you? As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile
Articles by Yepoka Yeebo
Discover the best books by writers of colour: win the Jhalak Prize 2024 shortlists
The Jhalak Prize and the Jhalak Children's & YA Prize celebrate books by writers of colour. This year's shortlists, announced in April, include dazzling fiction and poetry, thought-provoking non-fiction, children's picture books, and books for teens. We have three sets of each shortlist to give away, so six lucky winners can discover these breath-taking books.
Crypto Con Games Span From Caymans to El Salvador
The cryptocurrency bubble of 2021 and 2022 made fortunes for a few and lost fortunes for many. Crypto exchanges advertised at the Super Bowl. Murky shadow banks backed all manner of dubious enterprises. The gospel of the blockchain was promoted around the world on the basis of a number going up. 2023 produced numerous books that follow such phenomena. The most famous of the fraudsters—though far from the only one—was Sam Bankman-Fried of crypto exchange FTX.
Book Review: "Djibouti" by Samson Abebe Bezabeh
In This Review In This Review Djibouti: A Political History Abebe Bezabeh has written a thoughtful political history of a much-neglected country. Djibouti gained independence from France in 1977. It sits squeezed between Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia with a population of just over one million people. The country is mentioned in the press because of its strategic location between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden and because it hosts French, American, and now Chinese military bases.
Power, Patronage, and the Local State in Ghana
In This Review In This Review Power, Patronage, and the Local State in Ghana Driscoll’s book seeks to investigate how electoral political competition shapes local government in Ghana, with a focus on systems of political patronage. Combining ethnographic methods and a remarkable data set of surveys of district officials, he finds that the main demand for patronage comes from the political parties and their local representatives who want to be rewarded for their efforts during the campaign.
Anansi’s Gold: The Man Who Looted the West, Outfoxed Washington, and Swindled the World
In This Review In This Review Anansi’s Gold: The Man Who Looted the West, Outfoxed Washington, and Swindled the World Yeebo weaves the far-fetched tale of John Ackah Blay-Miezah, a Ghanaian grifter responsible for a truly massive con. Blay-Miezah claimed that he had sole access to an enormous fortune in gold that Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah, had squirreled away while in power.
How a Great Ghanaian Con Artist Scammed the World
In 1981, Peter Rigby was running a video studio in Muswell Hill, north London. One day, he was called to the penthouse of London’s Montcalm Hotel to visit a new client. The Montcalm had been converted from a series of Georgian houses. Inside, it was the height of ‘80s elegance: black leather sofas, duplex suites, and a wood-paneled club bar in the basement. In 1981, Peter Rigby was running a video studio in Muswell Hill, north London.
‘Anansi’s Gold’ Excerpt: How a Great Ghanaian Con Artist Scammed … – Foreign Policy
In 1981, Peter Rigby was running a video studio in Muswell Hill, north London. One day, he was called to the penthouse of London’s Montcalm Hotel to visit a new client. The Montcalm had been converted from a series of Georgian houses. Inside, it was the height of ‘80s elegance: black leather sofas, duplex suites, and a wood-paneled club bar in the basement. At the hotel, Rigby took in the client, in the flesh.
Red Flag, Green Light
Everyone loves a con artist. Since her indictment in 2018 for defrauding investors in her blood-testing startup of $700 million, Elizabeth Holmes has been the subject of two books, four documentaries and a hit miniseries. Anna Delvey, who posed as an heiress in order to swindle banks, hotels and benefactors, got out of prison last year and has since launched a podcast and released a single with a TikTok star, all while under house arrest in an East Village apartment.
The Next Big Idea Club’s August 2023 Must-Read Books
I’m pleased to share what I consider the most promising, must-read nonfiction titles scheduled for release in August of 2023. These titles are included in the longlist of nominees for Season 22 of the Next Big Idea Club. Our Next Big Idea Club curators—Susan Cain, Malcolm Gladwell, Adam Grant, and Daniel Pink—will narrow the list down to a handful of finalists and, ultimately, two official season selections.
The Bridge to Sodom and Gomorrah
The biggest slum in struggling Ghana is bounded by a burning dump and a sewage channel. Meet the hustlers, builders, prostitutes, entrepreneurs, bad boys, and dreamers who live there, illegally but cheaply, gambling that they’ll come out better than when they went in. Sodom and Gomorrah is the biggest slum in Ghana, a country that sprouts shantytowns like weeds.
Jhalak Prize
× Thank you for your reservation Your order is now being processed and we have sent a confirmation email to you at This item can be requested from the shops shown below. Please provide me with your latest book news, views and details of Waterstones’ special offers. When will my order be ready to collect? Following the initial email, you will be contacted by the shop to confirm that your item is available for collection.
A short oral history of Ghana’s legendary Soul to Soul independence day concert
In March 1971, Tina and Ike Turner and Wilson Picket arrived in Accra, Ghana to play an epic 15-hour Independence Day concert. As they and other African American musicians stepped down from the plane, a huge crowd surged around them. There were drummers and dancers. A wulomo—the city’s high priest—dressed in all white, poured libations to welcome “America’s most soulful performers” to their ancestral home. Tina waved to the crowd. A film crew captured the whole show. It was quite a welcome.
Ghanaian Hustle
This is Suame Magazine. A vast, open-air industrial district in Kumasi, Ghana’s second largest city. Here, 200,000 skilled workers manufacture everything from bolts to tanker trucks by hand. A million dollars passes through the factories and workshops here every day, and it’s the place where most of the country’s laborers learn their trades: the heart of Ghana’s informal economy. All of this—especially the part with the tanker trucks—is news to me.
A short oral history of Ghana’s legendary Soul to Soul independence day concert
In March 1971, Tina and Ike Turner and Wilson Picket arrived in Accra, Ghana to play an epic 15-hour Independence Day concert. As they and other African American musicians stepped down from the plane, a huge crowd surged around them. There were drummers and dancers. A wulomo—the city’s high priest—dressed in all white, poured libations to welcome “America’s most soulful performers” to their ancestral home. Tina waved to the crowd. A film crew captured the whole show. It was quite a welcome.
#sundayread for January 21, 2018
Post was not sent - check your email addresses! Email check failed, please try again Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.
Netflix’s The Crown got a lot wrong about the Queen’s visit to Ghana and Nkrumah
“The Crown” on Netflix is a show about the life of Queen Elizabeth II, rich with period detail. Rich, that is, until the first scene in episode eight of the second season, which opens in an ersatz orientalist fantasy palace that’s supposed to be in Accra, Ghana. Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah (played ably by British actor Danny Sapani—at least until the soul-curdling moment he tries to speak Twi) stands at a podium talking about forging new alliances among African states.
Netflix's The Crown in Ghana: Kwame Nkrumah, Queen Elizabeth, Jackie Kennedy and the Soviets
“The Crown” on Netflix is a show about the life of Queen Elizabeth II, rich with period detail. Rich, that is, until the first scene in episode eight of the second season, which opens in an ersatz orientalist fantasy palace that’s supposed to be in Accra, Ghana. Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah (played ably by British actor Danny Sapani—at least until the soul-curdling moment he tries to speak Twi) stands at a podium talking about forging new alliances among African states.
Netflix's The Crown in Ghana: Kwame Nkrumah, Queen Elizabeth, Jackie Kennedy and the Soviets
“The Crown” on Netflix is a show about the life of Queen Elizabeth II, rich with period detail. Rich, that is, until the first scene in episode eight of the second season, which opens in an ersatz orientalist fantasy palace that’s supposed to be in Accra, Ghana. Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah (played ably by British actor Danny Sapani—at least until the soul-curdling moment he tries to speak Twi) stands at a podium talking about forging new alliances among African states.
19 Things to Know Before You Go to Accra - Roads & Kingdoms
Akwaaba! Welcome—that is—to Ghana. Here, people pride themselves on their hospitality. If you stand anywhere too long (and we mean anywhere: gas stations, street corners, in front of someone’s heavily-fortified, barbed wire-topped gate) someone will offer you a seat, or some shade, or tell you you’re invited to their meal. People—and especially school children in pristine uniforms—will want to say “good morning,” or perform a full-on salute. Greet them in return. Plan for traffic.
19 Things to Know Before You Go to Accra
Practical information, cultural cues, and city orientation for travelers to the crown jewel of Ghana’s coastline. Visit Accra, and read this guide first! Akwaaba! Welcome—that is—to Ghana. Here, people pride themselves on their hospitality. If you stand anywhere too long (and we mean anywhere: gas stations, street corners, in front of someone’s heavily-fortified, barbed wire-topped gate) someone will offer you a seat, or some shade, or tell you you’re invited to their meal.
The True Story of the Fake U.S. Embassy in Ghana
On the morning the news broke, Seth Sewornu, who was then head of Ghana’s visa and document fraud unit, got a text message from the director of the police criminal investigation department (CID). Like everyone else, the director wanted to know about Sewornu’s bust. “I was receiving a lot of calls,” Sewornu said when we met earlier this year in an open-air restaurant near the police headquarters in Accra. “A reporter from BBC called me, a CNN reporter called me.
Ghana visa fraud triggers identity theft rise
The former head of Ghana’s visa fraud unit tells the story about the time someone tried to rent his passport. This was over a decade ago, when this kind of thing was more common, Detective Seth Sewornu says. He had a valid UK visa, and a relative was offering £1000 ($1,300). Visa fraud in Ghana is brazen, and rising. For five years, Sewornu was at the forefront of investigating the phenomenon, as head of the Ghana Police Visa and Document Fraud Unit.
Baltimore has decided some neighborhoods just aren’t worth saving
In Baltimore the wrecks stretch for blocks in every direction. Shattered windows, buckling walls, sometimes just a façade, propped up by the houses on either side. The vacant streets are punctuated by the odd meticulously kept home, a living city slowly turning into a ghost town. Click here to see some of the abandoned homes > Baltimore has tried to deal with the tens of thousands of abandoned houses that mar the city. They’ve been refurbished. They’ve been raffled for $1. They’ve been demolished.
The Bridge to Sodom and Gomorrah
Sodom and Gomorrah is the biggest slum in Ghana, a country that sprouts shantytowns like weeds. There are about eighty thousand Sodomites crammed onto less than half a square mile in the capital city, Accra, near a toxic lagoon and a channel of raw sewage. They are surrounded by the guts of one of the fastest-growing economies in West Africa, miles of teeming factories, markets, and workshops. To get to Sodom and Gomorrah, you must cross a river of shit. To do that, you need Fusheini’s bridge.
A Sneak Into Ghana's Bushmeat Market
The antelope looked exactly like a cartoon deer. It had rust-coloured fur, white spots on its hindquarters and an oddly regal bearing. Its throat had been slit and it had just been dumped, rather unceremoniously, on the hard-packed black earth of the burning area at Atwemonom, the open-air abattoir at the centre of Ghana’s commercial bushmeat trade. The antelope – a female bushbuck – arrived at dawn in a white plastic sack out of a rickety van.
Is Bushmeat Spreading Diseases in Ghana?
The antelope looked exactly like a cartoon deer. It had rust-colored fur, white spots on its hindquarters, and an oddly regal bearing. Its throat had been slit, and it had just been dumped, rather unceremoniously, on the hard-packed black earth of the burning area at Atwemonom, the open-air abattoir at the center of Ghana’s commercial bushmeat trade.
Bushmeat in Ghana remains a key part of the local diet, despite the real and perceived health risks
The antelope looked exactly like a cartoon deer. It had rust-colored fur, white spots on its hindquarters, and an oddly regal bearing. Its throat had been slit, and it had just been dumped, rather unceremoniously, on the hard-packed black earth of the burning area at Atwemonom, the open-air abattoir at the center of Ghana’s commercial bushmeat trade. The antelope—a female bushbuck—arrived at dawn in a white plastic sack out of a rickety van.
Inside Ghana’s biggest bushmeat market
Bushmeat, from wild animals captured for food, is a valuable source of protein in Ghana. But what health risks does it carry, and could it spread disease further afield? Yepoka Yeebo finds out. The antelope looked exactly like a cartoon deer. It had rust-coloured fur, white spots on its hindquarters and an oddly regal bearing.
Cleaning up the herbal healers
From aphrodisiacs to mixtures for malaria, traditional remedies in Ghana are loved by the people and championed by entrepreneurs, and make millions for the government. Yepoka Yeebo finds out how herbal medicine became big business â and whether regulation might make or break it. âI have four leading brands, but the one that moves like water is Venecare.â Theodore Tetteh is founder of the Tinatett Herbal company.
My British immigrant family painfully split over Brexit
Amid the rubble of Brexit, everyone is talking about the divisions that Britain’s vote to leave the European Union has exposed. There’s Scotland versus England, young versus old, London versus Little England, and the white working class versus everyone else. None of that was a shock. But that’s not the whole picture.
Vickie Remoe says she left her career as a television host in Sierra Leone after being propositioned one time too many.
Vickie Remoe was born in Sierra Leone, but her family left during the civil war in 1997 when she was 12. She went on to get an undergraduate degree at Haverford College in Pennsylvania, and returned to start the Vickie Remoe Show. She got to travel with the president’s press corps and became well-known on television. But in her four years making a go of it in local media, she says, she also got a crash-course in being propositioned.
It’s not just Kesha. Women face demands for transactional sex all over the world.
Vickie Remoe was born in Sierra Leone, but her family left during the civil war in 1997 when she was 12. She went on to get an undergraduate degree at Haverford College in Pennsylvania, and returned to start the Vickie Remoe Show. She got to travel with the president’s press corps and became well-known on television. But in her four years making a go of it in local media, she says, she also got a crash-course in being propositioned.
It’s not just Kesha. Women face demands for transactional sex all over the world.
Vickie Remoe was born in Sierra Leone, but her family left during the civil war in 1997 when she was 12. She went on to get an undergraduate degree at Haverford College in Pennsylvania, and returned to start the Vickie Remoe Show. She got to travel with the president’s press corps and became well-known on television. But in her four years making a go of it in local media, she says, she also got a crash-course in being propositioned.
Ghana’s market women were once so powerful they were targeted by the military
Ghana is one of only a handful of places where women are more likely to start businesses than men. There are corporate-feeling malls and glossy supermarkets popping up all over the West African country. Still, more than 90 percent of people here still do their almost all their shopping at open-air markets, where the stalls are dominated by women, each running a small business.
Ghana’s market women were once so powerful they were targeted by the military
Ghana is one of only a handful of places where women are more likely to start businesses than men. There are corporate-feeling malls and glossy supermarkets popping up all over the West African country. Still, more than 90 percent of people here still do their almost all their shopping at open-air markets, where the stalls are dominated by women, each running a small business.
When the administration of Jerry Rawlings blamed market traders for an economic crisis
Ghana is one of only a handful of places where women are more likely to start businesses than men. There are corporate-feeling malls and glossy supermarkets popping up all over the West African country. Still, more than 90 percent of people here still do their almost all their shopping at open-air markets, where the stalls are dominated by women, each running a small business.
‘Sex and the City africana’ retrata lado glamouroso do continente
A câmera passeia por um sofisticado restaurante, no qual um grupo de amigas bonitas e bem vestidas bebem coquetéis e conversam sobre namorados e sexo. A cena parece tirada do famoso seriado Sex and the City, não é? Mas essas mulheres, na verdade, brincam sobre a dificuldade de encontrar vibradores na África. As outras personagens do programa são Sade, recém-formada em administração em Harvard; Ngozi, uma assistente humanitária; Makena, advogada educada em Oxford; e a empresária Zainab.
Africa’s Sex and the City
The camera pans across a luxury restaurant. A group of elegant, well-dressed friends sip cocktails and argue about dildos and boyfriends. It’s a familiar scene for fans of classic HBO show Sex and the City. But these women are cracking jokes about how hard it is to get a vibrator into West Africa. An African City is a glossy look at the life of NanaYaa (played by MaameYaa Boafo), a journalist recently returned from New York and four of her friends.
Why the young and talented are returning to Ghana
Glamour, skyscraper-heels, complicated relationships and the struggles of forging a professional career in the big city are not things the international community often associate with Africa’s working women.But online TV show, ‘An African City’ (dubbed Ghana’s answer to HBO series, ‘Sex and the City’) has all of the above. It brings to life, albeit in an over-the-top fictional way, stories of women from African families who relocate to the continent after being raised abroad.
Fake malaria drugs kill over 100,000 African children a year. A startup uses phones to spot the counterfeit
DRUG Lane runs through a market in the heart of Accra, Ghana. It’s past the office towers going up to the east of the central business district, past the pushy vendors with fake Louis Vuitton luggage, and past the women selling trays of raw beef under the midday sun. The alley bristles with signboards for pills, powders, and other substances. One store is packed to the rafters with boxes of painkillers and antibiotics.
The African Startup Using Phones to Spot Counterfeit Drugs
Drug Lane runs through a market in the heart of Accra, Ghana.
What is the actual cost of a high school education in Ghana?
Sylvia Mopenti is a Ghanaian student at Nalerigu Senior High School. Sylvia worked as a kayayo - a female porter - to help pay her school fees before she was sponsored by the girl's education charity CAMFED. Credit: Yepoka Yeebo The cost to attend high school varies around the world. But what actually makes up "school fees" in any given country?
Chief Al-Hassan Malik is responsible for thousands of women and girls in Accra
Chief Al-Hassan Malik's phone rings constantly as we speak in Accra’s bustling market district. Female porters, known as kayayei, walk by carrying things on their heads, from onions in huge metal pans to lengths of timber. Women and girls from Ghana’s impoverished north have been coming to big cities to earn money, often to pay school fees. Chief Malik is trying to take care of thousands of them.
More than a million girls and women work as porters in Ghana's urban markets, trying to earn enough in tips to pay for school or other necessities
Getting groceries in Accra can be an ordeal. The best deals are in the heart of the city, in a maze of markets so cramped you have to walk through single file. It's hot and noisy, you’re trying not to get ripped off, while buying food in bulk to save money. Before long, you’re loaded down with more boxes and bags than you can carry. Then, just when you’ve reached your wits end, a girl shows up and offers to carry it all for you.
Ghana was supposed to get $600m to fix flood-prone Accra-instead, disaster struck
Ghana is still in shock after more than 200 people died in last week’s gas station fire disaster in the capital city Accra. But there’s also a palpable sense of frustration the government has done too little to fix the longstanding conditions that led to city-wide flooding after heavy rains–which in turn meant so many people were taking shelter at the Goil gas station at Kwame Nkrumah Circle. Torrential rain flooded central Accra, and seeped into underground fuel storage tanks at a gas station.
Chinese counterfeits leave Ghanaian textiles hanging by a thread
Traditional clothing makers in Ghana are turning to technology to fight popular Chinese counterfeits. But little of the manufactures left are local, or even Ghanaian-owned. The Printex factory in Accra, Ghana creates the popular wax-printed fabric. The company has survived largely because of the Ghanaian tradition of commissioning specially printed fabric for everything from funerals to casual Fridays, which makes up 70 percent of their sales.
Ghanaian Hustle - Roads & Kingdoms
All of this—especially the part with the tanker trucks—is news to me. Nearly everything in Ghana is imported from Europe, the U.S., or China, and it has been that way since much of Ghana’s formal industry collapsed in the 1970s, leaving the country dotted with abandoned canneries and textile factories. Most Ghanaians who live abroad ship in their own supplies when they visit the country.
Ghana’s electricity rationing is leaving its independence celebrations in the dark
Every Independence Day, Ghanaians of a certain age make the same speech. My grandfather’s is the finest, tinged by a pride he’s felt since that day on March 6th, 1957 when the British Gold Coast became the Republic of Ghana and he ran alongside President Kwame Nkrumah’s car in a crowd of tens of thousands. “We have everything,” he says every year. “Gold, bauxite, diamonds.” The high point of this speech is always the Akosombo Dam.
Gold price rout sparks fears for mining operations across Africa
On a recent morning, Paul Baah-Ampofo watched as yet another neighbour packed up and left. One of almost 5,000 workers laid off by global mining company AngloGold Ashanti in November, Mr Baah-Ampofo has three months to vacate his company bungalow. AngloGold Ashanti, the world’s third biggest miner by output, has put operations in the Obuasi mine on hold while it restructures to cut costs. The mine underpins the economy of the town, which is about 250 kilometres northwest of Ghana’s capital, Accra.
Inside a Massive Electronics Graveyard
Agbogbloshie is a vast, scorched field, right in the middle of Accra, Ghana, dotted with rusting hulks and heaps of scrap. Hundreds of people work here in what looks like hell: smashing, burning, hawking, eating, and joking. This is the place where thousands of tons of the world’s electronics go to die. On the banks of the dead Odaw River at the very edge of Agbogbloshie, groups of young men tend fires set to burn the plastic off old copper cable.
Show More
loading
Actions
Is this you?
As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.Get in touch with Yepoka
Contact Yepoka, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack