Across Africa, human life is being ravaged by poverty, disease, armed conflict and very bad leadership. How a continent so blessed in natural and human resources can also seem so cursed is inexplicable because it is unfathomable. Yet, that is Africa’s plight. Immensely blessed by God, Africans have inflicted pain on their own Continent – and continue to do so. By so doing, they (we) have made the Continent seem as though it is forsaken by its Creator. For several decades, the African mindset has been programmed to believe that Africans are not responsible for Africa’s problems. Instead, non-Africans (mostly Westerners) are blamed for the conditions of life in Africa. In the circumstances, there is a consequent expectation that the responsibility for resolving Africa’s perpetual state of crisis belongs to non-Africans. In my opinion, that reasoning smacks of a level of intellectual dishonesty that stinks to the utmost.
There is no denying the fact that Africa had its unfair share of oppression and exploitation at the hands of European colonialists who pillaged the Continent, tortured the African people, and battered them physically, psychologically, emotionally and economically. African history is replete with evidence of the destruction that those decades of thievery, trickery and violence by European colonialists represented. But it is also true that African nations have had a long time since their varying years of independence to stand on their feet and design their own fate. Unfortunately, most have not done so. Instead, people who claim to be African leaders have done nothing but run their countries to the ground. In my opinion, it is time for Africans to end the blame game and begin to hold themselves and their so-called leaders accountable for the plight of the Continent and its inhabitants.
I am conscious of the fact that this is a touchy position that I am expressing, but it is only because this position represents a fact that many of my fellow Africans would rather avoid. I dare anyone to provide a convincing description of how white people are responsible for the genocide in Sudan’s Dafur region in recent years; or for the ongoing violence in Somalia; or for the murderous plundering of Liberia by Samuel Doe and the likes of Charles Taylor; Mugabe’s murderous dictatorship in Zimbabwe; the instability in the Congo, Chad, Niger and other African countries; or for the dictatorial rule in Guinea-Bissau, the murderous “Lord Resistance Army” in Uganda, Nigeria’s Goodluck Jonathan’s band of thieves and Boko Haram, and the ultra corrupt leadership in Togo, Cote d’Ivoire, Burundi, the Republic of Benin and other African countries.
Honesty demands that we take a sincere look into our souls if we desire to see Africa’s plight more clearly. When we do so, we can begin to understand our own roles in the saga that Africa has come to represent for several decades now. When we are honest with ourselves, we will know exactly what we must do to restore the Continent to a level of glory that Africa once experienced. We will also be able to see a glaring image of a Continent that, for centuries, has been victimized first by foreigners, and then by its own people. We will see a Continent in which people aspire to become corrupt bosses rather than honest leaders. We will see an African continent, indeed a Mother, that was once raped by strangers and is now being raped by its own children who posterity placed in positions to care for her. There is no greater form of abuse than this, and there is no greater sense of responsibility than for all Africans to look in the mirror and make the individual and collective change that is needed for Africa to be restored to respectability.
What you've written represents a broad summary of what ails Africa and her people. Yes, there is a need for us Africans to look inwards rather than to the outside to find the reasons for our problems and the solutions (which in my view) are obvious. There is lack of love for our continent and our peoples. And today, there's need to stop passing the blame wholesale on others, Whiteman, colonial masters, etc. For most countries in the continent, the farther away we are from the day we became independent, the worse we have become. We can even trace our problems to pre-Whiteman and pre-colonial days. I remember a day, years ago, in Minnesota with my co-worker, a fellow black man but born in the US a decedent of slaves. We got in an argument and it got to a heated point where he screamed: "You mother-f***-Africans, you sold us into slavery and that's why we find ourselves where we are." The reality is that powerful rulers, as history has it, actually fought wars with neigbors, captured and sold slaves within and ultimately, sold to the White Europeans. Today, African countries are no longer under colonial rule but while they have found wealth from natural resources that God planted for them, most people are still wallowing in poverty because the wealth is being shared among a few powerful people on the political top, leaving the rest poorer than ever. There is a systematic rape on our economies. The few steal the people's resources and hide them away in foreign lands. Why don't this group of people love their countries enough to at least invest their loot where it will help better the peoples' lot? No reasonable person can fail to blame most of our problems on anyone but ourselves. Only yesterday, I read an article where the governor of a State in Nigeria accused fellow politicians of "spending" a whopping $700m on "feasibility studies" for a new River Niger bridge! Where on earth do you spend such money on a mere study when in fact that money would build that bridge 100 percent? We need to hold each other accountable; we need to love ourselves enough to look out for us today and for generations coming after us.
What you've written represents a broad summary of what ails Africa and her people. Yes, there is a need for us Africans to look inwards rather than to the outside to find the reasons for our problems and the solutions (which in my view) are obvious. There is lack of love for our continent and our peoples. And today, there's need to stop passing the blame wholesale on others, Whiteman, colonial masters, etc. For most countries in the continent, the farther away we are from the day we became independent, the worse we have become. We can even trace our problems to pre-Whiteman and pre-colonial days. I remember a day, years ago, in Minnesota with my co-worker, a fellow black man but born in the US a decedent of slaves. We got in an argument and it got to a heated point where he screamed: "You mother-f***-Africans, you sold us into slavery and that's why we find ourselves where we are." The reality is that powerful rulers, as history has it, actually fought wars with neigbors, captured and sold slaves within and ultimately, sold to the White Europeans. Today, African countries are no longer under colonial rule but while they have found wealth from natural resources that God planted for them, most people are still wallowing in poverty because the wealth is being shared among a few powerful people on the political top, leaving the rest poorer than ever. There is a systematic rape on our economies. The few steal the people's resources and hide them away in foreign lands. Why don't this group of people love their countries enough to at least invest their loot where it will help better the peoples' lot? No reasonable person can fail to blame most of our problems on anyone but ourselves. Only yesterday, I read an article where the governor of a State in Nigeria accused fellow politicians of "spending" a whopping $700m on "feasibility studies" for a new River Niger bridge! Where on earth do you spend such money on a mere study when in fact that money would build that bridge 100 percent? We need to hold each other accountable; we need to love ourselves enough to look out for us today and for generations coming after us.