In Africa, something is amiss with both the leaders and the followers. It makes little difference whether you agree with me or not; my point has been stated and well supported, at least until I see otherwise.
Africa is a daring continent with a population of over 1.3 billion people who are very smart and competent. A continent in an enviable position, not only as the world’s second-largest and second-most populated continent, following Asia on both counts but also as a land rich in inconceivable natural riches. Talented, youthful, entrepreneurial, and very active populace, but today is seen as a useless, vile, and repulsive race that only causes issues for other continents.
The likes of Thomas Sankara, Haile Selassie, Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, Julius Nyerere, Nelson Mandela, and a few more important African heroes were individuals who, in their own time, were ready to risk all to confront the unknown and bring about change in Africa. These were great African leaders who shaped the history of the place many of us now call home; these guys were pioneers in their own way. The world stops to listen when they speak.
The same cannot be true of the current crop of African leaders. These contemporary African leaders are selfish, self-centered, pompous, and exceedingly corrupt, with little interest in constructing a lasting continent that future generations of Africans would be pleased to call home.
When the truth is stated to an African leader today, he becomes annoyed, not from a place of contemplation and a desire to strive to do better, but from a place of fury and a “how dare you to challenge my authority?” attitude.
That is the issue. This is why Africa is going backward. And this is why it seems that Africans cannot rescue Africa at the moment, at least not with the Africans in positions of leadership that we have now.
There are now thirty-three currencies in use in Africa; however, none of them may be used to complete a trade or transaction in any African nation. If you took the Naira to Kenya or Ethiopia, they would wonder what it was. Show them the dollar, the pound, or the euro, and watch them exchange smiles and gracefully accept it.
I believe it was in Mali that I saw a video of its people, young and vibrant Malians, gleefully celebrating in the streets of Bamako how they had successfully driven away the French mercenaries and replaced them with Russian mercenaries; this is simply a depiction of a slave celebrating the departure of one slave master and the arrival of another.
Africa and Africans are so divided now that even their own blessings are working against them — war exists in almost every one of Africa’s 54 nations. There is war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Sudan (including South Sudan), Central African Republic, and the list goes on. Because of the ongoing unrest in Northern Mozambique, gas cannot be produced. However, we are discussing the African Continental Free Trade Area.
I remember a time when Nigeria was seen as a beacon of hope by other African countries – a time when Nigeria was feared and revered even by Western nations. Nigerians have become a laughingstock and a target species as a result of brain-dead politicians.
Africa has the potential to become the world’s top food continent. It boasts an army of brilliant young people who are gifted and highly proficient in technical breakthroughs and creativity, and it has the potential to become the leading continent in technology. It has the potential to become the continent to watch in terms of medicine, with more than half of the world’s top doctors, nurses, chemists, and physicians hailing from Africa. Africa has the potential to conquer the globe if she can master leadership.
Africa need not look up to the western world before she could get something meaningful accomplished vis-à-vis development in the science and technology sphere in particular; the solution for Africa is simply in the hands of Africans. I mean, do not get it all misconstrued, one could seek for foreign expatriates’ assistance in some specific areas of human endeavour that seems to prove difficult for the locals, but it should be based on knowledge interaction in the sense that when the expatriates are on ground, they should collaborate with indigenous firms/workers who happen to be in that same field so that knowledge can exchange hands. By so doing, the nation is literally eating its cake and having it at the same time, because the locals are being trained at no extra cost of some sort – they are learning while getting the job done, courtesy of foreign expatriates collaboration with the existing firm in the state.
Be that said, the government of various states across Africa should team up together to form an organizational body responsible for sharing skills and knowledge within Africa with Africans in basically all human endeavour such as in agriculture (exchanging of cash crops, teaching one another how to grow some crops, etc.), manpower development of member-state within the organisation, sharing knowledge and ideas on science, technology, traditional medicines (how to improve on it and make it exportable just like the Chinese medicine that is sung all over the world), and so on.
It is high time Africans woke up from their slumber to realise that no amount of foreign aids, loans, donations from foreign nations can bring them the needed development the continent crave for. Foreign loans, aids, and donations come with an undertone which is likened to the devil’s gift who giveth a cent to those who seek his ‘favour’, but taketh hundreds in return. And when the time for retribution (payment due date) comes, the price is always unpayable thereby leaving the victim indebted for his life.
