2 days Ago By Guardian Nigeria
SIR: If there is any continent on the entire planet earth where a large chunk of the population lives on the other side of reality, it can never be any other than Africa. This is because it is only Africans who rather than make efforts to build their own continent and make it conducive to human existence would willingly abandon it and relocate to other continents to enjoy the fruits of the labours of others. Throughout the human history, every continent has at a time or another gone through a daunting phase of economic recession and political imbroglio giving rise to ceaseless brainstorming which eventually led to rapid development and transformations.
While all these happened centuries ago, Africa was deeply asleep and left far behind thereby becoming a fertile ground for others to plunder and share later. The partition of Africa around 1885 occurred because Africa refused to take the bull by the horns while others did so. That was the very first mistakes of the African forefathers the consequences of which their descendants have continued to suffer through the ages, worse enough, without any respite in sight as all the years run by.
While Africa found itself becoming subservient to the developed world, its leaders still failed woefully to work on how to recover most of the lost ground within the shortest possible time as what they devoted all their energies to has always been primitive accumulation which further impoverished their own people. With foreign collaborations, African leaders willingly gave their resources away to the already advanced nations through massive embezzlement of billions of public funds and stashing them away in foreign lands where they are pumped directly into developing foreign economies. Therefore, instead of deploying such large funds for the rapid development of their lands, African leaders only continue to build other lands.
The irresponsibility of most African leaders resulting in unprecedented poverty of the people is the main reason why most Africans are being pushed outside the continent for greener pastures. The third error is the influx of Africans to other continents instead of staying behind to build their own continent. Rather than join forces to confront the monster of bad leadership and poor governance head-on and working relentlessly for the entrenchment of rule of law in all ramifications such as can guarantee rapid development and progress, the preferred option has always been that of running away to foreign lands to savour the results of the efforts of others.
Africans therefore erred by running away from their own shadows and going to places where their existence is no more than that of submitting willingly to second slavery. The attitudes of Africans who troop abroad which is quite defeatist has, however, shown very clearly how narrow-minded and self centred human beings can be when personal ambition is considered as more important than service to one’s nation. The western counties worked very hard to achieve whatever level they have now attained which migrants everywhere now find attractive, so why are Africans unwilling to replicate such gestures and build their own continent to an enviable level as well? Kudos must be given to people who though are global citizens and have the capacity to live anywhere still live in the midst of their own people and countries and are always at the vanguard of monitoring the activities of successive governments and offering constructive criticisms aimed at good governance.
In Nigeria for instance, mention can be made of people like Professor Wole Soyinka, the late Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, the late Chief Gani Fawehinmi, Mr Femi Falana, Barrister Librous Osoma, Barrister Monday Onyekachi Ubani, Mr. Olisa Agbakoba, to mention just a few. It is a shame that while all hands ought to be on deck with everyone contributing to the issue of nation building, so many people prefer to run away irrespective of all manners of abnormal lifestyles such as bestiality, homosexuality, lesbianism and other forms of crazy ideas which have become the dominant features of most foreign countries.
There is never and can never be a place like home. The time has come for a reorientation for all Africans to stay back and help in building Africa by joining others in waging war against bad leadership and poor governance. Through a combined effort, African countries should be rescued from undesirable elements, who appropriate their nation’s commonwealth to themselves thereby leaving their lands completely empty and stagnant.
Leaders must be held accountable for Africa to assume its pride of place in the comity of nations and there must be insistence on creation of massive employment opportunities for the large population of unemployed youths in a bid to discourage migration of African youths to other lands. Massive job creation will also translate to the building of a progressive tax system that will guarantee a visible and sustainable economic progress while strong institutions would guide against abuse of power most in all ramifications. • Jide Oyewusi is the coordinator of Ethics Watch International Nigeria.
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