CredoWriters:Wakdok, Samuel Stephen.
They wandered off our coastlines, disguising first as traders to the amazement of a so called primitive population. We were carried away by the charms of their goods. Common mirror, now we could see ourselves starring at us, unlike when we depended on the blurred images of our shadows or when we had to look into a bowl of water to see the imagery of our faces. When they saw our elation they brought religion and we were told to let go of the gods we knew, gods we were born into and worshipped. They came with their almighty God, who was hitherto unknown to us. While the Christians came from the south, the Moslems came from the north, and our gods were caught in the middle of crossfire. Suddenly our gods became idols and with all our sense of religion we became idolaters. We dropped the sword for the bible and Koran; we jettisoned life on earth for a life in heaven. With all our intelligence they called us illiterates. We had our languages they brought theirs; literacy was now measured only in their own language.
If we could solve all the geometry in this world and use herbs to cure all the ailments, as long as it was not in their language, for all they cared we were illiterates. Hence they took us under the trees, on the hills, inside a room anywhere they deemed fit and called it school, western education, Islamic education, and abolished home training. We were taught to read and write in their languages and to know their histories; we became an extinct people because we did not remember our history. We only know the history they wrote for us. They opined that Mungo Park discovered the River Niger, and we agreed, writing it as the answer to pass our exams. They wrote that Dr. David Livingstone and Sir Henry Morton Stanley were great explorers who came to the Dark Continent, we concurred although it was the black man who first struck fire to cook his meals, and light up his environment.
With trade and religion as the precursors, all they wanted they got in us. They chained us and sailed us as cargoes to their lands and their new world in the Americas. We became slaves, enslaved by those who stood on the pulpit preaching that God created us in his own image and thus equal. Yes, but the black man was not a man, so how dare we claim equality with the white? Though we were sub-human our men were able enough to plough their lands and mend their fences. They found our sub-women sexy and seductive enough to cohabit with, and the half caste came into being. After they had taken enough of our populace to produce more than what they could consume, when by the stroke of ingenuity the industrial revolution was born, they were faced with the bitter reality. They now converted the source of labour to become their market. The Blackman will be better as an everlasting consumer than a slave. It is still market slavery anyway.
They pushed the likes of William Wilberforce to fight for the abolishment of slavery; winning double honours. Get the glory for ending slave trade and prepare a market of heavy consumers. Long before now, they had found out that the Dark Continent after all is not so dark; they had placed their feet on a fertile soil with a ludicrous people and their hands on our resources. Therefore they decided to hold power in trust for us since we were barbarians and ushered in colonialism. In 1884 they went to Berlin to scramble for and partition Africa, what a great favour they did for us! The British, the French, the Portuguese, the Spaniards, the Germans, the Italians, the Dutch the Belgians, all had a bite and a lot to chew. Lord Lugard consolidated for the British through this method of indirect rule as the French introduced the principle of assimilation. We a people, unfit to rule ourselves.
Africa and the wider world; the beauty or the beast? Africa is that beauty which has attracted the world to her lands with her resources and people. From the destruction of Carthage to the invasion by slave traders, and the onslaught of colonial imperialists, all have laid siege on Africa. The wider world has raped, starved, bruised and exported the best of Africa. Yet Africa too is her own beast. When you see the starving children of the wars in the horn of Africa, if you ever saw the genocide in Rwanda, the amputees from Sierra Leone, the victims of Liberia’s war, the aftermath of the Janjaweeds in Darfur, the Guinean massacres of September 28th 2009. The beauty and the beast, the beauty is also the beast. Come home to Nigeria, corruption walks proudly at day and shake hands with poverty, co-habiting with unemployment and hunger.
When the foreigners came, they stayed at the coast; they didn’t enter the hinterland to arrest or steal us into slavery. We raided villages and towns, captured ourselves and brought us to the coast where the white man was waiting. We sold ourselves into slavery. Africa has been her beast; we are again selling our selves into economic mismanagement, political destabilization, social disharmony, religious fundamentalism.
What is happening to the African Peer Review Mechanism? The African Union {AU} must avoid the pitfalls of the Organization of African Union which preceded it. How many custom unions or common markets exist in Africa? The West African Monetary Zone has severally failed to take off due to the inability of member states to meet the conditions. The recent happenings in Niger and Guinea which have led to economic sanctions and arm embargoes will further strain the ECOWAS.
North Africa is more loyal to the Arab league than the African cause. Morocco bluntly is the only country which does not belong to the African Union. This is attributed to the AU recognizing the sovereignty of Western Sahara, a country occupied by Moroccan forces since the exist of Spain in 1975.The Southern African Development Commission (SADC) which ought to be more stable is now faced with the nemesis of a Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe and the quagmire in Madagascar.
The horn of Africa is highly volatile, with Somalia as the world’s numero uno failed state. Eritrea and Ethiopia once the same country are now locked in bitter rivalry and have not recovered from their border war. Rwanda is trying to heal the wounds of its 1994 Genocide. This leaves Kenya and Uganda as the stable members of the East African Economic Community who themselves are not immune from internal rancor. Congo D.R. in Central Africa has the largest number of peace keepers in the world; Burundi and Central African Republic are still nursing the wounds of their civil wars.
While other economies of the world have long reached the fifth stage of Rostow’s growth theory; the state of High Mass Consumption, many African states are still at the first level of Traditional Society. Some have barely attained the second stage of Pre-Take Off and just a few may have reached the Take Off stage which is the third. May be South Africa can be said to have reached the fourth level of the Drive to Maturity.
Africa must rise up to the challenge, we must claim this 21st century which was earlier proclaimed the African Century at the turn of the last century. We should take a cue from the Latin American and Asian countries who themselves where colonized. Today many of them are a success story. We can not continue to bask in the euphoria of colonialism and pretend that we can escape with its curses as excuses. Africa must chart a development oriented course built on viable institutional frame works. Our African leaders must see themselves more as statesmen who think of the next generation rather than mere politicians who only think of the next election.
For Africa especially Sub-Saharan Africa to move out of the doldrums, we must replicate the experiences and determinations of South Africa, Ghana, Mozambique and Botswana. We must realize that our development will be attained endogenously. Exogenous dependent developments will only further re-enforce our dependence on the outside world which has always placed us at their mercy making us feckless before the wider world.
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