Today Africa claims to be independent made up of sovereign states yet it cannot provide basic amenities and simple jobs for her people. Poverty abounds all over to the extent that to survive some mothers have to sell their own kids for money/food.
A quotation I find very relevant and provoking is one from Albion Mends Jr., “WHY IS AFRICA SO RICH AND YET SO POOR?”
The white man came to colonize Africa not because it was or is strategically located or that they needed an excursion etc . . . . They neither came for a vacation nor a field trip. They came for the money and the wealth- the abundant untapped resources of Africa. Hence they mined the gold, bauxite, aluminums, coal, diamond, etc. The people were strong and healthy so they took them as slaves to work on their own plantations, used them to build their own infrastructure and to lift their economies to what we all envy today.
While in the home countries, the colonial government also encouraged the subjects/inhabitants (with perhaps, some incentives to produce qualitatively and quantitatively on their own farms. The colonial master would then buy these produce-cocoa, timber, [name them], - for nothing. In many cases the farmers only received rum (drink) or gun powder, which the Africans were also encouraged to use to fight among themselves to capture more slaves. They divided us to rule us.
These, notwithstanding are only good for history. After all Africa now has her independence. We are not the only ones who had to go through this ordeal. Our friends in Asia had to suffer the same plight/fate. But what do we see today?
The African intellectual and politician would still like to blame her past,-ineffectiveness- and lack of progress on colonization. Good, but at the same time sad for the fact that we only sit here to complain without seeking how to come out.
Indeed this story of colonization and freedom is not offering the African intellectual, especially her politicians the motivation to rise above the occasion. However they would become the neo-colonialist.-Our politicians and leaders would rather steal and loot from their own people before they have to go on retirement or be overthrown.
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Look through Africa today and see among her leaders, past and present, if you can find 5 African leaders who have or tried to transform their people out of poverty. Names like Kwame Nkrumah quickly come to mind but though Nkrumah started well he did not end well. .As a man of vision and lover of Africa he, even Nkrumah had to subject his own people to torture making his reign one of terror rather than love. Yet we remember him so well for what development and awareness he brought to Ghana and Africa as a whole. .Nelson Mandela is an icon of Africa today because of the example and legacy of love he left behind.
Apart from the few African leaders who worked hard to make life bearable for their people, unfortunately we cannot say that the independence of African nations has made life any better for her people. Not only do we still depend on the white man to feed us, amidst our own fertile and untapped soils but we use our foreign exchange from our meager trade to buy luxury goods for the executives-government officials. In the end we squander our investment monies and cannot create simple jobs for our own people.
Indeed Africa is not free if slavery still goes on, on her own soil and the government cannot adequately intervene (See Oprah show Feb. 8, 2007).
Sudan is known o be a country where slavery of its own is openly transacted. It is shocking however to hear that countries like Ghana, the enlightened of Africa, the up and coming African giant, the made it state amidst the many failed African states, do practice slavery today.[cite The New York Times]
We may be quick to condemn these mothers who sell their own children into hard labor but then again the defence of these mothers is that they do it for the love of their family and perhaps the child they are so selling. I don’t find this amusing or ridiculous at all. [SEE THE STORY OF THE LEPERS IN ISRAEL WHO HAD TO RISK FOR FOOD IN WAR TIME]
What is life worth if one cannot feed her own self let alone to feed her own children? What, if one remains where s(he) is and dies? We know of stories in the past where countrymen and families had to butcher/slaughter their own children for food/meat during the civil wars etc because man had to survive. Perhaps it is better to sell for food than to kill for food. You be the judge!
The difference here is that today Africa claims to be free and sovereign so the question is: Why do her leaders want other nations to feed us and provide us with jobs? Why are Africa’s priorities so reversed? Why is Africa’s leadership not leading and directing her people to freedom, self-reliance and productivity?
Nobody is saying it is the duty of the government to provide jobs for the people. Indeed it is the duty of private investors. But at the same time private investors can do little or nothing if the government has no sound investment and business policy. I believe the first step to sound business policy is the strengthening of the rule of law. This is missing in Africa.
In Africa, and even Ghana today the law is not a force to reckon with, it is rather the rich and famous who determine what is right and wrong. This could explain the clave for quick wealth and the daily higher risk attempts to smuggle cocaine and other forbidden substances that may earn a huge return if one is successful.
The people have the land but they can hardly turn it into abundance of food etc. They lack the tools to farm, and those who go through thick and thin to produce with their primitive tools lack the infrastructure to take their produce to where they can sell them for money. Now the able bodied youth has to leave the farm out of frustration to seek greener pastures in the city to no avail.
Every year we hear of stories of food produce getting rotten on the farms. Not later than that bumper harvest you hear of famine. Then our leaders are quick to ask for food and aid. If it is not the government squandering the seed money, it is the greedy chief abusing the privilege of the ancestors as custodian of the land. Today, thanks to these greedy chiefs and the inefficiency of the Lands department (civil government) land litigation is claiming the lives of many noble and able citizens of Africa. .It is a cycle of poverty.
Sadly when the aid/loan the governments’ of Africa is begging for comes, alas, our politicians (leaders) would sash them in foreign banks-notably Swiss Bank.
Now tell me, if you are an African politician, - How come after more than half century of independence our farmers still use hoes and cutlasses? Where are the tractors you promised the farmer? Where are the fertilizers and if they are on the market how come the farmer cannot afford them?
Will a $20 million independence celebrations of Ghana, for example, justify why slavery still persist in Ghana? Will the same justify why her school children sit under trees to receive their classroom education? What about the lack of child care and health facilities in the hospitals? Even the top hospitals in Ghana do not even have the adequate technology and many more simple health testing tools like blood pressure machines and MRI. Yet our governments would blame our doctors for leaving their countries abroad. I bet it is not only the lack of pay or money thereof that send our healthcare personnel out of their country but in the main it is the daily frustrations at the job.
How do you expect a qualified doctor to work without the required tools, watch people die from simple sickness and show up or remain in the same location to work? Yes, they may partially diagnose alright but where is the medication? And does the government or leaders of the country care so long as they are not subject to the same ordeal? After all they have enough money or health insurance to treat their sicknesses in top hospital facilities abroad.
Let African politicians answer this question: How come there is no middle class in Africa? How come one ex-president has $2billion in his private accounts in a Swiss Bank? Nigeria alone, for example, some ex-presidents is recorded to have sashed over $10 billion in their foreign bank accounts in Switzerland. Yet the very owners of these monies cannot even feed their children let alone to pay or take them to school to have them educated. And we all know that education is the right keys to freedom. Africa is not free until we can send or make provision for every child to be educated. Again the independence of African states is meaningless without adequate supply of food and good drinking water. Wake up African heads of state!
Unfortunately these politicians are the same thieves who would win elections and claim to be democratic government because the people love them and will always vote for them. Why does the electorate refuse to think when they get the opportunity to change these regimes and yet complain for lack of change for the better? This is madness to say the least. If we continue to elect the same old thieves then why should we complain? And for what only heaven knows. Wake up Africa!
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