WHAT IS WRONG WITH AFRICA AND WHO CAN RIGHT THE WRONG?
I was born in Africa,I was raised in Africa and I live in Africa,I am an African.All my life I have met people,and have had the privilege of working with best talents in Africa and there are many.with over a billion people,Africa is not short of talents.
Despite all these,every time I look at myself as well as my fellow Africans,I get the feeling that something is wrong,whatever it is something is missing?I cannot get a full picture of it but there is some kind of lack of self love or a deep hate of self that is ingrained deep within the minds of Africans.
It is like a self destructing bomb that is programmed within us that can come into action and destroy our lives any time.What ever triggers it I do not know but it just so happens that it is there.
Here are a few fictitious example,Success in Africa is attributed to some extra human forces.You should be surprised to meet a well educated politician or profession looking for the services of a Sangoma.Well,there is nothing wrong with following African tradition but when it starts affecting our performance in a negative way it becomes a problem.
Then comes the problem with philanthropy.Africans in collaboration with other non-Africans have become billionaire through philanthropy.They travel the world looking for funds to help the poor but the poor remain poor and they keep becoming billionaire.I wonder how they do it,may it is the African Magic at work.
Well,some African are luck enough to be educated abroad,yes,they travel the world get world class education and training and when they come back to Africa they bring nil impact except some swags and an accent.The strange part is that those who study in the eastern part of the world never come with the eastern swags such as the overzealous and discipline of the Indians and Chinese.
Strangely those who go to the West,even for amonth,even if they do not get the right kind of knowledge they will still bring an American accent or some variation of that.I wonder why we do not have some Africans with Indian or Chinese Ascent.
What is wrong with Africa,I recently had a nice chat with an African Scholar and I asked him a stupid question and he gave me smart answer.I asked him “How do you think the society has benefited from your education?”His response “It has not benefited me either so why should I bother to take pride on the benefits to the society” My students,the recent graduates are now signing my salary pay and the worst part of it they earn way much above what I earn now and I wonder if I gave them too much”
Could this be the problem of Africa?If you look at the stupid question and the smart answer you may get a glimpse of the problem that Africa is facing.CONFUSION.Yes we as a race and as a people are confused but who got us confused and how can we fix that?
In my humble opinion,I believe the first stage is accepting that we are confused before trying to look for some one to blame.By accepting this fact then we can think of how to stop this confusion.
I personally am slowly accepting that I am confused.Every dream and ambition I have is built upon my confused state hence every time I get stuck in something I get even more confused.So what do I do?I address my confusion.
As an African,I live amidst multiple sources of confusion from Political confusion,religious confusion,cultural confusion,economic confusion,technological confusion,education confusion.It is confusion every where.There is no order just chaos.My mind has gotten used to the chaos to the point that I cannot tell the difference between chaos and calm.That is the kind of Confusion that exists in the minds of majority of Africans.
Just imagine that an African with a job would quit to start a business and another would close a business to get a job.And if you ask them both why they made the choices they made, you discover that they made the choices based on circumstances.They make critical information in a confused mind.
There are great Africans,many of them.There are calm Africans and many of them.But the confusion that exists has caused them to feel confused as well.
I know someone may wonder why I chosen confusion but let me give a recent example the COVID 19 saga.COVID 19 is real and people are dying and what does Africa does.We go for herbs and concorsions not for their healing power no but because we do not have faith in whatever they say about COVID 19.This is Africa.
I think we need to do something to address this confusion and bring some order.YES WE CAN.We can decide first to learn to love and accept our selves.If we can even come with some kind of AFROCENTRIC SUPERIORITY propaganda just to make us believe in ourselves and our potential and power as a race we can start that.We do not have to preach hate of others but we can preach love of selves,some kind of AFRICA first concept.
Some kind of EAT AFRICAN,DRINK AFRICAN,DRIVE AFRICAN,BUY AFRICAN can do for starters,We do not have to keep wearing second hand clothes just because we are African or buy second hand cars,second hand appliance even second hand under dress! What a shame.
Lets think Beyond racial difference but lets love who we are and be proudly African.
