Africa needs awaited ‘Messiahs’

In living history, the British used to boast that the sun “never set on their empire.”

After years of free interaction with the rest of the world, Africa found itself colonized by western powers towards the end of the 19th century.

That was to last until the beginning of the second half of the 20th century when most African countries regained their freedom, led by Ghana under Osagyefo (redeemer) Kwame Nkrumah on March 6, 1957.

In all sincerity, the colonization of Africa was one of the shortest lived domination of a people by a foreign power or powers. If we take 1957 as the baseline year of Africa’s liberation and subtract 1885, the year the Berlin Conference partitioned Africa, it equals 72 years only. By contrast, the British colonized India for 400 years and the Jews were captives in Babylon and Egypt at different times for even longer periods.

The British too were for more than a thousand years, a colony of the Romans and the scars of that domination live on to this today. Turkey, under the Ottoman Empire, also held sway over large swaths of land in Europe, Asia and North Africa. It is probably right to say that in the world we live, there is no nation that hasn’t been under the domination of others in one way or the other.

However, Africa happens to live with the most recent experience of that abominable past but as I say, it is not alone in that wagon. Thus, I was more than appalled to hear US presidential hopeful, Donald Trump brag that Africa should be recolonised in order for the continent to develop.

I think that process should start with the US under dumb Trump. Trump doesn’t even know that the US was until 240 years ago, a colony of Britain and that he is in fact a part of the immigrants to America he so much disparages.

But the likes of Trump are allowed to puke whatever nonsense they can about Africa because the continent too is going through a debilitating era of a generation of weaklings.

All the independence leaders, including comical Emperor Jean-Bedel Bokassa, were very tough men while people like Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, Kwame Nkrumah and Nelson Mandela, are undoubtedly among the most influential and intellectually most vibrant world leaders of our era.

In 2014, Africa adopted Agenda 2063, with the main vision of a united and developed Africa by that year. Yet, very little is done of the ground to sensitize the people for adoption and absorption of the key concepts and ideals of the project.

One example is the way Africa almost quietly marked the 53rd anniversary of the founding of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) on May 23, 1963, which on May 26, 2001 became the African Union with greater dreams for regional integration and unity.

It is also unfortunate that Africa remains poor despite an abundance of resources, which was the primary reason for its colonization by European nations. One major dimension of human rights in Africa should be how the people benefit from the exploitation of their God given resources.

For all its good work, including the completion of the struggle to liberate Africa, the OAU was largely seen as a “club of dictators”, with their positions augmented by the principle of non-interference in the domestic affairs of member states with human rights as the biggest casualty.

Africa shall never cease to be a restive place until the people are free from all forms of domination, foreign and domestic and the increasingly more dangerous partnership between foreign and domestic interests.

It is the kind of shameful situation that South Africa’s President, Jacob Zuma has found himself in. Former freedom fighter Zuma, who rallied the people with war songs to take up arms, would be placed almost under the armpits of the Gupta family and its scandalous businesses.

Nobody can fail to prosper if given favourable access to lucrative government contracts, the way the Gupta brothers are said to have enjoyed in South Africa. They have been said to be still committed to the country despite being at the centre of a political storm, which still dangles Zuma’s power in the balance. If Africa wants to develop, people like the Gupta brothers should not be welcomed anywhere in the continent.

That was how Mwalimu Nyerere dealt with a Greek Cypriot who boasted to have the entire Tanzanian government in his pockets. Mwalimu banished him not only from Tanzania but the whole of East Africa. Africa needs a rebirth of such committed and principled leadership.
-EANA-