Its historic antecedents and lofty places and the centrality of its
location have all added up to just a little in terms of current
standing.The white man made a good prey of us because we lazily watched them
and consented to the injury they inflicted on us. Till today, we have
not extricated ourselves of the indolence that retarded us and made us
their pawn.
At a point, some Africans with great awareness and pride for their
identity stood on their feet and resisted the predators and managed to
pull us free from their grip. But because they never felt like letting
go their slaves, they made sure they left but with the shadows and
ghosts of the awesome masters still lurking in the shadows. In places
like Nigeria, the white man left, leaving behind his tricks to ensure
the nation would never know peace.
But apart from what they did, we have been under the spell of the
worst of leadership in any part of the world. And some attribute it
falsely to colour or location or vague destiny. But none of these
caused us the pitiable leadership that keeps us down. It is all in our
hands. We have bred the laziest and most cowardly citizens who have been
crippled by the antics of the ruling class to remain helpless forever.post by expdonaloaded.blogspot.com...
It is not known to history that any ruler ever changed to favour the
people if the people never made moves to show they are averse to their
predicament. The ruler is naturally and definitely an exploiter. He
enjoys and cherishes plundering and dispossessing the subject, and not
ready to change from that until such a day the victim decides to pull
himself free.
Henry F. Jackson wrote in 1985 that: “But the foreign debt
represents the long-term danger to the African countries’ economic
viability because it blocks their return to steady economic growth and
locks them into greater dependency on the outside world. Without a
solution to the debt crisis, the African nations can neither gain the
agricultural self-sufficiency that is needed.”
In the late 80s, the foreign debt of all the 50 member-states of the
then OAU was less than those of Brazil and Mexico alone. But while the
two Latin American nations deployed their debts to development, such
was not the case in Africa.
It later got so bad for Africa that even Brazil, the highest debtor
nation then extended loans to African nations, a sign that it managed
its own borrowings well. And not done yet, Brazil two years ago
announced its cancellation of debts of $900m owed it by 12 African
nations. Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff announced that in Addis Ababa
at the African Union summit.
In 2005, the G8 nations announced debt forgiveness for 18 countries
in the world, 14 of them were African nations. These are debts owed the
IMF, World Bank and even our ‘own’ African Development Bank.
With 24 non-African nations in the membership of the African
Development Fund, a major and controlling organ of the AfDB, with US
and Japan having highest and second highest controlling shares and
voting powers, it boils down to the glaring fact that the AfDB is just
African in words. Poverty, occasioned by bad leadership has denied
Africa the ability to manage herself and exposing it to the vagaries of
external bullying and commands. That is the reason David Cameron or
Barack Obama would forever talk down on Africa on what to accept or what
to discard, as it is in the case of gay right, or there would be no
food on our tables.
One might ask many questions on why the rich nations that love Africa
so much as to do their best to impose gay rights and sane sex marriage
on us would not do anything to ensure Africa, the only continent without
a representation in the Security Council of the United Nations is
enlisted.
With all the membership of the UN, six nations decide what holds and
only Africa has no representative there. So what controls Africa and
indeed the whole world is decided without Africa’s input. We have lacked
leadership all these years that no African head of government, not
even the docile African Union could champion that cause. They feel too
inferior to champion such cause because they are powerless, just
because they are bad leaders or not even leaders at all.
It is in Africa that so-called leaders bully their citizens and take
all they have to themselves and family and no none raises a voice
about it. Mobutu Sese Sekou looted about $7b from Zaire, and the money
is hidden and invested in Europe. General Sani Abacha stole from us
almost the same amount. His is also hidden in Europe. From one
government to the other, the story of looting by government officials in
Nigeria is endless. It is not out of place to say that every year, at
least since 1999 when a form of check started, 50 percent of the
nation’s budgets end up in private pockets of people in power. And
because the rich nations have seen the emptiness of those that parade
as our leaders and also know how much they steal from us and hide in
their nations, where they lubricate further their economies and
impoverish further ours, they lack the boldness to stand up to the
rulers that assist in making sure Africa does not grow.
That person who feeds you has the right to tell you what to do. He
that employs you also dictates to you what to do. In Africa, the major
thing African so-called leaders do is to run to Europe and America, and
lately China and Japan every other week. They go cap in hand with
inferiority written all over their faces begging for alms, and the
proceeds also mostly end in the pockets of the leaders.
From one generation to another, Africa remains down with hunger,
diseases, wars and no leader does anything about it, of course because
there is no leadership. It is all protocols everyday. President
Goodluck Jonathan in his days traveled to China with a bevy of
officials who signed a million papers and agreements. It has been the
same ritual every year in every nation of Africa. All motion, no
advancement, and at last you don’t see any result to justify the
spending of traveling all over the world. President Olusegun Obasanjo
made history as the most traveled president in the history of Africa
and also the record of the worst manager of any nation in Africa, just
next to or almost at par with Somalia leaders.
From the West to the East, to the South and up to the North, it is
the same story Africa tells and re-tells about leadership. Our poor
leadership exposes us to perpetual ridicule that everybody who extends
food to us decides for us how to think and behave and threaten us with
starvation and freeze of our food supply if we say no.
I recall again that I have never heard the West or America go to any
Arab world and bully them over forceful gay rights and same sex
marriage. Even the north of Africa is immune to the terror of Obama and
Cameron on compulsive gay rights.
Cameron can never in all his brashness go to talk to China, not even
persuade in veiled words that Japan, India, Indonesia, Korea or others
tow the gay rights path. He can’t contemplate suggesting that to Russia,
a fellow EU nation as UK to do that because they stand on their feet
and feed themselves. But he can travel all the way down to sub Sahara
Africa to scream at us because he feeds us from his crumbs and holds in
custody money looted from our public purse by our men that parade as
leaders.
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