THE WEST IS NOT THE PROBLEM OF AFRICA: I know many individuals who have faced a lot of challenges in life and those challenges helped them to turn their lives around. Many had to struggle to train themselves in school; travel to lands they knew nothing about and had nobody to give them shelter nor food, just to reinvent themselves and they did. They had no resources except their brains, determination and perhaps the help of some concerned people and yet they tell victories stories today. That is why I am so tired of those still blaming the West for the throes and woes of African countries. I refuse to pack my bag with those who say that all that is happening to Africa is a fall-out of colonization or neo-colonization. I do not need anyone to tell me that African countries have decided not to take their future by their hands. Why must we wait on the West for everything that is uniquely our problem? The fact that we still depend on the West for survival from malaria, for example, is a shame. Our forefathers were better off. One would think that with all the faculties of Pharmacy and pharmacology in our universities, combined with abundant flowers, fauna and animals in our forests, that all health issues peculiar to Africa including HIV/AIDS will be a thing of the past. In the days of yore, our forefathers did not complain of hunger unless there was a natural catastrophe like drought or invasion by locusts. Why are we hungry now with fertile lands that does not even need treatment spread out everywhere? Is still the west that tied our hands from tilling our lands? They come to Nigeria for example and embezzle money. They asked that NASS salaries/allowances per year be higher than the total annual budget of some countries in the world. They stole some billions from the oil boom of Nigeria? They squash the money assigned for projects and award the same contracts every year for over 15 years like the Abuja-Lokoja road? The West inflates contract bids in Nigeria so that they will have enough for kick-back to government officials and still build a shabby project? You can go on and on. This week Over 50 African leaders are in the US to brainstorm on issues concerning Africa. For me it is another jamboree. How many of them will see the order in the highways of Washington DC and go back and say I will do same? How many airports in Africa is better than Greyhound motor pack? How many of them will agree to govern democratically and accept opposing views like their host is doing? How many of them will after enjoying the free flow of water go back to their countries and embark on pipe-born water projects to make water available for their people. I think Africa has grown old enough to determine what happens to her. It is not with bad-mouth strategy of Mugabe and Yoweri. It is not by saying what the white have done against your people; it is about what you can do for your people. After over hundred years, no African country has any excuse to still have dirt roads in their countrys capital. No country has any excuse to still have dirty uncleaned gutters in their streets. No African country still has an excuse for not being able to feed her citizens unless such a country is at war; have unequipped hospitals; have her citizens in schools without seats and chalkboards to say the least. I believe such countries like SIngapore and Malaysia are enough lessons for any country that wants to do the right thing. Stop blaming the West for Africa.
Posted on: Tue, 05 Aug 2014 04:33:56 +0000
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