By Yanks Darboe
On the 3rd of July 2017 to the 6th of July 2017, the African leaders met and spent three days at their annual AU summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. But as usual our boys and girls club of leaders gathered at their ghetto, discussed frivolous issues of no importance, ate, drank, laughed, had fun and returned home! As if all is well in the continent! Yet the continent is plodding to the edge of a cliff! Why have we, as a continent been so much cursed by god, with so many good for nothing sons and daughters we call leaders for years! I feel like exclaiming!
How can our leaders missed another opportunity of another year’s AU summit without any serious discussions or actionable plans on how to deal with the crisis of the back-way to Europe, which is eroding our continent of its great potentials. Is it supposed to be a European problem alone?
For I cannot understand that the issue of back-way, had pervaded the European political discourse and even threatened to abruptly end the illustrious political careers of many European politicians – as well as the founding pillars of the European Unity – yet in Africa, our leaders pay oblivion to its existential threat to the future of our continent.
One wonders when will they wake up from that slumber and get this into their feeble-heads, that the back-way issue – if it’s a problem for Europe – is meant to be a crisis for Africa. Simply because those leaving are not just emigrating but fleeing the continent. Secondly; they are not just migrants fleeing the continent, but the future potential: Doctors, teachers, nurses, engineers, architects, lawyers, economists, politicians, cleaners, farmers, gardeners, pharmacists, engineers, astronauts, musicians, artists, poets, policemen, soldiers, fathers, mothers, etc; who continue to flee the continent in droves.
When will our leaders realise that every boat that left our shores for Europe, through the back-way or the Mediterranean seas, becomes only a political problem for Europe, but for Africa it’s a depletion of an immeasurable proportion of our future! Some of which will never be recovered!
When will they realise that, if everyone of our youths flees the continent, it will be a futureless continent, and they the leaders will die and leave none to inherit the continent? Yet the same leaders pretend to have visions for the future of the continent. One wonders, who they intend such visions for, if it’s not myopic visions. Those not envisaged to last beyond their reigns! If not, how do they expect those visions to be actualised without the continent’s future: doctors, teachers, nurses, engineers, architects, lawyers, economists, politicians, cleaners, farmers, gardeners, pharmacists, engineers, astronauts, musicians, artists, poets, policemen, soldiers, fathers, mothers, etc?
The issue of back way seems a problem for Europe that is not losing anything from the crisis, except being gripped by the xenophobia of being swamped by migrants and depleting their resources!
However, for the continent that is losing everything from it, seems oblivion to its existential threat to their future. Their leaders do not seem bothered or threatened by its escalation, neither do their parliamentarians, media practitioners and citizens. It seems our whole continent has been overtaken by slumber from the awareness of this apocalyptic crisis.
Yet, the reasons for the fleeing of this future leaders of Africa, should itself be a shame for our current leaders! For they flee not for the want of it, but for the search of hope! Hope which our feeble, greedy and incompetent leaders could not offer. Instead, all they continue to offer is despair and frustration, something which they continue to excel, even at the apogee of this crisis!
Therefore, the solution to this crisis has been misconceived by the Europeans for long! In the case of Africa, the back-way syndrome cannot be cured by the abandoning of migrants’ ships or dinghy boats to drown in the harsh and unforgivable Mediterranean seas, or forceful removal or deportation of these migrants home empty-handed, or arbitrarily imprisoning of them in detention camps across Europe.
In my humble opinion, the crisis can only be appropriately addressed through drastic measures taken against the root of its source, which is the failures of our corrupt and inept leaders of Africa. Europe must confiscate all their looted funds and give it back to the migrants to return home and achieve their dreams, they have for their families and countries! Sell all of the innumerable luxurious properties across Europe belonging to our current and former leaders of the continent and use their proceeds to assist our migrants to return home and build the future of our continent!
Impose travel bans and financial sanctions on the leadership and family members of African nations, who neglect their citizens to the point of forcing them, to have no other hope than embarking on the dangerous and treacherous back way journey to Europe!
To be continued.
