By Modou Lamin Sowe
Since the African Union was founded on 9 September 1999, with the actual objective of uniting the continent and accelerating the process of integration in Africa, maintaining peace and unity and to serve a vital role in the global economy, and to addressing the social, economic and political problems of Africans.
The Continent for 19 years now had been briskly pounded into the mortar of retrogression and taken a dust bath into the tenets of war and division—then, let me ask you my dear reader, what is the need for their existence? The United Nations ( U.N) was founded in 1945 to replace the failed League of Nations which could not prevent the Second World War: but how many wars have been happening on the African continent? What has been done so far to earnest the conflict which had raped the continent for decades?
As I lay awake at night, and ponder without hope, I shudder from the newly wedded siblings of disappointment that chokes my blood vessels with shame across the continent where I grew up. Pains long enough to fulfill a mad man’s destiny, had been successfully enrolled into the silent university-college of my humble thoughts,— “Poor Africa”, the thought of Africa, the continent of poverty and the land of pest and diseases; casted a spelt out of my throat.
Do you know the only factories I see in Africa? They’re: the manufacturers of lies, jealousy, bribery, corruption, rape, tribalism, greed, pride, ignorance and the desire to cause the death or failure of their fellow Africans, with the ultimate aim of inheriting their sweat, wealth, position or property- or even just to see them fail in life. Justice must never be ashamed to speak in our mother tongue. The vulture faiths on the death even it is old. A heinous act increasingly unpardonable— I embodied a mind that sees beyond the seven colors of the rainbow, as I understand the language of intellectuals and do ignore the pretense of African nations with their people who are not even near intelligence; but sharply stupid and just jealous- I am very optimistic to say this quite aloud that ignorance is a natural rain in Africa, with which our crops grow– and the produce of which we eat as food.
An African easily underrates, quickly judges and fastly concludes- do you know the human resources we have in Africa? They are : witchcraft, jealousy, fighting, lying, pretending we know it all, poverty, ignorance, and above all killing and derailing any individual African who can lead and unite this continent.
Factually, Africans will willingly remove the person from power even if it means they’re being influenced by any foreign power to label their leaders as bad, overstaying in power, being corrupt, or abused human rights.
Especially, if the African leader in question captured power through a coup– Africans will never see the person’s efforts but will join the lexicographers to give weight to the word “Dictatorship” and help us define a “Dictator”, that’s why we have the Oxford Dictionary of English, Cambridge and others– and not African Dictionary of any language. Guess what Africans do after removing, killing or jailing our leaders? They’ll start complaining of bad leadership. Today in Libya, they’re crying for murdering Mohammad Ghaddafi, they’re languishing without a president, and the country divided. Today all over Africa, when you mention names like Nelson Mandela, Thomas Sankara, Steve Biko, Kwame Krumah and others. Every African citizen will lament their death and wish they were alive. But I ask you my fellow Africans, do you know exactly why Mandela was jailed for 27 good years? Do you know the traitor (s) who led the expedition for killing Ghaddafi and Thomas Sankara? Do you even know why I’m writing this? Because Africans will never value each other and will never shape the destiny of their leaders: but will always live to remember them when they’re gone.
With genuine reasons, both Mandela and the aforementioned late African leaders knew very well that they’ll one day be rulers and must rule, but they fought forces you never saw- both supernatural and physical forces led them into the room of misfortune for knowing who they were. To date, we’ve plenty of reasonably brilliant, naturally chosen by God, and undeniably honest and gifted people in Africa who can move this continent; but they are those we forced into exile, leaders you fought and removed from power, those you killed, those innocent people our leaders killed, those intelligent African youths denied even entry to universities abroad, those poor and wrecked silent men and women in their poor houses, those you always envy hearing their names, those you don’t want to accept; asylum seekers you think are nothing and laugh at.
I have explicit respect for the people mentioned above: I later knew that most of them have more knowledge than anyone you think is knowledgeable, but we’re just silent in a world that is talkative. I don’t solicit attentions when I write, and I don’t care who reads what I write or not because I’m a protestant writer whose bold enough to speak the truth confidently without fear. I dearly know that I do hugely impress some people who read me for knowing exactly why I write: as a result, I cannot work with most of our African leaders both in my own country and elsewhere in Africa because they belong – and I know where they belong; where only those with sight to see the supernatural can see and understand. Let us all accept the fact that “the black man is a symbol of poverty, mental inferiority, laziness and emotional incompetence.”Africans will always have a dream at night but wake up in the morning to only speak about democracy and freedom of speech- even without knowing it: and later derail those with the competence to govern our countries and continent, that is why corruption in Africa is a way of life.
Before colonialism, we were ignorant and very primitive; colonizers came and even helped us built schools to be educated: we later complained about independence, they granted our independence but we failed to rule ourselves. Africa is the source of three-quarter of all raw materials, minerals and natural resources–but we cannot do anything with them than selling them and war for even having them. Making the troubles of Africans my worries, I felt this literary pedigree of our discomfort so sorry—a loftiness of a non-fiction story, beneath the annals of history.
Some of us live all our lives in ignorance and will never RESPECT those with perfect wisdom and foresight to both see and rule our countries and continent. To undress the naked fibers of my shameless African sweat-glands, the AU’s budget depends on the support of its partners, a token that often dominates their summits. As a result, African solutions to African problems continue to be a priority for the organisation. The AU continues to work hard to find avenues through which mainly centers towards self-sustainability. To add pain to sympathy for my African skin in the bedroom of shame for seeing those holding PhDs, double-masters degrees from renowned universities in the world, and fluently speak many different languages; globally known and valued as intellectuals and professors: both of them and African leaders and heads of states, still cannot fuse their knowledge together to bail the African Union that runs the risk of placing African unity above the promotion of international norms, such as democracy and respect for human rights.
The African Union remains sceptical of “NATO ” due to its intervention in Libya and Nato’s reluctance to allow any AU influence over the campaign, which itself had generated a great deal of offence amongst the African leaders during the incident in Libya and even at present in some countries in war in Africa. Why should AU be only negotiators and the source of sending peacekeepers than solving all the wars across the continent? But still there’s war in Africa and the African Union and ECOWAS are often having meetings and partying the taxpayers’ funds, for what?
Meetings upon meetings–what have they achieved? A headache of a rich man is far better than the death of a poor man in Africa. When a poor man dies, he is buried with dignity for being poor and had nothing—but if a rich man does, his ghost dies ten times in his grave before he is finally laid to rest.
Sorrow has made the African milk sour; this venom of pain had stung our hearts with hatred, tribalism, jealousy, mourning and poverty. Is it when we cry blood these acts will be condemned? How can African elections be free and fair and our leaders be just when actually predecessors who held those positions are on-behalf of our country owing the EU, IMF, World Bank and all other international agencies; yet, we’ll vote for a new president to rule our country and continent, and so, instead of devising ways to pay our debts, he or she will take more loans, develop only those areas that voted him or her– and then steal more money and when we’re frustrated, we kill them , impeached them, jailed them, or even stage a coup.
And yet, we complain about bad leadership in Africa. Who is just fooling who here? When will we wake up from this century of sleep and stop civilizing hope in today’s African leaders who baked our hearts with ponderings of misdemeanor. I’m understood by only those who understand philosophy and have knowledge of the supernatural world, soil me in your human earthquake to better explain to you the degree of doom and decadence I felt in the hearts of disturbed future African leaders.
We have to form an alliance with each other in Africa to end these—it is God Who has the eternal key to lock every door, but man was born naked and must die naked. Death is the separator of the dear from the dearest— the dead are not happy anymore in Africa. Some died innocently, others gave up their properties, some abandoned in the darkness of hatred, and others gave up in professional hatred at work that killed them. Jobs in Africa are now embattled for, to the extent that some people had to send others in their grave so that they can be a “Country Representative of UNHCR”, “ a Director”, “just a mere Protection Officer”, “ a Minister”, what can I add— and a “President”. That best describes the evil seen by the uniformity of evil seen by the naked corridor of my weary eyes, as they got blown away by the wind of sight idiomatically. Africa has indeed a great battle to fight aside from poverty, hatred, jealousy, ignorance, greed, pride and evil are the most vital things to be fought for eternity, if ever, there will be a United States of Africa; we must be freed from the bondages of evil–and the youth must be ready to face the challenges.
