The fertile continent of Africa has produced many stalwarts who have contributed enormously to the attainment and liberation of Africans from the chains of suppression, apartheid, colonization and imperialism and all fashions of draconian sufferings that were inhumanely meted out on
Africans.
The European explorers started visited the continent of Africa and they claimed to have discovered our rivers, lakes and swamps which have long sustained our ancestral fathers and mothers. How can they claim to have discovered our water resources which have been under utilization since in the time of memorial?
Movingly, they unscrupulously acknowledged and claimed that they had discovered the indigenous people of Mama Africa. They paid homage where knowledge resides and a place which is the cradle of human civilization. After the discontinuation of the frivolous project of exploration and self-proclaimed discoveries, they had embarked on the most pernicious project which is totally at odds inimical to human civilization.
History reminisces us that, they had uninvitedly and inconsiderately navigated and sailed through our seas and oceans purposely for infringement upon the rights and liberties that are being accorded to the people of Africa under the dictation of international laws and conventions like the universal declaration of Human rights but those international instruments were never practicalized in Africa. The international community has vilified and lost the spirit of good samaritanism in tailoring the world together into a cosmopolitan society. Africans are maltreated like a pariah and like non-living beings.
In reference to the economic perspective, they had discovered that Africa is a continent endowed with a lot of natural resources while the geographical settlement where they emanated from is an impotent land incapable of producing even smallest atom of gold, silver, uranium and other minerals. Our resources were forcefully exploited and taken away from us because we were hoodwinked and powerless to defend ourselves from being exploited. African was and is not at ease!
Consequently, many efforts have been reenergized and galvanised in ensuring that these barbaric ill-treatments meted on Africans are entirely discontinued and being laid to rest without resurrection.
After the discontinuation of this unwelcomed and diabolical enterprise, they had instituted another toxic enterprise for further vilification of Mama Africa. The process of slavery started taking the deepest roots where Africans were being forcefully captured, regimented and shipped to Europe as proletarians to work in their unequipped factories and industries. More shockingly and desperately, they had taken away all the productive young able-bodied me punctuated with the spirit of national consciousness from the continent of Africa because objected dispelled to all their nefarious dictations were badly dealt with.
That brings me to the dramatization which was manufactured by the American writer and historian Alex Haley entitled ” Roots.” In roots, he dramatized the lifespan of an enthusiastic young man uprooted from Juffureh village fondly called Kunta Kinteh. When he was shipped and forcefully taken to America during the diabolical project of slavery. Kunta Kinteh was inhumanely brutalized and was forcefully compelled to alter his identity and a new-being was injected in him called Toby. Kunta Kinteh was beaten out of him because he objected to their wills and they too wanted to silence all those who could at that juncture potentially challenge their authorities. Later on, we catapulted into the era of colonization where we were callously colonized and exploited that led to the underdevelopment or underperformance of African countries to realize their unflinching potentials.
The crusade for self-determination and self-actualization has started when the latter day political revolutionaries have taken the seldom obligation upon themselves to liberate the innocent people of African from brutal sufferings and all form of denigrating misconducts. They fought tirelessly for Africa to be fully independent and to become a sovereign continent where no one dares to impose or devour its people. The spirit of Pan-Africanism was everywhere across the soil of Africa and struggle for flag independence was the common mantra and common agenda.
The founding father of Ghana Dr. Kwame Nkrumah said on the day of the independence of Ghana then called Gold Coast that the independence of Ghana is inconsequential if the rest of Africa is not free from the circles of colonization and imperialism.
As a result, the erstwhile colonists gradually devoured all the latter days political revolutionaries who have chosen the path of liberation and self-actualization. Few years later, Kwame Nkrumah was removed from the zenith of political leadership and all his writings and all his speeches burnt never to be read or be listened to when his speeches and writings were later recollected and restored.
Immediately after all the African leaders have succeeded in liberating their people, the erstwhile colonists have started liquidating the political emancipators. Patrick Emery Lumumba was brutally assassinated by the Belgians, Sylvanus Olympio of Togo was taken away and many other crusaders who have served and reserved the continent of Africa to ensuring that its enumerated ambitions are attained, retained and maintained. Africa started bleeding profusely because all her productive sons and daughters were brutally taken away from the surface of this cosmopolitan Planet.
As the Kenyan writer, scholar and novelist Ng?g? wa Thiong’o rightly and scholarly said in his book entitled “Decolonizing our minds and hearts from mental slavery.” It demonstrates that we can never be fully emancipated, if our minds and hearts are resistant to decolonization.
The youths should play a pivotal role in ensuring that our well-manufactured aspirations are achieved because they’re the catalysts needed for development. No country can realize its greatest potential, if the young able-bodied men are being excluded out of the equation. John F Kennedy was indeed very right in saying that “A society whose young men and women are in a constant stage of slumber will never realize its potential.” He could not have been a prophet but all his prophecies he has prophesied came into perennial existence.
The young able-bodied men are the young suckers that should grow as the old ones get perished. It’s a transgenerational adventure where one generation passes over the baton of leadership to other generation to carry the torch forward. This has become a morality responsibility for young Africans to partake in the process of transmogrification of our dear Mama Africa to advanced continent that shall sit at the dinner table of human civilization as a diner not as a waiter or food to be eaten as eloquently stated by Professor Patrick Loch Otieno Lumumba.
Essentially, we can’t also continue to blemish the former colonizers. The time has come we must take full responsibility upon ourselves as devoted citizens in the process of catapulting the economic pace of our beloved continent to the highest apartment of economic prosperity and many other dynamics of development. Through devotion we can explore and our political leadership has the lion’s responsibility in this whole process. Development can never be realized if our political climate is unstructured, uncleaned, undemocratic, unregulated and unregimented.
The crusade is expected to be cumbersome as nothing comes easy on a silver platter but with constant dedication, commitment and collective resilience, the pressing issues can be ironed out and outperformed. The great Chinua Achebe was as passionate as he was eloquently in saying that “If you want and you seek, you will never fail to find, difficulties may and indeed will exist but through overcoming that we grow stronger.”
The young able-bodied men are the young suckers that must grow as the old ones get perished and it’s a moral responsibility incumbent upon us.
God bless Mama Africa.
