Africa My Country

The Berlin Conference of 1884 organised by Otto von Bismarck ushered in the Scramble for Africa which saw the heightened colonial activity by European superpowers, which eliminated or overrode most existing forms of African autonomy and self-governance. In 1870, only 10% of Africa was under European control; by 1914 it was 90%.

 Today Africa stands at the crossroads and it has to make hard and tough decisions if it’s going to control its destiny. It’s been more than 50 years since one of Africa’s greatest sons, Kwame Nkrumah made a clarion and passionate call for a United Africa. When Nkrumah made this passionate call many self-seeking African leaders described him as a dreamer of impossibilities. The creation of the European Union (EU) in 1992 was almost three decades after Nkrumah’s appeals for Africa to unite if it could overcome balkanisation, re-colonisation, disunity, domination and destruction.

The fundamentalists are here

Africa has grown in leaps and bounds and it is indeed rising but many challenges still beset her and one that threatens to derail the gains made in the past decades is that of religious fundamentalists. If Africa is going to enjoy the fruits of peace it has to defeat the religious fundamentalists. We have seen various religious terror groups waging wars against their citizens in different countries and this more than ever calls for a more united Africa to fight and defeat this. Al-Shabab has been wreaking havoc in the horn of Africa unabated.Al-Shabab has almost relegated the nation of Somalia to a near failed state through the control of large swaths of territory in Somalia, the continuous bombings, assassinations even of high government officials and the current wagging of war against Kenya.

In Mali we saw the emergence of an Islamist group, Ansar Dine from obscurity in early 2012 to seize control of northern part of the country. Together with the Tuareg rebel group the group set about to implementing the Sharia law in regions under its control and even go to the extent of destroying the Timbuktu shrines.

We have also seen the emergence of a terror group that goes by the name Boko Haram which has kidnapped more than 200 young school girls and continues to plant bombs in Nigeria with thousands of people having been killed thus far. A bloody fight between the Seleka and anti-balaka rebel groups continues in the Central African Republic. The list of Africa’s hotspots is continuing by the day and it’s going to take a more united Africa to overcome all this.

The strongmen amongst us

It was Barack Obama who said and I quote, “Africa doesn’t need strongmen,it needs strong institutions”. Armed conflicts have taken place in Nigeria, Liberia, Libya, Ivory Coast,Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, Sudan and now South Sudan and there is one underlying factor, a strongman. Leaders that are willing to get the grip of power by all means necessary have become a threat to Africa’s peace and progress.

Elections are smoke screens because they are aimed at maintaining the big man in office. Times without number elections have been manipulated in favour of the big man in office and some that eventually come into power go on a looting spree. The situation has been made worse by the Africa Union (AU)which is aloof and has become a club and a den of dictators. A dictator can hardly ever be told to relinquish power or negotiate with opposition or rebels. The AU is yet to effectively solve a single African crisis,laughable.

Unity of purpose

The challenges or problems besetting Africa can only be conquered if Africans themselves are united, starting with their leaders. The idea of leaders being summoned to Europe to discuss issues affecting Africa is laughable and sad at the same time worse so when the nation involved is Africa’s biggest economy. It baffles the mind that Africa cannot take care of its own citizens and worse children within its borders and it has to outsource that function to foreign European countries.

There are many other African leaders today who still strongly believe that the problems of Africa can solely be solved from outside Africa although they do not say it but their reliance on former colonial masters is a pointer to the fact that they do not have an independent mind of their own.

Now is the time for a new African leadership to rise above pettiness and individualism to build the Africa of today and tomorrow for its citizens. History will judge them right for yielding and listening to the visionary Nkrumah, who though dead, lives on, proving his works are truer to the predicament of Africa today than ever before.

Africans must take the lead in charting their future because no other people will do it for us. The time is compelling now as it was when Kwame Nkrumah wrote his book Africa Must Unite.

This is the Africa we want.

Asante Sana!