By Jude Ndukwe,
As a matter of urgency, Africa must begin to, consciously and deliberately, start the urgent and inevitable journey of divesting itself of the agelong imperialistic atavism of the West and which the West, in its bid to continue to hold on to it, has, even in this modern era, initiated some of the most heart-rending and horrific crimes against humanity. They have executed some of the most barbarous missions reminiscent of an era which Africa struggles to forgive and forget.
Not few governments in Africa have been toppled by puppets created and sponsored by the West just because heads of such governments have seen through their deceit and decided to stand against it. Some of these takeovers have been very bloody, sometimes even throwing whole nations into war while the criminal activities of some of these Western powers on African soil are protected by such puppets. They ensure that their supply of light and heavy weapons to our brother-puppets doing their bidding in Africa do not stop so that we fight one another while they cart away our rich resources.
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They steal our resources through subterfuge; they become so rich and powerful through them, and then turn around to give us pittance in the guise of aids and grants.
That nonsense must stop forthwith!
Africa is of age! The divorce from the West and all their appurtenances must be pursued with all vigour, and even if there will be consequences for that as some may want to vainly argue, such consequences must be damned!
We cannot be so blessed by nature, yet, left so poor by conspiracies! We must begin to channel our resources, both natural and human, first and foremost for the good of Africa before anyone else’s, and not for the plundering of self-imposed modern day slave drivers who disguise as Africa’s benefactors. The era of using Africa’s resources as a bait for Africa should be gone as a matter of urgency. We have all the necessary intellect needed to exploit and process our resources for the transformation of our society into the best in the world.
We must begin to de-indoctrinate ourselves from that theory that Africa is backward and is a ‘thrid world’ that is not capable of governing itself. Our fathers did pre-civilisation era; while others were groping in the dark, our fathers were already advanced in several areas of life until the West came in and violently disrupted our steady growth towards what would today have been an irreversible prosperity. People who built their countries by invading and plundering other people’s lands cannot turn around to claim to be better than us. A house built by stolen wealth is peopled by thieves. We cannot allow ourselves to be dictated to by impudent thieves.
It is time for Africa to reclaim her rightful place in the comity of nations and enrobe herself in the glory and power which nature bestowed on her at creation. Remaining subservient and servile to imperial powers has left us worse than we should be. We are capable of leading ourselves without being dictated to by such imperial forces who think the world revolves only around them and that every nation of the world must either dance to their tune or dance to their doom!
It is time for Africa to begin to act and yield to the clarion calls of her people; we must begin to dance to the tunes being played by true African patriots like P.L.O Lumumba, Julius Malema among others, without resorting to violence unless it is in defence of our people. We must begin to find ways to make true the wishes of Late Kwame Nkrumah, Mouammar Ghaddafi and other leaders some of who were murdered by Western forces because of their vision for a united virile and truly independent Africa.
For those who may not know, the United Kingdom recently crowned their king with stolen diamonds from Africa. The largest diamond in the world, the Star of Africa was stolen from South Africa by the Britons in 1905. Today, despite calls and agitations that the diamonds should be returned, the Britons not only ignored the calls but brazenly emblazoned the stolen diamonds of 530 carats into their king’s sceptre and crown, and, before the whole world, placed these stolen items on their monarch’s head and hand.
It was the same diamond-set crown and sceptre they crowned Queen Elizabeth with 70 years ago. How come you steal and hold on to other people’s belongings with such impunity and still insult them by rubbing it in their faces? You crown your monarchs with stolen items right in the full glare of the whole world and you are comfortable going about as a superpower.
That act alone is a loud and clear indisputable indication that the West does not really care about Africa but only about itself. They still hold on to our other stolen artefacts looted from our motherland by their forefathers and brazenly display same in their museums as tourist attractions or for whatever other purposes up till today.
They could not have unjustly killed our fathers, enslaved our brothers, degraded our mothers, shackled our children, looted our resources and artefacts, and still dictate to us how to run our economies, politics, government, and even our families while also attempting to impose upon us their depraved ways of life! Every of their so-called socio-economic advice to our leaders is ultimately to their own advantage while our own people suffer for it.
We must extricate ourselves by all means from such callous lots who obviously mean no good for us! Africa can fend and defend itself! It is time for Africa to abandon the enticing, yet abhorrent taste of pittances in the guise of aids and grants from the West, take the urgent and necessary steps to lead its people out of poverty and take full charge of its own land flowing with milk and honey. Yes, we can do it!
It is therefore very heartwarming that Mali and Niger have started the process. Big revolutions start in unexpected places. Who would have thought that Mali would be the first nation in Africa to demonstrate the courage to denounce a language of the West, French, as its official language? Today, Mali has elevated its own local languages to official status. How did Africa even allow a foreign language to dominate theirs for so long? We have kowtowed to the West for so long. Now is the time for us to toe back to our origin and own all that is truly ours and representative of us.
Niger on its part has stopped the export of uranium and gold to France. It is an antithesis of disturbing proportions that one out of every three light bulbs in France is powered with uranium from Niger but 80 per cent of Niger’s population wallows in darkness. While one must not encourage military takeovers of governments in Africa, we must challenge our leaders to show the kind of courage exhibited so far by Mali, Niger and others who are redefining their relations with the West based on putting the interest of their nations and, by extension, that of Africa first above any other.
We must resist the usual evil antics of the neo-colonialists, the antics of creating and empowering militant groups in our regions to cause mayhem and give twisted economic policies as a way of setting governments up against citizens while they feather their own nests in our land.
From Nigeria to Algeria, from Rwanda to Uganda, from Togo to Congo, From Libya to Zambia, from South Africa to Madagascar, from Mali to Guinea, from Benin to Eswatini, the message is the same: Africa, retake your land and prosper it for your own people!
• Ndukwe sent this piece from Abuja and can be reached via stjudendukwe@gmail.com
