“Africa is not poor because of colonization”, a heavy statement by Magatte Wade stirred disgruntlement in Africa and within the African diaspora. In my opinion, Africa is not a poor continent but regrettably, it has poor individuals, and it functions under poor leadership, low quality political, educational, and economic systems.
His excellency, President Paul Kagame implored African leaders to solve African problems in Africa and not go ‘anywhere else’, during the African Development Bank annual meeting in 2014. I found his contribution to be very profound because African summits outside of Africa have been surging over the past years. The paradox brings to question the meaning of colonial independence and the depth and origin of problems in Africa.
ISSUES IN AFRICA, COLONIZATION & PERPETUAL SYSTEMS
The first question l thought of was the source of the problems in Africa. Are these problems unique to Africa or they are “borrowed”? This question stands out because Africa is not operating in its original systems since the political and cultural operations were heavily demonized, diluted, and considered barbaric. Then came the indoctrination of civilization by the West and the adaptation of foreign systems. The engrossing part now is whether contemporary Africa is truly “independent” but we discuss this in the next paragraph! Some of the major issues Africa is facing are poverty, hunger, youth unemployment, BRAIN DRAIN, cultural dilution, bad governance, social insecurities, etc.
I remember asking myself if Africa’s poverty predicament was caused by colonization and l think colonization-initiated poverty but bad governance perpetuates it! Africa is the richest continent in the world yet arguably the poorest after Antarctica. Curious to understand the origin of African problems, l landed in the sphere of questioning our independence and this is without the intention of suggesting an answer to you, but have we as a continent acquired independence in its totality? Would it be that systems were created by the former colonizers only they can sustain to create inevitable dependency? The independence we attained as a continent or as individual states, was it territorial? Was it economical and was it total? One finger might point at colonialism but four still point back to the post-colonial systems. How is it that we are rich in major resources and still struggle to improve the quality of life of our people? Instead of trying to eradicate poverty and hunger, if corruption, nepotism, and voracious leadership are eradicated do you think African leaders would finally be able to improve the quality of life of every citizen?
CAN AFRICA SOLVE ITS OWN PROBLEMS?
This goes, without mentioning the Youth empowerment programs and conferences. I remember attending a couple in the past few years and l was left wanting. Firstly, the false advertisement was misleading, they promised young Africans that heads of state of particular countries were attending but they didn’t and no apology was given to young Africans who had spent all their saving to travel to meet these state leaders. Secondly, the panel talk shows seemed scripted to massage the facts of Africa. The young people on the panel were mainly in government positions and blatantly denied that there is any corruption in Africa. I remember asking a question to one of the speakers. I asked, “ You are encouraging us to maximize the resources in Africa but how do we get access to the resources when they are not fairly distributed?”. As you might guess they didn’t answer they diverted their answer to talking about patriotism and the benefits of social entrepreneurship. So how do we solve problems in Africa when our leaders deny the truth of the matter, and discourage the youth who are the future of the continent with ‘empowerment programs’ like this? It’s even interesting because even though most of these conferences are Pro-African and held in Africa, they are not sponsored by African organizations. I also found it gripping how some of the main African continental and regional governing bodies have non-regional members from the West and the East. So how do we debate our problems and bring suitable solutions when we need foreign funding to organize meetings and establish our plans? This warrants serious consideration because the future forecast of our continent is frighteningly gloomy.
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