Africans, particularly Nigerians, are often fond of always pointing accusing fingers at those they see as their oppressors. At any slight opportunity, they're ready to tell the whole wide world at any point in time how historically Africans have been unfairly maltreated, shortchanged and have their resources looted by their supposed oppressors, who, on most account are foreigners.

Please don't get me wrong. I'm not demeaning Africans. Far from it. I'm an African, a citizen of Nigeria from the Niger Delta region, an Ijaw man by ethnic leaning, and a Gbaramatu Kingdom indigene by place of origin. I'm therefore a full-fledged African, a Nigerian and I'm proud to be black! However, I refuse to be that African version that's enslaved by a warped mentality that's swayed by emotional intelligence rather than a critical-based thinking.

The point I'm trying to make here is that Africans, inasmuch as they've been subjugated in times past, especially during the colonial era, need to wake up from their emotional state of reasoning in their attempts to gain sympathy from the world and using the pogroms of the past to divert attention from their poor leadership failings in the present world.

Are we still being physically colonized by Europeans? Are there still in our midst Europeans or other coloured people from other continents that are ruling over our affairs? Are African countries still under foreign rule as was in the colonial era? Or, is the abolished slave trade still a dominant one in the African continent? Of course, the answers are all ‘No!’

Who are those stealing from the national treasury of their states/country and stashing or hiding such loots in foreign banks? Who are those investing in developed climes of Europe, Asia, America and the likes, when their own countries are reeling in a state of underdevelopment, resulting in poverty and unemployment? Who are those that choose to vote for leaders on the basis of such leaders being rich when such are tainted as being corrupt? Who are those that sponsor insecurity on the basis of religious fanaticism or by their greedy political ambition? Who are those that oppress those labelled as oppositions, throwing them in jail and seizing their properties because they dared speak the truth? Are these persons themselves not Africans!

Take for instance, a country like Nigeria, a country so much endowed with both minerals and human resources, earning her the title of being the Giant of Africa. But in reality, these resources have not made any meaningful impact on the lives of the masses who are daily battling with insecurity, poverty, poor infrastructures in transport, health, education, etcetera, all driven by a mass scale of corruption. 

Just recently, an Accountant-General of the Federation was arrested by the anti-graft agency (the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission) for fraud to the tune of eighty billion naira (N80 billion)! Certain properties in Dubai, the United Arab Emirate (UAE) and in the United Kingdom have all been traced to the accused. That's how worse corruption is feasting on the nation. On another case of corruption, it was recently reported in one of the Nigeria dailies how a former National Security Adviser (NSA) looted funds meant to boost the fight against insurgency in the northern parts of the country, using such funds to acquire properties in the UAE, UK, US, and the likes. 

Do you know that in the Niger Delta region where I'm from, oil-bearing and other associated communities, particularly those in the creeks lack access to potable water, electricity, jobs, bridges connecting them to the city centres, among many other challenges, despite the region contributing huge sums of money to the treasury of the government at the centre through oil mining and exports? Instead, these communities are breeding grounds for pollution occasioned by oil spills and gas flares that are destroying the livelihoods of the people and posing a grave threat to their continuous existence.

Looking at all these, it's Africans themselves that are perpetrators of such dastard acts, the same black man and woman; not the whites—not Europeans, not Americans. Africans are the ones who influence and collaborate with foreigners to maltreat their own kind; the same attitude whereby most Africans during the slave trade era connived with slave traders and sold their own kindred into slavery still persist today among Africans. Yet, they don't see anything wrong in these barbaric acts.

Dwelling in the past will not change anything. The past remains in the past, no matter how inhumane. What matters is the present and the future. And what Africans do now determine what kind of future they'll have. Sadly, on the most part, going by the large scale poverty and illiteracy in the continent which is a driver of insecurity, exposes the failure of African leadership.

Times without number, most African leaders have proven to be lesser than their European, American, and Asian counterparts, in terms of economic, political, and social ideology. All that the majority of African leaders have done to the vast resources of the continent is to encourage wastes and not the strategic application of them to the transformation of the continent and its people. 

Image Credit: Alamy

#mypublicdiscourse