Everyone that has ever bothered to read the stories of our forebears’ encounters with the invading colonialists must have realized the ultimate agenda of those people. The things happening in various African societies today will make sense to such a person but, of course, the helplessness he feels, seeing his people destroyed and not being able to do anything to help is very painful. Chief Chukwuma Ibezute, one of the great writers of our time, read from one of his novels, an encounter narrated by his kinsman who worked in Enugu coal mines in those bleak days when independence was the song in vogue. It is a chilling account of how the white supervisors trampled on the rights of the hard-working blacks right on our soil. The worst part of the tale was that the black man in answering a question thrown at him by the supervisor started with the words,
‘I think it is because…’
The haughty white man was incensed at this and cut him short, telling him that he had no business thinking of anything and warning sternly that no black man would be spared if he made the mistake of telling his white boss that he thinks this or that. According to them, the white man had done all the thinking for us and all we should do is to do what we are asked to do without questions.
Unfortunately, decades after these ugly scenarios took place, Nigerians are still enslaved in companies owned by foreign expatriates operating in our fatherland. I have read about some Chinese companies in Lagos where workers are used like animals and paid peanuts. Many of them are abandoned to their fate when they sustain injuries in the course of doing the work; injuries as serious as losing some fingers to the soulless machines.
Now this is a confirmation that after several decades, we seem not to be able to do our own thinking and to assert our complete independence.
There is turbulence in many African states. Most of these crises are induced by foreign powers out to make economic or political gains from the chaos in Africa. We fall victim to these schemes again and again. Why?
Whenever any news station mentions Africa, the world waits to hear of the next tragedy, the next hunger epidemic, the next story of human carnage, etc. Why?
All kinds of mis-governance, pollution, corruption, disease outbreaks and unreasonable violence are features that are common in Africa. Why?
The worst cases of election rigging are recorded in Africa. That is also why the quality of leaders we have is very poor. Only human chaff can ascend to the leadership positions in so many countries in Africa. Why?
The list is endless but I think the cause of all these anomalies is one. Africa was not known for chaos before the conquest by the West. We were not hungry. In Igbo land, for example, there was no single beggar. Everyone was content and every family took care of their handicapped or sick relations.
The colonial conquest destabilized our systems and forced strange ways on us. They destroyed our ways of choosing leaders which ensured that only credible people wielded power at various levels. In Igbo land, anyone that had bad intentions dared not touch the Ofo or other sacred symbols of leadership. The colonial lords, in a bid to conquer the people, upturned our system and gave the very lowest of characters on the rungs of integrity (efulefu) power to rule over the land as warrant chiefs.
This aberration did much damage to the people’s psyche and introduced all kinds of confusion in the system. When it became obvious that integrity and uprightness did not really count in the new order since the vain and discredited now had all the money and influence, something went seriously wrong with our value system.
All this is now history but the reality is that up till now, African leaders have refused to think and take their people away from this pitiable condition. If it took a distortion of our values and cultures to destabilize us, it will also take a restoration of our ways of doing things to straighten things out. That is the greatest challenge facing African leaders today. They must think outside the box provided by the Western education that shaped us all to make any meaningful impact. We need courageous and visionary leaders who will dare to think original thoughts and be bold enough to take their peoples’ destiny and turn it around.
African Union (AU) is an umbrella body for all African leaders. This body has a responsibility to steer Africa out of the woods. The first task before this body is to tackle the problem of artificial boundary lines which is a major tool of sustaining crisis in Africa. We cannot continue to bear the names given to us by our detractors, for God’s sake! Our boundaries are in dire need of re delineation. It is a known fact that the creation of African states was done in bad faith. They were not created in the best interest of the people but to enhance the sinister intentions of the scramblers for Africa. Is it not high time our leaders rose to the occasion and redressed these anomalies? In Nigeria, for instance, forcing the Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba, Nupe, Tiv and more than two hundred other tribes with different world views to belong to an artificial entity called Nigeria is a sure recipe for constant chaos. Every right thinking person knows this, but only the leaders of Africa can do something to remedy this situation.
Another issue we expect the African Union to do is to de emphasize democracy we copied from the West. Every people group should be encouraged to devise their own leadership style; something they are used to and something they can identify with. This corruption that now appears to be endemic in Africa is induced by the strange system that has been forced down our throats. In the original format of leadership in Africa, integrity was the watchword. In the Igbo world, for example, we can adopt our system of leadership called Aladimma or Umunnawuike but rather than use the British mace as symbol, we use our potent Ofo. We can also replace the chief judge with the Dibia in the swearing in ceremonies. We can use town hall meetings to replace the bogus legislative system that has only served to make our so-called democracy crazily expensive.
African people must think home if we want positive change. I want the leadership of the African Union to know that Africa will come of age whenever the African Union wakes up from slumber.
Nnenna Ihebom
