I was in Church last Sunday and it was one of those Sundays that the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (Cafod) has very visible roles to play during the liturgy. On this Sunday, theirs was to raise greater awareness among the faithful about the ‘amazing works’ –to borrow the words of the speaker- that the Agency is doing in the third world thanks to the invaluable support of the people and to solicit for more.  The Sunday in question found me in a country side Parish in Ottery St. Mary Honiton much removed from the bustle of the big cities and the vibrant presence of the many nationalities that attend Sunday worships in London and other major British cities. Moreover, as I was spending the weekend  in this remote town in the South west of England, and hence  could not attend Mass in my usual Parish of affiliation in south east London, spiced as it always is by the many ethnic  nationalities that usually make Sunday worships warm-hearted and lively by their sheer presence and wholehearted participation. Our Sunday liturgies are usually moving, inspiring and joyous animated by a group of talented and highly professional musicians that make-up the Choir.

But on this occasion, finding myself in a somewhat rural and remote Parish a much smaller church than the one I usually worship in and one that is predictably populated by grannies and a few parents with their tots, I was easily the only black face in the Church. Hence try as hard as I might, my presence, though sitting at the very back of the church, couldn’t but be noticed. I stuck out as they say it, like a sore thumb. The Cafod awareness day was to highlight how much this important agency has been able to accomplish in the third world plagued as it is by its intractable woes and tragedies. It was as though this speaker needed a black presence to silently corroborate what he was going to say and that presence I unwittingly provided. According to the fellow who stood up to address the assembly after the elderly Parish Priest ended his brief and articulate homily, without the support of these ordinary people of the Parish, Cafod would not have been able to provide as much assistance as it has provided to hundreds of refugees of Sudan’s Darfur, to many of the displaced and homeless citizens of Kenya and of course, to a large number of the starving people of Zimbabwe. 

It was all about Africa; from Darfur and Chad to Kenya and Zimbabwe. Even Ethiopia was in the list of those that have received one form of aid or the other from this Agency of the Catholic Bishops’ of England and Wales, devoted to helping out “our less fortunate” brothers and sisters.  To make his point more clearly, this speaker was armed with graphic images and photographs of people from some of these places. It goes without saying that these were faces marked by agony, shrunken by misery, disfigured by suffering and emaciated by hunger.  They were heart-rending images to behold, appalling and horrifying.  Being the only African in the congregation, they assumed a more poignant significance for me, what with the surreptitious glances, the unnecessarily prolonged stares, the knowing looks and tight-lipped smiles that greeted me in church that day especially after that presentation.  I became as it were a Mr. Kenya, Zimbabwe and Darfur rolled into one and those women and children with harrowed faces and gaunt eyes became my relatives. Never did I feel more ashamed or more embarrassed about my roots.   

I couldn’t complain that I ‘m not from any of those places where disaster and absolute chaos reigns. That I’m only a Nigerian and not an Ethiopian for instance, since my own country is also plagued by its own brand of ills and afflictions. It has not yet boiled over to become the phenomenal tragedy and humanitarian emergency that is Kenya today, Darfur or Zimbabwe.  But that it has not done so till date doesn’t in any way diminish the fact of the matter nor does it minimize the danger that Nigeria is a country that is precariously leaning on the precipice.  It’s an accident waiting to happen.  Peace as we all know is not   merely defined by the absence of gun- trotting militants just as health is not equated with the mere non-presence of disease or infirmity. But given the state of affairs in the Niger-Delta for instance, it’s even harder to think of our country as peaceful or healthy in any sense whatsoever.

However, what really tormented me after that incident last Sunday was not so much the images as the thoughts and questions that have been stinging my consciousness ever since. Why are our leaders so blind to the fact that the ordinary man is terribly suffering? Why don’t they get it, that life has remained nasty, brutish and short for the average Nigerian? What is too complex about this that they don’t seem to grasp? How come they live in such a different planet from those they are meant to serve that the groans and cries of these people go completely unnoticed and unheard? How is it that they are so disconnected from these people? Are these people who call themselves our leaders really human beings with warm blood coursing through their veins?  Do they have hearts and feelings? What is really wrong with the African DNA? It beggars belief that in a country with more than half its population living below the poverty line, we have ministers, state governors and local government chairmen revelling in absolute luxury, parading an endless list of Personal and Special Assistants, and driving around town in chauffeur-driven and siren-blaring cars. One wonders where the good old principle that true leadership, including a political kind, ‘is all about service’ disappeared to.

Many a politician in Africa would seek a political office not to effect a salutary change in the plight of the common man. It all about money and power, more money and more power, hence seeking an elective office has become an exercise fraught with danger. It’s in every way a do- or- die affair. Politics has become another lucrative venture and indeed a way to accumulate stupendous wealth and influence while the rest of the citizens wallow in abject poverty, biting hardship and the lack of the basic necessities of life. It leaves no one surprised therefore that our leaders are ready to go to any length to acquire power and to tenaciously hold on to it, even if the country they’re seeking to govern is going up in flames.  A lot has been written and said about the problem with Nigeria and Africa at large, and still a lot more would still be said.  It is either that our leaders are too daft and unintelligent to get the gist or that they don’t care to read at all. After all was it not the Former President, Olusegun Obasanjo, who not long ago, was not ashamed to announce to the world that he had better things to do, than read his country’s newspapers? That was remarkably telling coming from a President. But come to think of it, what could be more bizarre? 

Some may argue that a huge chunk of the blames for our woes should go to the western world, who raided, pillaged and sacked Africa during the era of slavery and in the colonial times. That may well be a reasonable position to take, but it all belongs to the distant past now.  What about now? My problem with this line of thought, is that I still don’t get it that a white man is to blame that an African politician decides to steal and to hide in  a foreign bank monies meant for improving healthcare, energy supply,  education, paying teachers’ salaries and the general enhancement of the living conditions of the people.  To continually point accusing fingers at the whiteman for our seemingly endless tales of misery and misfortune strikes me as odd, unacceptable and self-defeating. The situation in Darfur, Zimbabwe and Kenya where people ordinarily poor by the standards of Europe and America, have now been reduced to the lowest imaginable form of existence: that of being homeless and hungry refugees in their own country is an indictment on Africa and her leadership. The gory images and anguish-stricken pictures making their way from these corners of our continent to the television screens of homes in Europe should thoroughly upset our leaders and make them hide their heads in shame. What is it that the Kibakis, the al-Bashirs and the Mugabes of this world do not seem to understand?

Amadi Alvan  lives in the United Kingdom.

Robot  # 1 | 26.04.2008 09:48

I was in Church last...Read the full article.

aguabata  # 2 | 26.04.2008 13:33

I agree with your article save for daring implying that Nigeria is better than Zimbabwe, please dont join western propaganda on Zimbabwe. Zimbabweans are rightfully complaining that they queue for about 30 minutes in filling stations, that they have started buying lanterns expecting power outage at night. That pot holes has started cropping up in some side roads in Harare, that leakages are appearing in the water pipes, as a nigerian we should keep mum when Zimbabwe is being ridiculed, If there was a border between south africa and Lagos, we wont be scaling fences we would have a sophisticated tunnel through.Mugabe has ruled a prosperous Zimbabwe for 28 years and he suddenly forgot how to do his sums immediately he tampered with white farm lands in 2002. To be honest, African's cant keep putting the blame on the west perpetually, but it will still be naive to ignore that it is a white man's world.

Sapele Man  # 3 | 27.04.2008 10:05

=aguabata;4295010411>I agree with your article save for daring implying that Nigeria is better than Zimbabwe, please dont join western propaganda on Zimbabwe. . aguabata You know we love to kind ourselves, proclaiming the giant Africa status.