"It is disgusting, these incessant cries of woe and sob stories that have indeed become our lot in Africa. We seem to be hell bent on creating some kind of abstract culture out of our woes, which we are proudly nurturing to bequeath our posterity! Up till this 21st century we are still crying about slavery, about colonisation, about poverty, about hunger, about debt relief, about economic strangulation, etc."

" /> Africa's Economic Dilemma - Nigerian Village Square
Saturday 21 November

29

Jan

2006

Africa's Economic Dilemma PDF Print E-mail
By Chidi Giniji

   It is disgusting, this incessant cries of woe and sob stories that have indeed become our lot in Africa. We seem to be hell bent on creating some kind of abstract culture out of our woes, which we are proudly nurturing to bequeath our posterity! Up till this 21st century we are still crying about slavery, about colonisation, about poverty, about hunger, about debt relief, about economic strangulation, etc.

   Today we are crying and beseeching Europe and the US to stop subsidising their agricultural products so that ours can have some breathing space on the world stage and save our West African cotton producers from extinction, haba! When are we going to stop all this crying and begging for heaven’s sake?

   Primarily European and US governments do not subsidise their agricultural industry in other to drown us out of competition. That is only a side effect. They do that because they see it as their obligation to keep their agricultural industry functional so their citizens would have as much food as possible on their tables. Asking them to stop subsidising is like asking a man who is working hard to feed his family to relent so that his wife can come and buy from you. Is that not absurd?

   Unfortunately, after all we have been through, we still have not realised that it doesn’t work that way. Survival in this world is a very serious affair and you cannot survive by begging all the time. It is either you stand up to the reality or you wither away. The people we are dealing with basically lack sentimentalities when it comes to their survival as a people. Deep down in them, they believe that we Africans were made to serve them with all our body, mind and Soul!

   The only way to save us further agony is to stop crying now and start acting. We are mostly culpable for the calamities that have befallen us as a people since time immemorial and it is only ourselves that can really put an end to our miseries. If only our leaders would get their acts together and stop seeing themselves as neo-colonialists by owning up to their obligations, and if all the nations of Africa would rally together determinedly, Africa could be self-reliant and Africa could be saved.

   One does not reject oneself just because someone else has rejected one. We do not have to play their game or even try to compete with them if the rules are unfavourable to us. Africa is a huge chunk of the world, large enough to be a world of its own and Africa has more than enough resources to take care of its own.  There is no reason why African governments cannot subsidise their agricultural industries with the stronger nations supporting the weaker ones, until food is in abundance in all Africa.

   If African governments would get together, resolutely developing roads and infrastructure, improving the interconnectivity of all the African nations, play the same market protection game of the West by restricting the flow of foreign products into Africa; intra African commerce and industry would be greatly enhanced.

   The market in Africa alone is enough to resuscitate our endangered cotton industry, for instance, and the US and European farmers can eat their excesses themselves some day. Redefine our priorities, feed the people and resist the urge to waste so much of our resources on such luxuries as military hardware, huge armies, and other empty image boosters. What do we need them for?

   Come to think of it, do we really need all these Western-type “civilisation” that perpetually hold us in their thrall? Do we really need to be part of this rat race to nowhere? Do not get me wrong; I am not saying we should boycott the West. But if they refuse to be fair, we hold all the trumps to force them to be fair. With the abundance of human and mineral resources in Africa we should be the ones calling the shots.

   We should be shrewd enough to proffer the West only what they merit on one to one basis. In our present penultimate notch we have nothing to lose, do we. Remarkably, no African leader has stood up till today to challenge the debt relief fallacy. Why do they keep grovelling to the West for God’s sake? Who really owes whom? After all the brutalities they meted out on our kits and kin in the past, using us as animals to create the bedrock of their present opulence at our detriment, we still have not found it necessary to demand reparation till today.

   It was them that enslaved us and it was them who abolished slavery when their conscience could no longer take it. It was them that colonised us and it was them who let us go when they were done with us. It was them that created the economic environment that made us hopelessly indebted to them and it was them who decided to relieve our debts when it no longer seemed reasonable to them.



This attitude of acquiescence, forsaking our fate to the whims and caprices of the Whiteman robs us of our sense of pride and gives leverage to his haughtiness and arrogance towards us and corroborates his intimate conviction that we had been created to serve him. To re-establish our self-esteem and our dignity among the international community we must start changing things ourselves. It could not be timelier now!

Chidi Giniji lives in Munich, "a Joe Public of sort and an aspiring writer". His book titled "A Biafran Odyssey" was recently published in the US and is already creating waves. Hobbies, writing, listening to music, following world affairs from the African prism and like everyone else "complaining incessantly about Nigeria! "