‘From Africa always comes something stupid’ (2)

By Idang Alibi

The reason why our whole continent cannot come up with a befitting meeting house for its leaders in Addis Ababa is to be found in the inexplicable paralysis of will on the part of both our leadership and followership to think and do anything worthwhile for ourselves. And that reason is responsible for why all people of the world today look down on us Africans. What pains some of us so much is that it is not that we cannot actually do some of these things. It is simply and mainly that we do not have the type of leadership that is able to inspire, motivate and mobilse the people to do some worthwhile things.

If the culture of dependency had not become ingrained in our sub-conscious, it should have even occurred to one or two of the 54 odd leaders who meet in Addis Ababa that we did not have to rely on outsiders for us to have a building, no matter its magnitude or complexity. Someone should have come up with the more honourable idea of persuading five of its leading members namely Nigeria, Egypt, South Africa, Angola and Libya (under Gaddafi) to build Africa a house and I think they would have accepted such a noble challenge. This is very much in order because it is a part and parcel of African culture that the better off brothers help their less blessed ones. This aspect of African culture should have been explored and exploited instead of the foolish and self-denigrating thing we did receiving that gift from China as if we are a people with crippled minds and withered hands.
If the AU was not merely the club of African rulers but an organisation that fights for the peoples of Africa, ordinary people all over Africa would enthusiastically contribute to the erection of a building that would symbolise our bond of brotherhood if they are mobilised to raise funds through special tax, levies, voluntary donations, launchings, lottery, etc.
My sense of personal hurt is hurt further when some argue that some of us who hold the view I am canvassing here are being influenced by the West who presented the story of the Chinese gift in a derogatory or mocking manner in order to sour our warm relationship with China. Are those people saying that we are so stupid that it needs foreigners to tell us what is clearly so demeaning of us?
Also, my an insult is added to my injured pride as an African when some say that if the Chinese did not build the place, our African leaders would not have built anything like that even in a millennium. That may well be true. But my sincere thinking is that it is better we did not have an AU Headquarters building than that such a place is built for us by a foreign country. As my people say in one of their proverbs it better to remain a bachelor than that somebody married a wife for you!
I will also not have minded if we had even gone soliciting the help of our Black brothers all over the world to have this building for the sake of the symbolism that the building is the product of black genius and sweat. If we Africans cannot put up a building such as the AU House for ourselves, what will be our contribution to the world? Did we come as observers to this world? As my people would ask ‘did we escort other people to come and live on this planet?’ We Africans are simply sleep-walking through life. There is nothing that seems to give us any passion, the energy that catapults us to higher heights. Why?
There are some things that even cripples do for themselves and never solicit the help of others. I know many cripples who have married for themselves and they do not ask for the help of other men to give their wives attention on their behalf!
Why am I belly-aching so much about this Chinese building? I am doing so because I am of the firm conviction that we Africans may be poor and underdeveloped and our leaders may be foolish and shameless but some of us value our sense of dignity. Africa is not as our leaders have made it to appear to others. We have among us intelligent, competent, smart, skilled, patriotic and self-respecting individuals who can match people of other races on earth.
It should begin to truly worry us that the most richly endowed continent on earth is today still the poorest of the continents.  The fault for this does not lie in our stars but in ourselves that we are such great underlings.
Let no one misunderstand me. I am not in any way opposed to Africa’s growing relationship with China for I think that even if the Chinese become our colonial lords, they will be more humane than the West were and still are, in their relationship with us. My thinking is that we should engage with China but on one condition: self-respecting terms. Any paternalistic relationship as symbolised by that gift of a building, will certainly be offensive to some of sensibilities. We cannot replace one form of colonialism with another as if we are a people who have sadistic desire to see ourselves perennially enslaved.
In fact there is nothing magical about why China has become a world power today. Good planning, hard work, discipline, frugality, focus and the drastic reduction of corruption through the ‘one-bullet’ policy for those who act corruptly, are some of  what has propelled China from poverty to prosperity, from a once colonised country to a now colonising power. If certain countries of Black Africa like Nigeria, Congo D.R., Angola and Mozambique decide to embrace the Chinese virtues listed above, there is no reason on earth why they cannot become world powers even in less than 30-50 years.
As I have said, there is no harm in our embracing China. But we must ‘’shine’’ our eyes in relating with them. As I identified in my 12-part series entitled Why Africans are poor, miserable and underdeveloped, one of the causes of our unacceptable poverty and underdevelopment is the lack of fair trade among our trading partners. If China is not to go the way of the West in their relationship with us, our leaders must insist on fair trade and not accept ‘charity’ from China in form of soft or ‘hard’ loan or for that matter the gift of a building. How can African leaders meet in that Chinese donated headquarters of theirs and take a decision, such as the one I am advocating here, against China. That building is a Greek gift and the only sensible thing we should do is to politely reject it.
In their next summit our leaders should resolve that the building be turned into a shopping mall while they find ways of getting a building built by ourselves for our own use. The present Chinese building which I say should be converted to a shopping mall will stand as a rebuke to our foolishness and our penchant to consume what others produce and not to seek to become producers ourselves.
Now China is actively involved in the extraction of our mineral wealth and the exportation or rather dumping of cheap consumer items to or on us, helping to train our taste bud to become addicted to Chinese products and dulling our manufacturing sense from striving to manufacture things for ourselves. If we continue with this pattern of relationship, our experience with the Chinese will be no better than our experience with the West. I truly do not know what many Africans are going to tell God on Judgment Day when all of us will be required to give account of our stewardship on earth since most of them chose to sleepwalk through life.
I am certain that many will behave like the Man by the Pool of Bethesda who cried with a plaintive cry, ‘’ I have no man’’ when God is more than the man we need to have success in life.
Concluded.

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True talk that "From Africa always comes something stupid"
How else can you explain 400 years of slavery?

How else can you explain this, Mr educated African "truly do not know what many Africans are going to tell God on Judgment Day when all of us will be required to give account of our stewardship on earth"

First why not find out if God exists, then find out if you have sleepwalked through life based on a 419 sold you by the same Asian and white colonisers.

It is ok to educate africans but at least first educate yourself by removing primitive and barbaric mental thinking from your psyche first!