How much longer shall we Africans remain gullible?

By Cornelius Ssemakulu

Looking back at what I know about Africa’s history and comparing that with what I see today I find no difference in the context and the nature of the players: gullible Africans (usually the majority), deceitful Africans (minority, selfish) and non Africans (beneficiaries).

I ask myself — for how long shall we Africans remain gullible?

Here are some of the brief scenarios of thoughts that my mind brings up each time I think of that question.

Slavery
Yesterday our own helped those which oppressed us to capture our own. Our very own sold us for worthless merchandise and destructive power. Feeling powerless the vast majority looked on and did nothing except bend over forwards for the fear of being sent along with their relatives into slavery. It took a collective human race effort to undo the evil of slavery. Even though we have been taught and as a result have come to believe that slavery already existed in Africa, I strongly feel that these lessons — at one time regarded as the ultimate truths — were misleading. It is significantly possible that slavery was confused with being a servant. It was unheard of that African people captured other African people let alone their own and forced them to labour for them. This is true for all the Africans that embraced and practised the mysterious philosophy of ubuntu. Well I could go on and on about this, but it is just part of the question I asked myself.

Independence, black consciousness, education
Kwame Nkrumah, Steve Biko, Patrice Lumumba, Thomas Sankara, Fela, Idi Amin (controversial), Julius Nyerere and many more. Great Africans they were. These people had a vision that one day Africa would belong to the people of Africa. They then fought for independence and others actually took it a notch further. They advocated for Black Consciousness which of course was controversial as it went greatly against all conventional knowledge taught in school (please, teacher, do not teach us nonsense).

But the revolution of the black mind is hidden in books and of course how many of us black Africans take the time to read non-syllabus or non-prescribed books. Don’t get me wrong, for this is not a racial thing but rather an African thing: all the ministers of education in all the African states are Africans but what are they doing about the state of education? Today one may ask what happened to the great minds that fought so hard for independence. We have been so corrupted that we accept the wrong thing and reject what is right.

Free movement
Going back to the main point, for those of us who have had the privilege of staying in other African countries besides South Africa, we know that our livelihoods have been sold.

How is it possible that we, the African people, still need visas to visit our own relatives who, by the way, were never consulted on which side they should be when our land was partitioned? Yet they who are non-African have visa weavers? We as Africans fought so hard for our independence, our freedom, which in this case could mean the abolition of borders.

Yet we have allowed the rulers to retain the borders that were created for one purpose and one purpose only, destruction through division (xenophobia or negrophobia: choose whichever works for you).

Natural resources
We have so many natural resources yet we are the classic definition of poverty. Of course it would not make sense if Africa used its natural resources for the benefit of the African people (ie those living in Africa). However it makes perfect sense for all the African wealth to be exploited through extortionist mechanisms such as capitalism in the name of trade and foreign investment (I’m being sarcastic here).

Sissies for presidents
We have elected sissies for presidents. All they do is bend over forwards as long as it benefits them and their families. At this point I would rather swear my allegiance to a king, for obvious reasons. Africans are being lied to every day about the lack of jobs. Yet millions are starving, millions are dying, millions do not have access to clean water and legal advice, millions have inadequate housing.

Yet our elected sissies lie to us and the worst part is that we believe them. Because they have that one control agent called money. How long shall we Africans remain gullible? Eish how long should it take for people to get so angry? It is a fact that we can survive on our own. Yet teacher will still teach us nonsense that Africa can never survive on its own because I hear that economically it would be devastating for the poor Africans (ha ha).

For how long shall we the people of Africa allow this foolishness to go on? We have rulers instead of leaders. They have no vision in fact their vision is death. Death of the people of Africa and they have made every effort to achieve that. They have taken personal control of their departments of defence. They have considered themselves above the laws. They use the military to inflict fear and trauma into the hearts of their own people.

This is very evident during the so-called elections. Choose your leaders, they scream! Cast your vote, they demand! They make it seem like hope lies in our hands. Come election time, they deploy soldiers. The very same people we are told have to protect us are used to intimidate the weak-hearted majority. They throw a few notes here and there and, hey, election time becomes big business — votes being traded like stocks and shares.

But, my fellow Africans, without people there will be nothing left for them to rule over. If it means death I think now is the time. The war we fought to regain our independence, given what we are going through right now, was in vain. We fought so hard to be free to express ourselves yet the so-called leaders (rulers, rather) use skin identity to gain our trust.

We only have ourselves to blame
I do not blame the deceitful selfish Africans: I think we are to blame. I do not blame the non-Africans that have benefited from all the misery there is in Africa. They have not failed us — we have failed ourselves. The majority have allowed these sissies, these deceitful and selfish Africans to run over us. Out of fear we stood behind these rulers and when we were redeemed by true leaders we turned against them. Nobody ever asked how these great leaders met their fate — of course it’s not in the syllabus.

We have chosen to be bound by poverty, misery, despair and death because that is what these rulers stand for. Knowing this we still allow them to continue. As an African what are you doing about the state of this continent? How much longer shall we Africans put up with this nonsense?

How much longer shall we Africans remain gullible? I ask myself.

Cornelius is an African who is hungry for change.