USA Africa Dialogue Series - Reaction to: ‘Let’s face it: we’re in over our heads. We need the white folks to come back.’

"That which was unthinkable during the era of Africa's liberation struggles is now staring us in the face. The people who took over the running of Africa after the spectacular collapse of the colonial establishments have failed very, very badly. In Kenya and Botswana, the sons of the founding fathers of the two nations are now trying to buck the trend but they are up against it. The liberated African has seen so much suffering at the hands of our liberators the same African is now longing for the days of colonial bondage and subjugation. I am of the same accord as the people who are expressing this sentiment, the part about our leaders being hopelessly inept. Let us be honest about it and admit that we have failed.

Jean-Pierre Bekolo Obama makes a compelling argument for bringing back colonialism but I disagree with him. Firstly, colonialism is already creeping its way back even as we talking about bringing it back or, in the case of Zimbabwe, making a lot of laughable noise about Zimbabwe never becoming a colony again. Even Jean-Pierre admits that colonialism is here, and a new vulture has swooped to feast on our carcass. Indeed, they have a made-in-China problem in Cameroon, too.

Secondly, my Cameroonian cousin pines for a benevolent form of colonialism. I have no idea how he came up with this strange solution. There is no such thing as a benevolent colonialism. We might as well accept that leopards and hyenas can actually be good custodians of fat goats. The mere fact that us, the fat goats, are now longing to be protected by leopards and hyenas really condemns Africa's leaders for being utter failures.

I do agree with Bekelo when he goes as far as calling the leaders puppets who are at the beck and call of our former colonial masters. He cites the following;

(i) The clumsy mannerism born out of our leaders' pitiful attempts to imitate the colonial officers and governors;

(ii) Expensive fashion tastes in the form of suits, shirts, shoes and ties made in France and Rome,

(iii) The all-too-familiar shunning of African schools when it comes to the education of the sons and daughters of the ruling elite, and, amazingly:

(iv) The curious fascination our leaders have with bare-footed African villagers dancing and shaking the behinds and tattered clothes at our national airports, , much like colonialist had.

He may not have said in a direct and pointed way, but our leaders have impoverished Africa to such a desiccation point that the same leaders are likely to die in hospitals located in the cites were colonial Africa was administered. Of course, our leaders think of it as an honour to go and die in a hospital in London or Paris. Our colonial masters know how much our leaders love the cities of Europe; some of Africa's leaders are banned from the same cities, a form of punishment that has never set well with our liberation leaders. The irony of it is quite rich, in a rather pathetic way.

Perhaps he did not have to point out the shocking fact that we can actually afford to purchase expensive armoured cars like Mercedes Benz limousines manufactured on the soil African was carved and parcelled out to different European lords. Yes, we buy our cars from Bismarck's German. We live in times in which this is possible. However, when we purchase items that make the lives of our leaders comfortable, we mysterious fail to stop by the Bayer company to buy some aspirin for the dirt-covered villagers who our leaders meet and greet at our airports.

He makes very lucid arguments as he states his observations of the facts on the ground.

However, let me reiterate the point at which he and I are at cross purposes. Jean-Pierre says we need another Berlin Conference for the reoccupation of Africa. I beg to differ with him. Africa is an ancient land of ancient people. We had leaders before 1884. We had functional polities. Let us, therefore, look back at our past because that is where we are likely to find our way out of this current darkness. The lot that is leading Africa right now has no direct lineage that is even remotely traceable to this leadership of the past, the reason they have failed even in their peculiar imperial pretensions.

Now that our dalliances or experiments with the Western-style models of leadership have failed abysmally, we have no choice but to sit down and plan our way our of this bottom of the mudpit in which we are stuck. Jean-Pierre says let us keep the same model that has badly flopped, but we will bring in the people best-suited to run it so that they can run it on our behalf. It is madman who thinks that he can train hyenas to guard his goats the way German shepherd dogs tend flocks of sheep.

I say let us get rid of the people Jean-Pierre calls puppets. To me, they are sorry pretenders. We can find better leaders than the lot we have right now. Let is identify new leaders and also train the next crop of leaders. Kenya seems to be doing just that with Uhuru Kenyatta, I sincerely hope. Maybe I am uncharacteristically optimistic in finding saviours in a doomed continent."

- Black Technocrat, A Facebook friend's reaction upon reading this interview of Jean-Pierre Bekolo Obama:

http://chimurengachronic.co.za/in-over-our-heads/

 

- Ikhide

 

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