THE LONG WALK TO FREEDOM.. Vol. Three

THE LONG WALK TO FREEDOM

ARE WE REALLY FREE YET??

Volume Three

By

Anthony Onu

I have walked a long walk to freedom, it has been a lonely road, but it is not over yet.

                                                                             Nelson Mandela...

In 2008, an important epoch in history took place. A black man whose father is an immigrant from Kenya; Barack Obama became the president of the powerful free world. Martin Luther King's dream became a reality.

It meant a lot of different things to different people around the world, mostly positive. To me, it was a sign. A sign that we have been launched for the highest level of freedom. A sign that the season and time is ripe for us to go into the final and most important part of our quest for freedom. That election was an emotional event for a lot of people around the world. A moment we never thought was possible. A moment a lot of men dreamt about, suffered for and even died for. 

But like nelson Mandela said “I've walked a long walk to freedom, but its its not over yet!!”

While blacks in south Africa and America has the white man to blame for their troubles, what of the rest of us??

 A lot of African countries were colonised quite alright, but we got freedom and independence at a peak period when the natural wealth of Africa was being discovered. We had the social, political and economic power to build a glorious destiny for ourselves. But we blew it!!!

Between 1940 and 1980, a lot of African countries were free from the control of colonial masters. A huge chunk of it happened between 1950 and 1960. At this period the vast wealth that God endowed this beautiful continent with was being discovered. Diamonds, gold, iron, cobalt, uranium, copper, bauxite, silver, petroleum, cocoa, beans. Also woods, tropical fruits and wildlife. The ores in Africa is extremely abundant; the copper belt in Katanga, the diamond mines in Sierra Leone, Angola, and Botswana. Africa's oil is taking a major growing importance, with the largest reservoirs in Nigeria, Libya, Algeria and Angola. There is growing production in places like Gabon, Congo, Cameroon, guinea, DRC etc, with new reservoirs being discovered everyday. 

In 2008, Africa produced about 483 tons of gold. South Africa, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, and Tanzania are major producers. Africa also dominates the diamond market. In 2008, the continent produced about 55% of the worlds diamond. Botswana, Angola, South Africa, Namibia and the DRC are major producers. Oil in Africa is being drilled in continental and offshore productions. In 2014, Nigeria earned about 77 billion USD from oil exports.

Africa owns;

·        About 30% of the worlds known reserves of mineral

·        About 10% of the oil and 8% of gas resources.

·        Largest cobalt, diamonds, platinum and uranium reserves in the world.

Yet  with all the riches of the African continent, most of our people live in abject poverty. The government do not provide even the most essential of services such as clean drinking water, medical care and the availability of electricity, education and basic infrastructures. There are violence and wars in Africa between the elites fighting over the loot. Armed gangs roam the country side for its wealth and extorting protection money from foreign companies. How does one explain all these poverty amidst all the wealth??

Many years after independence, we have generated billions of dollars from the sale and export of our raw-materials. A lot of money for someone who just collects rents, as we don’t even extract them. As if that is not bad enough, what have we done with the rent money?? Like loyal servants, our leaders take it back to the masters by stealing it off to offshore accounts. Is that freedom??

Like a dependable tenant and employee, our roads remain untarred and messy unless he comes to help us fix it. Even our natural resources remains untapped unless he comes to help us tap it. We are starved of the ease of science and technology unless he invents them, produces them and ships to us at an amount we can afford. Is that freedom??

Like a dependable second class citizen, we are the experimental lab rats of new economic principles from the IMF and world bank, as our heads of state is obliged to take their advice or else risk being denied funds from the world bank. Today in Nigeria, the economic valuation of another mans currency far away from our shores is economically affecting everything and everybody, including an old rural woman in the village. Is that freedom??

Like a household employee who admires his masters splendour, wealth and power, we do everything and anything to get out of Africa into Europe and America. A visa to these countries to most of us is a destiny ticket. We are indirectly telling ourselves that we are incapable of building a civilised country. Is that freedom??

Like a dependent child, epidemics and serious ailments kill us and our children in numbers while we wait for the master to invent, manufacture and ship the drugs to us. We sometimes even get angry when he doesn’t. Is that freedom??

No!! That can't be freedom. We are independent but we are not free. So just like Malcolm X, martin luther king jnr and Nelson Mandela fought for freedom, we have to fight for the next level of freedom. But this time, not against white supremacy and dominance, but against black emptiness and irresponsibility.

We have to take responsibility for our problem. Slave trade or not, we would have still suffered the oppression it carried. Internally, we are not a free people. Slavery was just a physical manifestation of that bondage.

Twenty-one years after the end of apartheid in south Africa, recent xenophobic attacks happened massively in south Africa in 2015 (Blacks killing fellow immigrant blacks because they are taking their jobs). The question is ‘Do jobs fall from heaven?’. There are more black on black crime in America than white on black crime.

Looking back at history, all i can say is that ‘the white man took advantage of our emptiness’. When your whole life depends on the productivity and ingenuity of another man, why won't he enslave you? This is no time to over-analyse and argue about foreign manipulation and local corruption, or even start playing the blame game. In short, we just need to agree that we have a problem. We are the main progenitors and executioners of our problems. Its important that  we accept that even if we don’t uniformly agree, because we need to fix it. If you take away the source of a problem from yourself, you also deny yourself the power to fix it. 

We are a lucky generation. The hard part of this freedom struggle has already been done. Nobody needs to go to prison or get killed while opposing oppression. All we need to do is to raise our consciousness and start “THINKING!!”.

We need to question our values and traditions and think of ways to reform them. Maybe that's why we are such a divided people.

We need to question and rethink our systems and institutions. We don’t have to force ourselves to fit into the western default. Maybe that's why they are not working.

We have to question the world and try to naturally understand how it works. The scientific quest of splitting the atom, discovering galaxies and introspecting the biological fossil progenitor of life is not a western destiny. Maybe that's why we have not technologically advanced much, no matter how much we try to produce.

We have to think!
we have to ask BIG questions!

we have to plan!

we have to execute smart plans!

we need more freedom!

we have to totally be in charge of our technological and economic destiny!

Believe it or not, with the KULENGA Scientist platform or not, Africa will be a very different place latest 50 years from now.

Africa will rise to be one of the most civilised places on earth, giving light to other nations.

This is the time for Africa! The thing about times and seasons is that they have a way of using alternatives to achieve what they came for “with or without you”.

WE CAN DO THIS!!!