Africa, tell me Africa
Is this your back that is unbent
This back that never breaks under the weight of humiliation
This back trembling with red scars
And saying no to the whip under the midday sun
I was introduced to the poem ‘Africa’ by David Diop in 2003 and it kindled in me a strong awareness and passion for Africa. I further delved into the riveting masterpieces that were Walter Rodney’s How Europe Underdeveloped Africa and Franz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth and was instantly set on a path of self-discovery. Africa has long been exploited by a combination of power politics and assets-stripping that have rendered us perpetually cowered and made us resort to go cap in hand, begging for handouts from the western world.
A balance to this thought is the lack of purposeful and insightful leadership that Africa has been saddled with over the decades. I have long been an advocate of a united Africa that is upwardly mobile and politically progressive and that will stand up to the western world.
W.E.B DuBois, Marcus Garvey, Kwame Nkrumah and others mooted Pan Africanism as an ideology that would ultimately unite Africans politically and economically. I strongly believe the integration of the African continent and the Black race in general will only truly burst to life when the embers of that progressive fire are stoked and fanned.
The current witch-hunt of Akinwunmi Adeshina is a case in point. This is an opportunity for Africa to extricate one of the claws of a western super-power out of our collective backs. I am convinced the status of the United states as the largest donor country is a trojan horse that masks the insidious attempt to recolonise and keep the continent perpetually on its knees. The ethics committee of the bank exonerated the man, but the US Treasure Secretary has called for an independent investigation. This goes against extant laws and procedures of the bank.
It is time for the African man to stand up and say enough is enough. We were taken from our continent in chains to go and cower to the white man. Years later, we are voluntarily leaving the continent on planes to bow to them. Must we allow them into our house and still kneel to serve them?
Like Kwame Nkrumah said at the Africa must Unite conference in 1963, ‘The forces that unite us are intrinsic and greater than the superimposed influences that keep us apart’. Africa must unite.
NOTE: This begins Omomowo’s weekly column in Phenomenal.com.ng.
