Is Africa Truly Cursed?

I missed yesterday’s edition of MY DAILY PARAGRAPH because I was diagnosing Africa’s problem.

I was trying to find out if Africa is truly cursed.

You see, I recently watched an old video of a white racist talking about population control. His argument was that Africans should be eliminated first because, according to him, Africans could not seem to get anything right and that the world would be better without Africans.

The video is over 60 years old.

One would have thought that, by now, history would have proven that man completely wrong.

However, the reverse sometimes appears to be the case.

Africa has, in many respects, gotten worse.

And when I watch videos of Prof. P.L.O. Lumumba and juxtapose his vision for Africa with what is happening in my own country, Nigeria, a country that, despite everything, is still arguably better off than dozens of other African countries, I sometimes find myself tempted to agree with that racist.

But I don’t.

I am an irreligious man. An agnostic, at best.

I do not believe Africa is cursed, nor do I believe in spiritual explanations for problems that can be explained by physical realities.

So I decided to diagnose our problems.

And this is what I found.

Individually, we have already proven that racist wrong.

Africans have gone ahead to do wonderful things in science, technology, medicine, astronomy, leadership, academia, business and virtually every field of human endeavour.

Individual Africans have done extraordinary things, often competing at the very highest level with people from every other continent.

But one thing stands out.

Too many of those Africans had to leave Africa to flourish.

They went to Europe.

America.

Asia.

They found functioning systems, institutions, infrastructure and environments capable of converting their individual abilities into extraordinary outcomes.

And they excelled.

So perhaps the problem is not the African.

Perhaps the problem is what happens when Africans have to function collectively.

Individually, we can be exceptional.

Collectively, we make a mess of ourselves and our homeland.

So what could be the problem?

I think we lack one thing that every great civilization has needed at some point in its history:

A MOBILIZER.

We have a mobilization problem.

And I don’t mean another leader.

We have had leaders.

We have had intellectuals.

We have had activists.

We have had revolutionaries.

We have had freedom fighters.

We have had presidents.

But we have never quite had the Mobilizer.

Not an activist who speaks truth to power and points out the ills of African leaders, like Prof. Lumumba.

Not a President who transforms his country and inspires people, like Thomas Sankara or Paul Kagame.

Not a revolutionary who challenges the West, like Muammar Gaddafi.

Not a freedom fighter and liberator of his people, like Nelson Mandela.

And not a diplomatic unifier like Kwame Nkrumah.

No.

I am talking about something different.

A MOBILIZER.

Someone capable of setting a course for the African continent, built around a unified cause that Africans everywhere can pursue.

Someone who can craft and sell a Dream.

The African Dream.

Someone who can tell an African child exactly what he should aspire to become.

Someone who can define where we are going, explain how we get there, establish the principles and ethics required to get there, and then mobilize an entire continent around that vision.

A dream powerful enough to influence how we educate our children.

How we build our economies.

How we govern.

How we conduct politics.

How we relate with one another.

How we treat corruption.

How we understand work, excellence, justice, dignity and patriotism.

Because every great civilization is driven by an idea of what it wants to become.

A collective aspiration determines what a people consider important.

It determines what they praise and condemn.

What they love and hate.

What they tolerate and reject.

How they organize their societies.

How they educate their children.

How they choose their leaders.

The problem is that Africa has never truly agreed on what it wants to become.

We inherited countries.

We inherited borders.

We inherited institutions.

We inherited languages.

We inherited religions.

We inherited political systems.

But we never collectively inherited, or created, a continental dream.

And without a dream, there can be no destination.

Without a destination, there can be no clear path.

Without a path, there can be no common standard.

And without a common standard, almost anything can be justified in the name of personal, ethnic, religious, political or national interest.

Imagine an African Dream so powerful that it becomes the moral compass of the continent.

A set of aspirations.

A set of principles.

A set of codes.

A standard of leadership.

A standard of citizenship.

A standard of excellence.

So that any government, political movement, religious institution, corporation, organisation or individual acting fundamentally against those aspirations is not merely seen as pursuing a different opinion, but as working against the collective advancement of Africa.

That is the kind of mobilization I am talking about.

Not the mobilization of people for a protest.

Not the mobilization of voters for an election.

Not the mobilization of soldiers for a revolution.

The mobilization of an entire civilization towards a clearly defined future.

Africa does not need another person to tell us that our leaders are failing.

We know.

Africa does not need another person to tell us that the West has exploited us.

We know.

Africa does not need another person to tell us that corruption is killing us.

We know.

Africa needs someone to tell us what comes next.

Someone to give us something greater than anger.

Greater than blame.

Greater than victimhood.

Something to aspire to.

Someone must rise.

Craft the African Dream.

Sell the African Dream.

Defend the African Dream.

And give Africans something worth organizing themselves around.

Because perhaps Africa is not cursed.

Perhaps Africa is simply a continent of extraordinary people who have never been given an extraordinary enough dream to unite around.

An African must rise.

And give Africa something to aspire to.

Only then shall we truly come of age.

My name is Chizoba Ugwuagbo and this is MY DAILY PARAGRAPH.