Africa Day is the day earmarked for the commemoration of the establishment of the Organisation of African Unity in 1963.
Today (25 May 2020) marks 57 years since this happened. And the narrative when it was being set up by the founding fathers of the continent – leaders like Ethiopia’s Halle Selasie, Ghana’s Kwabena Nkrumah among others – was first to foster unity amongst the African people, and to improve the living standards of the people of the continent…and to save Africa from colonialism.
And we really need to ask – how much of these objectives have we realised in 57 years?
Is Africa truly united? Is the standard of living in Africa better? And are we really rid of colonialism?
I will say no to theses questions.
But I would love your comments and opinion….I’m actually hoping people will tell me ‘Tunde you’re wrong, Africa is actually going great and maybe your world of football is the only sector lagging behind and every other thing is hunky-dory’. But I don’t think there will be many who will agree with that line or thinking.
Because we are not united in Africa, and the standard of living in the continent is still really bad.
And we have a lot of work to do – work in restoring the self respect we should have for ourselves on that continent. Because if we can’t respect ourselves, how can we expect others from outside to respect us?
As we mark Africa Day today, let us pay less lip service to grandiose statements and claims, where we talk a lot about things we never go out to practice…and let us reflect; reflect on how we can make Africa great and use to good effect the natural resources that the continent has, for the benefit of progress and development. Let us reflect on how we can reward merit and excellence at the expense of sentiments and racial divide.
Let TundeTalks guide us to embrace a motto that says ‘LUBRICATE THE ENGINE OF POTENTIAL IN AFRICA….FOR THE GOOD OF AFRICA.
Please enjoy the video…..and I will be grateful for your comments. #TundeTalks
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4 comments
Couldn’t have said it better myself,”pull him down”syndrome is one of the banes of Africa.We really need to unite and help each other develop especially the underdeveloped and remotest countries.
Tunde brilliant summation – you hit the nail on the head. I have shared to my peers. Disunity and dichotomy continue to bedevil the African continent long since the exit of the “colonial masters”. As you rightly pointed out – this is heightened by the politics and nepotism of the Francophone and Anglophone countries as exhibited in CAF and like bodies. The big question is – where does the solution lie? as our Leaders are definitely part of the problem and definitely not the solution.
There hasn’t been any different in Africa from what it’s known to be for thousands of years.
African leaders are deliberately neglecting the fact that Africans are struggling because of bad arrangements, services and corruption. They’ve grossly abused power. More so, rotating the office of the Head of State among each tribe without problems is almost impossible as we have seen in the old Sudan, Rwanda, the Central African Republic and Nigeria itself 😂. There equally cannot be a parliament comprehensive enough to accommodate every tribe that makes up the continent. The end result would be an insufficient representation of interests, which often result in calls for secession.
Nonetheless, the effects of Colonialism on Africa’s political history is proof that bringing people together without considering their traditional ways of life is wrong. What Africa needs to work is for countries to allow more autonomy for local governments such as; states, counties, provinces, etcetera, and prioritize multinational cooperation on the regional level, through ECOWAS, SADC, EAC, etcetera. Not through another catastrophic political unification.
And as you mentioned; Africa is sharply divided indeed, there are different economic values. Also before the scramble and partition of Africa in Berlin 1885 every African tribe lived within their own space with peculiar values and customs. Trade was one of the few things that brought us together while we always respected each other’s identity. In fact, traditional Africans often broke away from their original tribes to form new communities for self-realization and freedom. The thought that this way of life can be changed by imposing a single identity is simply absurd and un-African.
We can only hope and pray that we Africans will realize these faults and work in unity
I Couldn’t have said it better myself,”pull him down”syndrome is one of the banes of Africa.We really need to help each other develop.