By Ben Efe
In Africa, life is unnecessarily hard everybody knows it, there are so many people on the edge. People who in fact should be rolling on with their lives, a measure of decent living. A decent living and a helping hand that is all people are asking for in a continent richly blessed with human and natural resources.
Though in every region of the world, it is the fittest survival, the weak get trampled upon and those that have reached the breaking point just let go and drop off the cliff, falling into abject poverty. But there is a difference in the conditions of the downtrodden in Africa and those in other continents.
For those in other civilized climes life is relatively easy because people in authority strive to provide free basic education, healthcare, housing and transport, because these are the pillars of a nation’s development and growth. These are the basic human needs; what man or woman wants to establish themselves with over stretching to obtain the simplest things life has to offer.
But in most parts of Africa there is no such advantage and people are ravaged by wars, hunger, unemployment, lack of education, diseases and eventually an untimely demise. A life not well spent, that is to say for a good number of people living in the continent.
Another one bites the dust, it is either a wife cries for the loss of a bread winner, or a bereaved husband cries for the loss of a hard working wife. But soon life goes for the many victims of political and herdsmen banditry, robberies, scamming and scheming in the vast concrete jungle, where there is no mercy and no compassion.
Though it is the same story of inequality all around the world, some have it worse than some others. In saner climes when people cry, those in the helms of affairs, hear their cries and bend over backwards to put up some measures that will ameliorate the suffering of the masses.
In madder African regions, it is every man to himself and may God help us all, let’s pray for our leaders and hang on to hope with straws of frustration and tears. ‘God dey’… ‘who knows tomorrow,’ ‘ it is well’ they would often console themselves as they grappled with the harsh realities of life.
Difficulties created by inhumane human beings who have no use for the saying ‘live and let live.’ The rule of the game they play, is ‘eat or be eaten’ and the Man of God who should be driving the fear of God in the hearts of every man in power totally agrees with the oppressors of the masses and joins in the ‘chop and quench’ feast of avarice and greed.
They eat everything that smells like money, inflate every inflatable contract that lands on the procurement table, get mobilized and then fail to deliver. Like moths they destroy every fabric of the society, they are meant to improve upon.
Yet the MOG compels his congregation to be patient and not offer any negative word about the hardships they face. “It is shall be well with you,” “You are blessed,” he keeps on preaching Sunday after Sunday, revival after revival. And after the sermons the people drive back home on the bad roads, kidnapped on the highway, run their homes on noisy generators, robbed of good healthcare, education, housing, employment and worst of all denied pension savings.
Now who can think of a future in this Armageddon, in which some ‘Deeper Lifers’ feel rapture is already happening? Young men and women who should be carving a niche for themselves, go to sleep every night wishing they were in some other favourable environment where they can live a good life. They dream and eventually embark on a deadly make or mar journey across the deserts and seas to get to a land where they can achieve their dreams, which in most cases turns out to be a nightmare.
What is the name of the hell Africans live in? A prophet in Ghana Koffi Oduro prophesied that most African leaders will rot in hell for the underdevelopment they unleash in their respective countries and they shut him off the airwaves muffling him from telling the truth like prophet Jeremiah.
Those in power love the mess they have created, the more disheveled and disorganized their countries are the more it is easier to keep the masses impoverished, much to the benefit of their own pockets and not the country and its people.
Presidents practically should be reinventing their countries each and every day, new things should be happening to the nation and its people, but things have remained stagnant in most cases as can be seen most especially in sub-Saharan Africa.
And the question is… are we supposed to be moving forward or backwards in these modern times where technological breakthroughs are manifesting for countries whose Presidents are investing in their land and their people? African Presidents do not invest, rather they and their cohorts or cabals run the opposite direction of development. They obtain loans that are not spent wisely and leaving their countries with massive local and foreign debts.
Factories and services are closing down one after the other more people are getting desperate and there’s no respite in sight. And so when by chance, an unproductive political experiment fails in one country, and a Captain Traore takes over, the people troop out to jubilate and celebrate an anomaly that shouldn’t be happening in a civilized society.
But it seems Africa is cursed when it comes to leadership by example. Be it democratically elected or junta by the barrel of the gun, those in the helms are not visionary thinkers in their leadership, they get power drunk and drink from the chalice of corruption and then lose focus. It has been the norm right from the time of the great kingdoms, were kings willingly and willfully sold abled bodied men and women into slavery, for a keg of gun powder and a bottle of gin. At the end, the kings and their kingdoms vanished from the maps.
In sub-Sahara Africa where the ‘Giant of Africa’ is planted, the eight years of macabre dance by a retired General who should be nursing his cows more than anything else drew Nigeria backwards, and unfortunately those who snatched and ran away with the elections are showing no sign they are prepared to awaken the giant. The decline of social/economical life in Nigeria has affected the entire West African region.
In the streets of Lagos, Accra and other cities it is quit depressing seeing old and young men, women and children hustling to make a living. They hawk wares that is not even up N5,000 on their tray, and this is how they struggle through the day, hungry and hoping to make some sales.
It disheartening seeing these men, women, boys and girls running after motor cars trapped in traffic. Young people who should be in school learning, men and women who should be gainfully employed in pensionable jobs. The N500m one Senator is pocketing in Nigeria in the name of constituency project, is enough to create cottage industries and jobs that can last a life time.
Imagine all the billions of dollars that have been sunk on a railway project in Nigeria, yet people get stranded at the ramshackle rail and bus stations across the country. Passengers who have travelled wide and far can only wish they are at an ‘autobahn’ station waiting for train Berlin to Hamburg. Stations where the schedule display board would scroll next train coming in five minutes and it does arrive right on time.
That’s not a luxury but a common routine for citizens of a country where things work. There is no doubt those same things can work in Africa too, but because of corruption, greed and lack of willingness to try something new by those in governments and citizens who are used to hearing “Ketu M12, Oshodi, Kpako Agudu, Eko Idumota CMS” all their lives, things remain the same for generations. When nations take a leap into modernization things begin to take shape for social and economic growth.
Schools, homes, hospitals, roads would be built, jobs would be created and employment opportunities abound. No youth would be dreaming of ‘japaing’ to Canada or Europe to go do odd jobs citizens of those countries do not want to do.
Where have all the good patriots and politicians gone? Where have all the dream makers, the prophets gone? All gone to lands where dreams come true, where life is easy and Africa would never learn!
