The Sad Reality of Being African

Here I am standing on the cliff, someone took me here just to show me the green valley and the cool environment. They had a dream for a better Africa, a prosperous continent but it seems its still a dream yet to be fulfilled, our founding fathers told us of a green valley after we had fought and navigated the jungle of colonialism of self-hate and promoted unity for purpose but the tragedy that has struck us for close to a century is they left us a bad leader. They left us someone who does not have the jungle skills, doesn't know the jungle routes to take us to the green valley, someone who believes that in order to survive in the jungle they have to kill and eliminate the weaker species not realising that the rule of the jungle requires unity of purpose to hunt more for all.

 The saddest of them all or rather the most selfish of them is that they have opted for a root via the cliff, when they know that they the only ones with  the access to  the rope down to the promised land, and this is the African Politician who is hero worshiped everyday yet when we reach the cliff they demand to be the first to get down the rope and funny enough when they get down,they look up with a mocking face dictating who is supposed to get down the rope. The promised land remains hope for all, but it will never be a reality. Why? I am amazed at our generation that has been so caught up in football and politics that they all games and like in every game the players and coaches do everything they can to keep you entertained, so at the end of the day there are no obvious winners and losers but all is crafted to keep the game going but the saddest thing is that some for the the love of the game have been absorbed  these groups.

I see a group of men curiously sitting in a betting shop, analysing the game, the same manner I see the same old so called professionals reading our daily news and watching the long television news program. Again I see a group of men sitting on the drain debating politics and even suggesting solutions the same manner I see our school kids debating who is better Messi and Ronaldo or what Real Madrid needs to do to win the cup, but as I closely look at them all, they have something in common. How can they determine the management of a player in the oversees whilst you are here? Maybe you can, but to what extent?


As I look around, I see an Africa who has ceased to tell their own story but instead they have offered the script to the foreigners. I see a generation who have been recently stormed to social media, where they have exposed their uncouth behaviors, promoted ethnicity, hatred, persecution and hate speech but still there I see some group of social media influencer who are determined to change the face of Africa but they are almost fighting a losing battle as those who are still excited by spreading bad news, rumors and negativity are many and they always  support each other with retweets, likes, shares and bad comments.


 Remember bad news fetches better prices than good ones but for how long shall we continue reading from the wrong script. I see a nation where we have groomed photographers who have become so obsessed in capturing the bad and worst life moments, can't even imagine how everyone records and captures a quarreling couple in town, a fight, violence, accident and to hurriedly spread them on our social media, flooding our minds with negativity. Who shall then believe in marriage when our newspapers are flooded with marriage breakups, problems.

Who shall believe in safety if our headlines are always like 10 Killed in a Horror Crash? Who shall believe in safety when we always reporting on rape, murder and robbery cases and you wonder why the white friend has been always knocking on your door with assistance and programs for poverty alleviation, gender based violence etc but I always wonder how many people are being raped, good without food, abused in their same land.Many obviously!!! But who has been blowing our whistle, Us obviously... We are not the dark continent but if we continue sharing the darkest side of ourselves, how shall we dispute that?

Who controls the media, controls the people but its still for my baby Africa who waits for Marvel to first release the Black Panther before they rush to Twitter to brag about Wakanda. A continent whose story is told by Aljazeera, BBC Africa etc yet their  own broadcasting are still caught up with petty issues. I see  a whole lot of young and energetic citizen journalist who are busy hunting for negativity to share with my fragile generation who doesn't know where they stand. They adding pressure and confusing my generation.Who shall believe in the best when you always telling us the  worst.

As we remember Africa Day let's remember that someone had a dream, and it ought have to come into reality. Its for us all, Africa is home and let's bear in minding the founding principles, our great leaders Kwame Nkrumah, Patrice Lumumba, Steve Biko, Nelson Mandela, etc who fought for the struggle and let's remember that, *"Its not over until, its over"* Let's embrace our differences and synergy them for development because at the end of the day *We pray for Peace* and to us Africa is Home.
Let's agree to disagree