Africa must not falter in its quest to regain lost ground

Lazarus Sauti

The African continent must not falter in its quest to regain its lost ground. Instead, it should unite and work for a common goal – pool its resources to build the continent and to realise the African dream. Africans need to work harder in order to eradicate poverty, diseases and other social vistas that are ravaging the continent.

Africans lost their ground and resources to a group of organised individuals of a different race who came, abused and enslaved their forefathers. This abuse and exploitation of resources caused and is still causing the underdevelopment of the continent.

In the process, the continent and her subjects lost confidence in their skin, language, education systems, indigenous knowledge systems and cultures.

More so, most Africans started believing themselves as inferior to other races. Colonial hangover is furthering these stereotypes and this is heavily destroying the values of Africa.

Countries within and across the African continent are also dealing with criminals (whites) and these criminals are backed by their governments to plunder Africa’s wealth including the continent’s best human capital.

The whites are luring from Africa the most physically fit and healthy boys or girls, and men or women to work as slaves in their factories. This explains, for instance, the excellent black athletes in the United States of America, France and the Caribbean.

To most Africans, the excellent athletes should be a constant reminder of racial brutality and continues efforts to recolonise the continent.

Because of this and other reasons, African countries must defend what belongs to the continent; they must guard jealously what the continent has.

The undying spirit of the continent’s liberation struggle must be inculcated from the primary to the highest institutions of learning.

For the continent to effectively resist efforts by the west to recolonise it, Africans must be masters of their destinies - countries, resources and legacies to the very end. The continent should rise up in arms to resist any form of oppression, subjugation and exploitation.

Africa and her citizenry should recognise diversity of opinion and at the same time never allow sellouts of the African’s story – the continent’s story of the liberation struggle.

Furthermore, the continent should tell her stories and to tell its story, the African continent should reconnect with its pre-colonial history. Pre-colonial history offers the youth a greater opportunity to reflect on the past five decades.

African history parades to the youths an avenue to renew consciousness for the next 50 years in fulfilling the continent’s social, technological, economical and political goals. This means that African countries should stop looking East or West for solutions but they should look forward and within the African knowledge reservoirs for African answers to all questions pertaining to this great continent also known as the cradle of humanity.

Jeffrey Sehume, a researcher at the Mapungubwe Institute for Strategic Reflection says: “Africans must be provided with knowledge on African history. The knowledge that exists in school books needs to filter widely to the public.”

It is necessary for African governments to step in and invest in home-grown production and publishing industries to boost creation and consumption of African continent. The private sector in African states can also support the efforts to further develop the overall value chain of publishing industries.

This means African countries can develop the means to be self-empowered and battle to find the things that connect them across race, class, region and religion.

Africans, as custodians of national symbols, must therefore take a leading role in distributing information about the continent.

“It is the role of African governments to distribute information about Africa and to build a new Africa. In building a new Africa, the continent is building upon millennia of experiences,” Sehume said.

The continent also needs to participate in economic activities and social structures that eventually contributed to establishing the first complex civilisation in Africa. The time is now for Africans to utilise their lands for activities such as mining, agriculture and infrastructure development.

The continent should empower its young generation and support them to drive development agendas.

The African continent has more youths than any other continent and these youths must reaffirm themselves in the cause of the continent without apologies. The African continent belongs to them and they should be responsible enough in securing it. To effectively protect the continent from vulture and to promote pan-Africanism, the young generation should allow African ideals to take charge.

Therefore, African youths should take a stand and be the champions of unity on the continent by also equipping themselves with relevant and necessary skills.

To regain her lost ground, the continent should rely on indigenous knowledge systems and embrace the concept of ubuntu.

“Africans must use home-grown technology to produce jewellery and finished metal products, in contrast to today’s society where the continent simply mine for export markets without beneficiation,” asserted Sehume.

It is high time the continent should stand firm and challenge the false and insulting ideology that black people are incapable of making useful things for society’s advancement. The time is now for some continents to look to the African continent to find mechanisms to heal their societies.

The time is now for Africans to strive, add and strengthen efforts to further economies and to assure sustainable development in the continent. Political leaders should complete the independence agenda by adding economic flesh to the political dimension.