Africans Must Style Up

Ejike E. Okpa

Looking for a level playing field is waste of time. Instead, level a field and play on it. Being a player is very good but how about becoming a referee?

Native Africans who run their so called independent nations have more Prime Ministers and Presidents than any other groups in the world; yet they want to join the G-7 and G-20 groups. Doesn’t it look silly? We have the highest numbers yet we want to join groups with fewer persons? Where lies the notion that politics is about the numbers? I suppose quantity does not mean quality?

Black folks in political offices have power but they lackinfluence. Leadership is about the ability to influence things, with or without authority. Why can't African Heads of State leverage their numbers to enhance the lives of black people throughout the world? Who are they seeking permission from to make self-determining policies that suit their people? Why do they dance and dangle with perennial swings to the East and West but annoyingly sing: 'East or West home is best?' If home is best, why are millions of native Africans willing to risk their lives to seek better and greener pastures overseas only to end up on red pastures?

As black folks [African-Americans and Africans] by design and default create and see God in other human beings, their place on earth will remain what it has been -- catching the rear and being doormats. Economic development is not about hoisting degrees and PhDs in Economics. It is a game of 'bluff' where people decide they are going to fend for themselves and cut off the parasitic conduct and behavior that has unduly tangled them instead of placing them in tango.

Black folks are tangled in unending cycles of who should rescue them. God did not create us to be the doormats of others. No people will give us what they know will place us on equal or near footing with them. That is the nature of the ‘Animal Farm’ – all animals are equal but some are more equal than others by design and default. We must charge on and defy conventional approaches and be a Nike - Just Do It.

While I sympathize with our inextricable situation, majority of it is self-inflicted. While every successful ethnic group recognizes their own and pay heed to what they say, black folks would rather roll out the carpet for others, thinking that  the latter have black folks' interest at heart.

The formula others use and have used to be successful is an open book. But like the saying, ‘the more black folks read and look, it does appear the less they understand and or willing to do.' There is no college or university in the world where a black person has not attended and often come on top. That being the case, why does Africa catch the rear?  

If the Jews who crucified Jesus are running things, how come black folks who were not present during the crucifixion, are still crying and waiting for His second coming? What makes us think that things will dramatically change for us? It is just the way we thought that by having a black president, our condition in US America would change. It has changed no doubt, but our unemployment and lagging economic wellbeing remains highest among others.

We enjoy the prestige of being in power but lack the ultimate benefit of power - influence. In Africa, the leadership is marooned with confusing strides as to what they need to do effectively to exact and assert their economic interests imbibing what US president Roosevelt once said, ‘no one should undermine their own economic wellbeing.’ Well, he probably was not thinking of black folks as we tend to undermine our own wellbeing. We rather look for a prophet outside of us than seek one among us. We must do what is humanly expected and possible – unapologetically, and the good Lord in His magnanimity will surely respond by blessing our moves. He did not create any of his children to be doormats nor unappreciated servants in perpetuity to anyone.

In a book ‘Chances of a Lifetime’ there is a line that says ‘jump into the stream of life and swim as fast as you can.’ That ought to be the mentality and culture of black folks – no shaking. When we wait for ‘manna,’ it will not fall. It is like rain in the desert – forecast to come but hardly makes it to the ground. Go figure.