That Africa may rise again

“The challenge of Africa is civilisational.” So said Emmanuel Macron, President of France.

“With a family that has seven, eight children in Africa, even if you invest billions, nothing will change”, said Macron who was reacting to questions from an Ivorian reporter’s question on how many G20 countries were willing to put money in an envelope, or a Marshall Plan “to save Africa,” and how much France would contribute.

The French President at that time had not had the benefit of watching the video clip of Hon. Alhassan Ado Doguwa who recently showcased his four wives on the floor of the House of Representatives and disclosed that he had 27 children — and still counting! No prizes for what Macron would have said to that disclosure.

I concede that we do have many problems in Africa, especially those that relate to harmful traditional practices. People tend to think that female genital mutilation tops the list of such practices, but the worst that can be said of female circumcision is that it is primitive, senseless and therefore undesirable.

Hon. Doguwa is absolutely within his rights to decide on the size of his family and no one can take that right away from him. He is also a man of means. My worry is that since the masses of the people tend to take a cue from the lifestyle of the elite, many less educated, less endowed people may think that uncontrolled breeding is something to be proud of, in a country already saddled with 13.2 million out-of-school children.

The Emir of Kano, Alhaji Sanusi Lamido Sanusi warned against that trend last December when he spoke at the 108th edition of Islamic Vocation Course (IVC) organized by the Muslim Students’ Society of Nigeria (MSSN) Zone B. The traditional ruler argued  that the issue of Almajiri children in the North is not a religious issue, but a social one that needs urgent attention.

“Instead of having many children, why not have the ones you can cater for? These are the fundamental questions we should ask ourselves. Most of these children roaming about the streets will be adult in the next twenty years and they will be the ones recruited as political thugs by the politicians in the next twenty years, if we don’t take good care of them now. This is my own advice that we must look at. These are not religious issues, they are social issues that need to be addressed”, he counselled.

I hope we heed the Emir’s advise in our collective interest and to put a lie to the pontifications of  imperial leeches like Macron whose ancestors and their successors have stolen so much from Africa to build their own civilisation that France can still not contemplate life without the former colonies. French stranglehold on its former colonies is the economic equivalent of the terror of Boko Haram in Nigeria, as I said in this column on March 26, 2018 — “Franco-Haram, C’est L’esclavage!”

Macron’s arrogant posturing feeds on bad news from Africa most of which can be traced to the original sin of the colonisers. This is not to say that as a people we don’t realise that many of our leaders are mere dealers whose raison d’être is self aggrandisement, but we are not blind to the fact that these are the preferred kinds of misfits the colonialists help to sustain in power in return for allowing the French cockerel to topple our basket of corns.

Macron did not get away with his rude comments, though. Prof. Amadou Douno who teaches Sociology at the Ahmadou-Dieng University of Conakry, gave the kind of reply Walter Rodney would have been proud of.

“Africans do not need your debauchery civilisation”, Douno thundered.

“Africa is by far the richest continent in the world with its enormous mineral wealth. What is delaying this continent is the large-scale pillage of its resources by the great powers, France in the lead! All the misery of Africa comes from this country that realises its ambitions on the backs of Africans, with the complicity of these traitors who do not hesitate to sacrifice entire generations by delivering their countries to the former colonising power.

“They entrust all the key sectors of their economies to France. In reality, they lead the political strategy or vision desired by the former settler.This contributes to driving their populations into misery and extreme poverty.This is the cause of coups d’état, civil wars, genocides, famines, with despots at the head of these countries that are kept in power by France, because it meets all their requirements!

“France is nothing without Africa! The day the African countries turn their backs on France, this country will plunge into chaos! As long as African countries do not abandon this domination of the former colonial power, by taking charge of their own destiny, as the Asian countries have done, it will be very difficult for them to get out of the abyss. The challenge for Africa is to get rid of France. Because the latter is not the solution to its underdevelopment, it is at the heart of the problem!”

For many African patriots, the time for the African Union to rise up to the challenge of ridding the continent of economic colonisation is now. Flag independence alone will not feed our children nor prosper our continent. We must control every facet of our economy whether the Macrons of this world like it or not.

Is AU up to the task?