NEO-COLONIALISM, REPARATION AND THE AFRICAN RENAISSANCE-Opinion.
By Kennedy Ikantu Peretei
All over Africa, there is a new awakening for Africans to throw away the shackles of colonialism and adorn the befitting garments of dignity and take their rightful places in the comity of nations.
With the emergence of Captain Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso in 2022 and his emphatic rejection of Western hold on his country and other African countries, especially West Africa, the world is witnessing another champion for Pan Africanism as earlier espoused by legends like Dr Kwame Nkrumah, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, Julius Nyerere, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Patrice Lumumba and most recently, Captain Thomas Sankara.
Captain Traore has been labelled as the “Lion of Africa” by those who have fallen in love with his giant strides in Burkina Faso, to such an extent that, everything and anything is ascribed to him, as long as it fits into a fiery criticism of colonial exploitation and oppression of Africa. The supposed letter of Ibrahim Traore addressed to the newly elected Pope Leo XIV demanding actions in favour of Africa and received response from the Pope where he admitted the complicity of the Church with a promise to redress the injustice readily comes to mind. This is the new mood of Africa.
Unfortunately, there is a long list of African leaders whose ideas of a new Africa after colonialism were brutally abridged. The case of Patrice Lumumba (Congo) was particularly pathetic. On January 17, 1961, Patrice Lumumba, the first elected Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo and his companions were taken to a nearby bush, tied to a tree, and executed by a firing squad commanded by Belgian Captain Julien Gat. Lumumba’s murder was facilitated by western powers who viewed him as a threat due to his nationalist and anti-colonial stance. In 2002, a Belgian Parliamentary Commission confirmed that Belgium had a ‘moral responsibility’ in Lumumba’s assassination. The Belgian government later issued a public apology for the pains inflicted on Lumumba’s family and the Congolese people.
In a similar vein, Kwame Nkrumah’s removal in 1966, through a military coup, Thomas Sankara’s assassination in 1987, all had the unmistakable stamp of Western interference. Even Muhammar Gaddafi’s murder in 2011 by NATO-backed forces were all targeted at ensuring that, Africa never gets up on her feet. It is this fear that has been expressed by a number of people in the case of Captain Ibrahim Traore. Luckily, the world we live now is different from that of previous era. Yet, there have been many failed attempts on the life of Traore, a pointer to the fact that, the provocateurs of evil have not gone to sleep.
“It was the stupidity of Emmanuel Macron that opened the eyes of Africans. One thing is certain, if France loses its colonies, our children and grandchildren will go to Africa in search of their livelihoods. Immigration will change direction. Macron needs to go or France will suffer. Europe need to unite to fight this new African vision from Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and other countries will follow suit. If one of the puschists’ goes down, the others will abandon the vision. Africa has no history, therefore, Africa cannot run the world”. These were the words of Thierry Breton, former French Economy Minister. The lamentations of an unrepentant white supremacist, who still thinks that, no efforts must be spared to keep Africa down, otherwise, the so called developed world will crumble and the immigration trends will be reversed. This mindset of the oppressors must not be taken slightly.
At the turn of the 20th Century, there were several calls for reparation for Africa. Before the African Union joined the campaign, Chief M.K.O Abiola (of blessed memory) canvassed vigorously for reparation to Africa. The AU’s focus on reparation also draws attention to the systemic inequalities that continues to hold back the potential of African countries. By acknowledging the impact of colonialism and the exploitation of African people and resources.
Given the extent to exploitation and the inhuman treatment meted out to Africans then, and even now, talking about reparation is not bad. Anybody that has been to the slave port in Quidah (Benin Republic) will fight himself to hold tears back. If indeed, those who came to preach Christianity can treat human beings like themselves in this manner. How about the slaves that were taken to sugar cane plantations in America and other parts of Europe, whose lips had to be drilled with hot iron and padlocked with keys, so that they would not take from the sugar cane they planted. How much sugar cane can a man really consume, if it is about consumption? In spite of the fact the perpetrators of this evil are unwilling to come clean on the subject of reparation, some African leaders have acted in such a way as to justify colonialism in the first place.
If slaves were sold and taken by force to the new world. If such ships were to come to African ports today and able bodied men and women are requested to board and taken to America and other parts of Europe, the ships will be filled to the brim because, most African leaders, saddled with the responsibility of managing the human and natural resources of the land have failed tragically. As a matter of fact, instead of providing for their people, they will warehouse the monies in European banks and demand for handouts from Agencies put in place to make Africa look like beggars.
Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom David Cameron once said “If the amount of money stolen from Nigeria in the last 30 years we stolen from the UK, the UK would cease to exist”. This literally means, what would have been used to meet the needs of the people have been used to feed the greed of the privileged elites. So, who will pay who reparation? It got so bad that, even looted funds from Nigeria that were repatriated were tied to financing specific projects. So that the repatriated funds will not be looted again. Who will take us serious in such a situation?
In Ugandan, 80 year old President Yoweri Museveni who has ruled Ugandan for 39 years has appointed his Sandhurst trained son, General Muhoozi Kainerugaba as his heir apparent. Museveni’s wife, Janet, holds the portfolio of Minister of Education. It took public outcry for Museveni’s government to declare that his daughter Natasha Museveni was not appointed as Governor of the bank of Uganda.
In many African countries, the leaders have simply held the people by the jugular, strangulating them almost to death. A situation that has occasioned fierce struggle for power.
For a continent, so rich in mineral resources, yet always begging for aids from the countries that supposedly impoverished them, it is about time African leaders wake up from their slumber and reverse the trend of modern slavery. It will be a surer reparation than all the talk shops about reparation.
