Anytime I hear the song "We are Africans" by JJC, it reminds me of Africans who have left their countries for a better life in the yonder, in search of an identity. I must confess that right from the first day I heard the song, I fell in love with it, my favourite part of it being "the blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice". I have a friend who says “the black man is his own enemy;”at first, I tried to counter him but he reminded me of how many countries in Africa are celebrating independence this year, and the progress they have made so far. On hearing the above song, he asked why the musicians are screaming their lungs out, and that if they are actually proud of their countries, then they should come back to their respective homes.
I pondered on this for a while and asked myself , does “the blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice”, mean “ the blacker the African man, the more negative the news that comes out Africa is?” Often times, I’ve been criticized for being unpatriotic, but hey, I am a realist and believe in seeing things as they are and not living in a world of fantasy. Some weeks back, I read on BBC website on the resurfaced killing of albinos in Tanzania for meat and ritual purposes, and because of that, they (albinos) have gone into hiding. The thought of a human killing his fellow human baffles me, especially in this modern day. TANZANIA AHOO!!!!.
Another similar story is that of accused ‘child witches’ in Cross River and Akwa Ibom. The children are said to be the cause of the poverty and failure in their families. In order to change the family’s fortune, they are told by Pastors to bring their children for deliverance for a fee between $300 to $2000. The kids are then taken for exorcism which involves a process of torture and degrading inhuman treatment, till they “confess” that they are witches. In cases where things don’t seem to improve for the families as is usually the case, the families are told that the height of witchcraft in the kids is extreme and the children be sent out of their homes. Helen Ukpabio of Christ Liberty Church, is one who is reported claims to have delivered more than five hundred people mostly children. Ridiculous, I must say. CROSS RIVER, AKWA IBOM AHOOO!!!!!
Chansa Kabwela a Zambian journalist, sent some pictures of a pregnant woman who gave birth in a street outside a foremost hospital to the Zambian Presidential Office. Thinking the President would look into the matter, she was instead charged to court for spreading pornography. She was later acquitted. This still does not hide the fact that the President swept the main issue under the carpet. How can Africa blossom under such leaders, who don’t care about the affairs of his people but rather think of how to amass the nation’s wealth? This year seventeen African countries celebrate their 50th independence; many of them have nothing to show for it with their people living in abject poverty while the ruling class have whatever they want at their beck and call. In “Why foreign aid and Africa don’t mix” by Robert Calderesi, he says, “I once asked a president of the Central African Republic, Ange-Félix Patassé, to give up a personal monopoly he held on the distribution of refined oil products in his country. He was unapologetic.”
"Do you expect me to lose money in the service of my people?" he replied. “That, in a nutshell”, says Calderesi. “has been the problem of Africa. Very few African governments have been on the same wavelength as Western providers of aid.” How can you expect to constantly get aids from the Western World, when you don’t use it for what it was allocated for? PATASSE AHOO!!!!.
Nigeria is part of those countries celebrating its 50th year independence, 87.7 billion naira has been allocated for it. Misplaced priority, I call it, when the country is littered with unemployed youths and poverty stricken citizens who can’t even afford the basic amenities. The average Nigerian lives on less than a dollar a day, meanwhile there are those who have more than they ever need, while one can barely clothe himself, we have in the same country, those who travel overseas just to get the latest designer clothes. This goes to show that there is something wrong with our structure and mentality, and unless something is quickly done about it, much good won’t come out of Africa, we will only be like toothless bull dogs barking AHOOO!!!!
I remember I first heard the word AHOO in 300, the movie on the war between the Spartans and Persians. As much as I enjoy and love the song, I believe JJC could have shown their African Pride much better by being original rather than borrowing phrases from a Western movie. “AFRICA AHOOO!!!!!”
