Africans at home and in the Diaspora will readily want to condemn slavery in the strongest term possible as the greatest act of man inhumanity to man.

A period where the black race are said to have lost everything and needed to be compensated through reparation to enable it move forward in order to join other members of the international community as equals.

Investigation reveals that no part of the world, had escaped slavery in one form or the other, some like the Jews in Egypt spanning more than 800 years is worse and longer in duration than that of the black race.

The question of why we are the way we are is simply that when others replace their hate with love, we have chosen to keep our hate against ourselves and our oppressors hence, our servitude as a people continued.

Nelson Mandela’s answer to a question put across to him when he was leaving prison in Rhodes Island after 26 years made him in our opinion the greatest Black African of our time and history shall reserved for him a special mention when his work is done. He was asked now that he has regain his freedom from his white oppressors and persecutors how does he intend to deal with those who have brought him so much agony, misery and pain? He replied that if he doesn’t forgive his oppressor, he would forever remain their prisoners because the feeling of repaying a wrong is worst than Rhodes Island. He said that instead he will forgive them and be free of all hatred towards humanity irrespective of race, color tribe or tongue.

The intention of our colonial masters was to move the wealth of the colonized to their colony. When it became exigent for them to leave and end colonialism, the only way they can guarantee their colonial relevance was to put stooges in place that will be answerable to them when the need arises.

We are not however of the view that all African leaders left behind by the colonialist to manage our affairs are all stooges but there are evidence that majority of them are.

With a decolonized government some years after independence relying on the colonial home government in virtually all areas of her political framework, what the Africans got were a bunch of half-baked leaders who are Africans in skin but European in thinking.

“After Independence, Nigeria was more or less a British military extension in Africa. In the Navy, there existed a clause that every Officer and Rating of the Nigerian Navy would be subject to: The Naval Discipline Act 1957 of Great Britain, Queen’s Regulations and Admiralty Instruction of Great Britain and all other Laws and regulations guiding Her Majesty’s ships, vessels and establishment.”

The majority of those who were trained were those who are friends of the Colonialists. Those who form bulk of our colonial master’s friends are not the Royal Fathers of the day; they are not the warriors or the great farmers. They simply are among the reject of that particular society where they have no say and could not enjoy the right and privileges the sons and daughters of the kings, the palm wine taper, the farmer and the fisherman are accorded.

Chinua Achebe best described the prevalent situation at the time and predited the future when the servant is raised above the master in his book Things Fall Apart when his lead character Okonkwo tried to fight for the restoration of the status quo. He struggled with the white colonialist over the desecration of his culture and ended up hanging himself, thereby showing the futility of pocket resistance against a mass hallucination.
“Turning and turning in the widening guile, the falcon cannot hear the falconer things fall apart the center cannot hold a mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.”

Those who are believed to be the original inhabitants in the above poems are the falconers while the falcons in this context are the strangers in their mist brought from far and wide and taken into custody by the colonialists who empowered them over their brothers. Aside from empowering these group of people, they were physically equipped with weapons to “shoot at sight” who dare oppose their artificial authority. They were assured that they second in nature to them and no harm can come to them as a result, their cruelty can only be imagined akin to what Prince Yomi Johson did to Samuel Doe in Liberia Civil War when he had Doe eat his own ear!

Stories kept flying from generation to generation and deep seated anger by the self-styled “locals” lingered on and on. It is like a “mere anarchy loosed upon the world” and things have never been the same ever since.

The seed of deep seated hatred for the man of letters has haunted us for quite a while and like the days of our slavery, a family who can afford to send their children to school abroad is considered a man of great wealth and great standing in the society.

The spill over in Jos, plateau State of Nigeria is a classic example of an aggrieved “locals” wanting to take over their land from the “strangers.” The occupants of Jos, the State capital they accused, took over their lands and pushed them deeper and deeper into the Plateau Mountains. They were vexed that their forefathers sold their birthright to the rich Hausa Fulani traders and they have a right to reclaim their heritage.

In most part of Africa, the story is the same. Following the departure of the colonialist, the devide and rule strategy became an effective tool in the administering of their erstwhile estate. And the only way to do that is to create a rich class who are answerable to them.

Those who rose up to the position of authority see themselves having security in their master’s countries as a result, funds meant for the development of their home states is diverted into building or buying structures they will retire into the moment they leave office in their respective countries.

A former governor of a South Eastern state in Nigeria, after loosing a second bid for office took off to America and left the law agency to wonder on what to do to repatriate him back for justice on murder and corruption charges. He must have stashed away enough cash to last him a lifetime.

The infallibility of a sitting state executive is seriously been questioned and thepeople hope something will be done about that pretty soon.

In faraway England, A governor from the middle-belt ran away from an allegation of financial improprietary, as if that story of shame is not enough, another “matee” from justice by jumping bail!

The matter is that these governors or state executives do not consider themselves as ‘locals and have no feelings about the suffering of the masses because the see themselves as ‘strangers’ in the land.

 Oga Brown
+234 -703 088 0313
ogabrown@yahoo.com
2, Mamou Close off Kolda, off
Adetokunbo Ademola Crescent, Wuse ll, Abuja.

Oga Brown is a graduate of History and International Studies. He is a commentator on National/ International Issues and a the CEO/ Internatinal Coordinator of SPEED-AFRICA, a Business and Leadership empowering organization based in Nigeria.