No longer in a dilemma

Tobin Jones/UN photo

By

Isaac Abban

We were all quick to condemn and chastise Donald Trump when he made his ‘shithole’ comment. To me, Donald Trump still continues to project his disgust for Africans due to the fact that he feels Africans have played little role in the scheme of things and to the advancement of science, technology and innovation. Africa in the past has been touted as the dark continent rife with poverty, corruption, diseases, unemployment, carelessness, laziness and above all mental inferiority. We have failed to live according to Nkrumah‘s dictum that the black man is capable of managing his own affairs. Donald Trump to me, speaks the minds of thousands of Europeans and Americans.

The question the West continues to ask is can something good come out of Africa? African youths are running away from the continent because they want to seek greener pastures elsewhere. They are openly being enslaved in the 21st century in Libya. In the Mediterranean sea, the story is not so different as our youths are dying like helpless chickens. Oh! What a tragedy?

To me, Donald Trump is right for making such an assertion, although not entirely justifiable. He wants us to think and prove to the whole world that we are not children of lesser gods, that we are the cradle of civilization, the builders of the Sphinx and the great pyramids of Egypt, that we are the originators of algebra and trigonometry and that our youths seek a decent and honourable life.

He wants African leaders to provide jobs for the teeming youths, he wants us to stop relying on foreign aid and mediocre imported goods like rice, television sets, chicken and, to some extent, bottled water. He wants us to train practical engineers and planners who will design our cities and rid our cities of the filth engulfing us.

He want us to have an education system that will be more practical based than memory based, so that when African graduates leave school they can take their destiny into their own hands and help in building their respective nations. He wants us to prove to the Bretton Woods institutions, the IMF and the World Bank, that we can manage our economies and put them on their right path. He wants African leaders to stop playing cheap politics and adopt a workable development plan for its people.

He wants African leaders to stop depositing their nation’s monies in foreign accounts only to die and leave the monies untouched. He wants to show that your hard work and determination must move you up the ladder of society and not the people you know. He wants to tell African Professors and scholars that they should place their knowledge attained within the African context so they can see clearly and solve the numerous problems bedeviling the continent.

In short, he wants us to think for ourselves as men and women of destiny and not chance. He want us to stop the religious fanaticism and punish fake pastors and prophets who exploit the weak of their meagre resources. Until this is done, Trump would not stop attacking the Africans. We need to rise and prove to the whole world that we are indeed the cradle of civilization and hence not subject to mental inferiority and backwardness.

Isaac Abban

I’m Isaac Abban, a 24 year old man and a final year student studying Geography and Sociology at the University of Cape Coast, Ghana. I hail from Cape Coast in the central region of Ghana and have a keen interest in seeing to it that my generation and generations yet unborn in Africa are set free from the perils of illiteracy, ignorance and poverty. As an astute writer I believe that through writing the world can be made a better place.