Colonial Shoes Doesn’t Fit

Before the colonial masters came into Nigeria and turned things upside down, different regions or tribe were managing their own affairs peacefully. Their coming brought a lot of positive change actually like stopping the killing of twins. Even if that was the only good thing they came along with, I must say that I am happy they came.  

It is normal in this world for one person to influence another, people to influence other people, nation to influence other nations, etc. This influence however, depends on who is being affected. If I admire and am understudying someone, it is my responsibility to copy those qualities in that person that is relevant to me, do away with mine that are irrelevant and ignore those qualities in that person that are not relevant to my purpose. But Nigeria’s case is different. We copied almost their lifestyle and are gradually doing away with our culture. Their most precious culture, which is timeliness, we overlooked. After many years of independence, Nigeria still staggers in the shoes of its colonial masters, their shoes that don’t fit us.

Why are we still struggling in colonial shoes; the shoes they are no longer forcing us to wear? It is true that colonialism left a confused country, civilian unfriendly polity, elite based economy, nepotism fuelled bureaucracy, Victorian era legal systems, and a god-father political system but we are not foolish to continue with all their fragments. We have the will to take the ones relevant to us and do away with the rest. If it is easy for us to copy them, then it should be easier for us to weigh the effects and come to a reasonable conclusion after 57 years of independence.

Postcolonial governments had the opportunity of pulling down the colonial structures and starting afresh but they were busy fighting religious and personal wars, and dragging among themselves who should wear the colonial shoes; the shoes they ought to reexamine, to figure out how it can fit. For instance, they could have redrawn the national maps, questioned and renegotiated the basis for uniting the three tribes that are distinct from each other, etc. They were so eager to step in and enjoy power that they sold their values. This of course gave birth to the bloody civil war, genocides, coups and counter coups that followed independence.

The clock for restructuring is still ticking. It is not too late to fix things. Many things have gone wrong that it will be very difficult at this time to pull down the existing structures and erect a new one but it is better done than not. If this country must survive, something different must take place and that is restructuring.

Written by Olive Chinyere Amajuoyi

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AFRICA – A POLITICALLY FREE BUT ECONOMICALLY CHAINED CONTINENT

African countries were only granted political independence from their colonial masters to govern themselves; that explains why Africans still live like slaves till date. From the look of things, there is no evidence that Africans are truly independent. After independence, the foundations of exploitation and self depreciation laid by the colonial masters for Africans were raised higher, been painted and furnished by the sequence of African leaders from then till date. 

Before colonization, Africa is blessed with mineral resources, efficient manpower, good political culture and well grounded culture. If there is nothing good in Africa, nothing could have attracted the whites. They spied and saw so much wealth and ability in Africa and craved for it. They therefore came armed, to subdue Africans and exploit them. Africans, being so gullible, became victims of circumstances till date. The whites made away with African treasures and able bodied men of Africa to develop their place so that they can Lord over us. Africans developed Europe and America, yet they remain underdeveloped.

Boateng, Osei once wrote: “The African people so dominant in America’s southern states did not go there as tourists. Their ancestors were dragged screaming and wailing into the ships that took them there as slaves. They were full-blooded Africans whose sweat, tears and unpaid labour built the wealth of the country and empire we now called the United States of America”.

Consequently, Washington Alcott wrote: “The transatlantic slave trade caused the forced removal from Africa of millions of Africans. This number included a large percentage of skilled tradesmen and women from a range of occupations and professions who were making their contribution to African societies. Without them, African societies themselves were weakened”.

Africans have been under pressure ever since and even much more now that we govern ourselves. African wealth has been in circulation among the few smart Africans among whom are not even qualified to be in authority while the unprivileged many wallow in abject poverty. The worst case among them are the unemployed who are neither working to receive their salary nor self employed, as those amenities that encourages self employment like power supply, good and accessible roads, fair policies, etc are not in place. Others are peasant farmers, traders, labourers, house helps, etc. who eat from hand to mouth on daily basis and who suffer so much abuse and humiliation in the hands of government agencies; official and unofficial and in the hands of their masters and mistresses respectively, because justice for them is very hard to come by. To the leaders of Africa, these people don’t exist and therefore, their opinion will not count, yet their votes fix these leaders in their offices. If the educated ones, who are barely considered while making policy are being deceived and exploited during campaign and elections, how much more the citizens who are considered nonexistent?

Any little favour from the government is applauded by most enlightened Africans, how much more those who are menial workers and who do not have access to Radio, TV, not to talk of social media tools. These set of people are only remembered when it comes to population statistics for election engineering, resource allocations and international relations. These set of people are those that frequent prayer houses and churches most because they know that something is wrong somehow with them and to them, it could be witches and wizards from their villages, and curses from their fore fathers that is hunting them. They don’t ever link their problems and suffering to selfish leaders and politicians who have taken over from the colonial masters. At that point of mental imbalance and frustration, they take the men of God or pastor they trust as their messiah; then the so called man of God will complete the evil of exploitation and abuse that politicians and leaders have engineered.

This group that fall in the lowest class is the first to be affected whenever there is a new policy or government decision to expand road, renovate the market, beautify the roads, etc. They are the most affected when flood or any natural disaster occurs. They are always affected in all these without any plan or pre-arrangement to protect them or make sure they get on by. They are usually the ones used as thugs by selfish politicians, they are ones easily recruited into gangs and terrorist groups and when they die, they perish like animals, as if they are not citizens.

African countries celebrate their independence yearly, not minding how these lower class people are fairing. This class of people has over the years been treated by their fellow Africans the same way the whites treated Africans in the time past. It is therefore not wrong to say that Africans generally are politically free from the whites but are still slaves to white men ideology which the smarter Africans have long cultivated and applied to oppress the unfortunate ones.

Written by Olive Chinyere Amajuoyi

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