Wastage and The Poverty of Afrika
I saw a Facebook post by a friend of mine and I thought it made sense to add it to this article. She said “A “POOR ME” mentality has NEVER made anyone rich. A pity party is a useless gathering. Take your life back. This is your greatest moment, right now, right here. Make the most of it.” I cannot agree more with her thoughts. In fact, it puts a context to what we have always written about Afrika in this magazine and this unholy, backward, poverty narrative about Afrika that never seems to go away. Yes, the backward, poverty narrative about Afrika is psychological warfare against the Afrikan people using western media, and now social media, and for whatever evil reason it has all been put in place, but the truth still remains that, there is a great deal of working and waking up that must happen in the minds of Afrikans. We cannot keep blaming everyone else for our troubles and then tell ourselves we are innocent and thus victims of the system. There comes a time when a man must own up to his side of the bargain for his own destiny and do something about it if things are not going the way they should.
At the moment, my family and I are living in Mombasa. Staying at an apartment just the third row from the ocean gives me quick access to the beach at almost any time of the day. And as I usually love to do, I take long walks in the morning or evenings to stretch my body and meditate on things. One of the things that fascinate me whenever I walked along the beach is the number of homes and buildings along the coast line with no one living in them or using them. And there are quite a number of them scattered everywhere. Beautiful houses or hotels in a most treasured beach location but completely abandoned and in bad shape. Seeing these buildings and the shape that they are in always brings my mind to the false narrative that says Afrikans are poor. The truth is that Afrikans are not poor, in reality, it seems we mostly just lack discipline and love wastage. We stroke our egos getting things we really don’t need just so we look a certain way to others and to maybe impress them. We waste money buying houses in choice places and then abandon them to go live the so-called good life in other countries, and then be the first to say Afrika is backward. But how can Afrika go forward when those who should either pull it or push it forward love the so-called good life of Europe and America and care mostly only about their foreign investments? But who is going to fix Afrika if not Afrikans? Europe and America did not become what they are right now because Europeans and Americans went to establish businesses in foreign lands, but because they did it within their lands. We act like deluded and selfish children with no thoughts of the consequences of our actions. So, we waste precious natural resources and good development by sending raw materials overseas and then borrowing money from foreign lenders to buy that very same product once it has been processed, howbeit, more expensively. That is nothing but a waste of common sense and we need to stop.
Concerning the wastage we do with houses and commercial buildings in Afrika, do you know Afrika has a lot of homeless people looking for where to lay their heads each night? And does it not even occur to us that someone else might even need that very house or home we neglect and leave to dust and grass? I think our humanity should by now have grown to that point where we are clear in our minds and are able to give the very things we don’t need to those who really need them. It does not make sense to keep renovating a building just for it to be left unoccupied all over again. So once again I say, Afrikans are not poor, we just lack discipline, compassion, selflessness and the inner strength to build the brand called Afrika.
The same false narrative of overpopulation
The above trend is much like when the world says Afrika is overpopulated, which, at best, is a dirty and shameful lie. How do I know it’s not true? I have gone around a few countries in Afrika and did quite a lot of driving to various locations in Kenya specifically. You drive for hundreds and hundreds of kilometers of vast, empty and uninhabited places. The expanse is endless. Each time I see these places, I am compelled to ask what substance the guys that peddle the lies about an overpopulated Afrika smoke every morning. Just like many things that are said about Afrika, the narrative of an overpopulated continent of Afrika was created by the West and Europe for one basic reason: resource control. Sell the rotten narrative of overpopulation to gullible Afrikan leaders, then push for the massive use of contraceptives among the Afrikan natives. Some of these contraceptives are the leading causes of infertility among Afrikans. These are not just theories but documented facts that can be checked. Take a look at these articles we published a short while back: https://www.msingiafrikamagazine.com/2022/04/the-intrinsic-racism-of-the-population-control-movement/ and https://www.msingiafrikamagazine.com/2021/10/exposing-the-global-population-control-agenda/
But the question remains the same, when will Afrikans open their eyes and minds to how things work in this world and by that begin to make adjustments to the very things that have undermined us for so long?
We are even wasting our young people
A few days ago, as I walked the North coast beach side, I saw a group of young acrobats. I am not sure any one of these young men would be less than twenty-five years old. You could see the passion with which they perform their craft, but when you look closer, you really see the passion and the cry to be seen and heard. One of them, whom I assume is the leader came to me to ask that I should take photos of them and promote them. I sometimes walk around with my camera in case I see anything interesting and, in this case, I had my camera with me. So, I was not surprised that he asked me to take their photos. But from his request that I should promote them and from the look on his face, I could tell it’s hard for them to keep up the craft of acrobatics without getting the actual promotion and publicity they require. They have the vast beach to rehearse on but is there a platform for them to display their craft and be seen? They, like many other young Afrikans, are digging it out every day and sweating just to keep their passion going and hoping that one day they will meet that good Samaritan who will expose them to the world.
We must support our young people right where they have their passion placed. For it’s easy to call them bad and evil when they misbehave but it should rather be easy to support them when they have a passion or craft they are developing.
I have often heard people talk badly about our young Afrikans who are involved in internet fraud. They are seen as irresponsible street boys that one must run away from. But a street boy that can scam a professor of banking and finance of his millions is certainly not a street boy but a genius walking on the street. I read recently that a Nigerian sold a fake airport to some foreign investors. And I was wondering, how could you even begin to put the pieces together to create a product that is as massive as an airport, which you do not even own, and then sell it to some so-called smart world class investors? That is nothing short of genius and high-level intelligence. Am I rooting for cyber theft and crime in any way? Not at all. All I am saying is that it seems we hate our young people and are afraid to help them rise. But why? I do not know. We hail and celebrate them when they rise above the streets and become world sought after celebrities, but what about giving them a helping hand when they need it? Especially if we want them to rise without the ladder of crime or anything of the sort. What about seeing their strengths instead of their weaknesses and by that creating a long line of geniuses who are prepared to take on the world when given the opportunity to do so?
Afrika is beyond blessed with both human and natural resources. We need to stop wasting what we have in order to run after what we don’t have and think we need.
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