AFRICAN COPY CATS
Just some months ago, the president of Africa’ most populous
nation; president Muhamadu Buhari of Nigeria was involved in an embarrassing
controversy for plagiarizing president Barrack Obama’s speech during the launch
of
the “Change Begins With Me” campaign in Abuja. After wide public outrage and
media back lashing, the president owned up and apologized. In a similar manner, the newly elected
Ghanaian president, Nana Akufo Ado got himself soaked in the same muddy waters
of plagiarizing the speech of two former U.S presidents. Just like
These two scenarios are just some
of the embarrassments that our leaders in Africa
have brought our way over the years. You may want to ask, what is there in a
speech that our leaders will have to stoop so low to plagiarize those of other
presidents. Haven’t we as a people grown old enough to have the minds and
brains of our own?
These questions brings to fore the
issue of our failure as a people in Africa to
define who we are, what we stand for and what we really want. We have spent our
entire years as independent nations trying to copy the ways, systems,
practices, philosophy, culture, and policies of America and Europeans without for
ones making an attempt to look inward and develop for ourselves a system that is
in consonance with our traditions culture, norms, and demography. We have
adopted, tried and failed with all these foreign ideologies that these so
called advanced countries have used in developing their nations. I think it is
only rational for Africa to look inward. Just
like the popular saying “It is he who wears the shoe that knows where it
pinches” we should stop trying to solve African problems with American?European
solutions. We should stop trying to solve African conflicts with
American/European resolutions.
Our long standing fallacy in the
intellectual superiority of the whites over the blacks is what brings about
embarrassing issues like our number one citizens having to go as low as copying
the speech of another president in far away America just to appeal the gullible
ears of Africans. In an ideal situation, is it not an African leader that
should know and have the best words to say to Africans? Long
before the advent of the European colonialists, we had our own traditional
political institutions that we used in administering our affairs; so what have
we done with them? Let’s stop trying so
hard to imitate the political, economic systems of the Europeans that were
formulated over hundreds of years ago.
We can’t be more Catholic than the Pope. So, let us learn to be
original, lets formulate our ideologies, use our words, and build our world
according to our needs and taste. God bless
Africa, God bless Nigeria ,
and God bless you!
Written by Agan Justice
Follow me on twitter @Aganjustice
Read more of my articles on my
blog, www.justiceagan.blogspot.com
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