The rich cry for Africa
- Posted on Friday 21 November 2008 - 10:29Jack Meena AfricaNews reporter in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania Photo: Elles van GelderDear Friends, Every mind is now set for the weekend. People want to relax and strike. I see friends in Copenhagen, Oslo, Helsinki, Berlin, Brussels all heading to Amsterdam. In Kampala they are thinking of Angernoir, Silk while in Nairobi Florida 2000, Simmers and the like.
In Cape Town it’s all at Water Front and in Dar, talk of Mambo Club, Blue Mango and Rose Garden. In today’s world, however, work pressure has become a part of most people. As such social activities are almost non-extent. Social psychologists and therapists are all tied up with a helluva lot to counsel social disorders (sycophants). It’s a vicious cycle: work- social problems-work!
As I was set to sign off from the office, a client came in! She skillfully presented her case, which of course, had to do with how best Africa could be lifted off her misery. “Presently, Africa is becoming very important, everybody is talking about Africa - HIV/AIDS, poverty, hunger, civil war, floods, draught, corruption, good governance, creative leadership, ethics and leadership…” she said.
Africa is virgin. Africa is fertile. Africans are not aware of that. We are in a deep slumber. Explorers have returned and this time round in style. They come in the guise of helping Africa from her deep rooting problems! They are investors, problem solvers and development partners. They explore and tap in. They establish lukewarm partnerships and get us work. African leaders and elites have become agents of this change.
Yes. They are paid per diems to facilitate this. I don’t want to ruin your weekend. Think aloud, “Is Africa becoming important now?”
Reactions
- Posted on Friday 28 November 2008 18:02It is very true Africa is rich, very rich not only in its mineral deposits and tourism but most of all in her people. What I do not agree with is when one says Africans are not aware that their continent is rich, very rich.
I believe African are aware of this fact but their leaders in culture, tradition, religin and politics are the ones who are not truly aware of this fact and so they see Africa as a poor, foreign aid needing continent at the mercy of foreign donors.
It is our leaders who have up until today failed to do their job to the best of their ability because what they see is enriching themselves and their families and friends, to a large extent. They have failed to see the African creative spirit and the need to nurture and develop it. They see how throughout the vast continent, people use their creativity to sustain and maintain vehicles, machinery by way of improvisation. They create spare parts rather than import it where they can. Few governments if any have established national science and technology workshops where African creative peoples- our super-gifted citizens can come together to nurture and develop their creativity and to make new inventions or apply their minds to creating technological articles, gadgets and machines.
When the British signed to develop HongKong, 99 years was seen as a very long time. At that time China was underdeveloped the same way many African countries are today. After 99 years, Hong Kong reverted to China and today it is China that is reaping the furits of that massive investment by the British in Hong Kong. This is what Kagera Eco-Cities Ltd has done in wooing Chinese investors in the developent of the Sseesamirembe City: Lake Victoria Free Trade Zone project in the Rakai District of Uganda.
That is how Africa will develop faster; use foreign investments and investors to develop the continent rather than have Africans who are infested by tribalism, ethnicity, religious and cultural differences mixed with differences in political ideologies and intentions which often flare up into bloodletting disputes and chaos and expect them to develop our land. What many of our leaders want in politics is power and self enrichment. This is what our history has demonstrated to us over decades after political independence.
It is we the people of Africa, people ar grassroot levels who need to awaken and think creatively for our children and grandchildren. We need to leave our political leaders alone and focus on African development through any legal means possible.
The irony of it all is that we African are so much infested with religious and tribal bigotry not realizing we are one and the same people with one origin and one destiny even along with all other races on this planet.
This is what the Initiator (and his colleagues) of the vision of the Lake Victoria Free Trade Zone (LVFTZ) has done. He brought together men and women from different world races, religious, cultural, and social as wel as political backgrounds and showed them his vision. It was the vision of Sseesamirembe City.
This city evolved into the LVFTZ as an international project. The individuals he has brought together into a powerfully charged rural develop-oriented group have shared his vision and assiduosly resolved over the decades to work towards its realization. The vision was and still is that it could be replicated in ther countries across Africa. This is the fire of meaningful and lasting development Africa needs at this time.
It has been unfortunate though that many Ugandans who have not bothered to investigate the LVFTZ project have resorted to negative rumors slandering the visionary of the project with all sorts of negative media reports. However, for Him, all of these negative reports have been turned into wonderful fertilizers for the advancement of the profect to internatonal levels.
Today, Chinese companies that have captures the vision and the business acumen insight have emerged to work together with the project pioneers to have it realized for their benefit and for the overal benefit of Africa as they plany to construct similar projects in other countries in Africa.
When the Sseesamirembe City project becomes a reality which apparentlt it has now become, more and more people will come from all over the world to the continent the same way people from all over the world have been flocking to the United States of America up until this day, for greener pastures.
I am telling you Africa is greener than the United States because it is vaster, richer in mineral resources and has a much bigger population although lacking in active super-giftedness. This is the one single area we must invest in sooner than later.
The challenge hower is that Africans must unite as one country in order to sustain and control their wealth for the benefit of their peoples now and into the future. This must be done in a wise political, economic and financial system we must develop, NOW!
If we fail in this respect, the wealth that Nature and Creation placed into our hands will also flcok away from Africa to distant lands leaving our peoples poor or working as employees instead of living as rich landlords, rich real estate holders, rich entreprenuers and rich trades and commercial business peoples.
I would rather see Africa grow a largescale different middle class citizens- in that a middle class made of properous business and industrial men and women as opposed to employees. In that way, the next class or people will be rich citiznes not the poor. There will be no poor class citizens in Africa.
The time for petty and trivial bickerings at each other is over for Africa. Religious bigotry, ethnic discrimination and political chaos now become kindergarten legends if we can come to this vision. The vision that we are one people; one nation/country and one state machinery designed, solidified and consolidated for the benefit of all Africans and others worldwide.
What Africa needs now is not politicians (we have many of them already) but men and women of great visions; we need visionaries and those who can work with them to get us out of the mess into which Africa has been for thousands of years since the departure of the Bakalimagezi Abasengejje (Wise Sages or Living Divine Guardians) from the continent.
The good news is we live at a time when these Wise Sages have returned as was foretold by the Great Seer and Clairvoyant, Kakara-ka-Shagama before the remnants of the legendary Abachwezi disappeared into the invisible realms.
It is very encocuraging now that the Ugandan government high ranking officials have begun to support the LVFTZ project and have realized the nature of this massive project as being greatly beneficial to the country's development.
Although the Ugandan President, Yoweri K. Museveni saw the vision of the project some years back, his colleagues in government have most been opposed to it out of religious reasons and not taking the time to personally investigate the project. Many of them have listened to rumor mongers about the project and its initiators. Simply because the initiators belong to a different philosophical school and practice lacto-vegetarianism does not make the project dangerous or unviable.
Let it be noted that today, the LVFTZ project is the largest Free Trade Zone project on the African continent. If duplicated elsewhere on the continent, Africa will greately benefit in various ways.
China is really commendable for taking the lead to work with native African visionaries to develop the continent in this respect.
_footer
Voices of Africa is a training programme by Voices of Africa Media Foundation | Copyright 2009 | info@voamf.org
