(The Agent for Positive Change)

Stereotypically, the world is united and its incremental development, as a result of innovations and creativity, seems to be shared and ubiquitous. Unfortunately, the world is, archetypally, dismembered and its evolution is ascribed to certain parts of it (world); not equally participated. Africa, for instance, is the second largest continent and yet the poorest; it has been tacitly ostracized from the united nations, by not having a permanent seat, despite claiming to be sovereign and in good terms with its contemporaries. The major idiosyncrasy of African community is lack of discernment, and consequently, failure to be judicious in all its dealings. Habitually, we all wean a child off the breast; but patently differ in what we wean them on, which becomes hardwired into them, and hence the vagaries we see across the globe. So, it is an ill wind that blows no good in African continent; remember, he who sups with the devil should have a long spoon. Therefore, Africans are to blame for allowing insidious enemies to intrude the continent to their own detriment. This article will highlight some African proclivities and their corresponding solutions as we answer the question “employing to share the money or employing for purpose?” and Zambia will be used as a hyponym of Africa.

African Leaders – Birds in A Gilded Cage

It is only by dint of hard work will success beat a path to your door. Africa is endowed, heavily, with primeval resources; it has adequate means to support and prolong the lives of its people. In a normal scheme of things, the continent is expected to pull itself up by its own bootstraps, but the opposite is the case for Africa, due to lack of guarded and ironclad standards to guide the happenings (at individual, family and country level). Perforce, the continent is brimming with unbridled(undisciplined), indolent (lazy) and nescient (ignorant) population, and this has imputed to the failure of Africans to participate fairly at global level, and worse still, failing to make use of their natural resources to meet their own needs. As a son of the soil, I have got a bone to pick with every well-meaning African about these ignored chinks in our armour.

African leadership has been made visionless, because it is being occupied by mountebanks and simpletons who don’t understand that without people, there can never be politics, and that the power they are wielding is a collective one; not inherent, nor from their families. What precludes our leaders from the world leadership is their failure to perceive that politics works hand in glove with, both, unstructured and structured interventions, and that everything done, in all the establishments, must be dovetailed with the aspirations of the entire citizenry. What has befallen Africa is that of extraneous force (of many sides) that has penetrated the entire continent under the mantle of ignorance. Our leaders have been turned into quislings; collaborating with our insidious enemies to disorganise our continent. Despite the sonorous collective power, our leaders are brandishing, they have abdicated from their responsibilities and chose to be vipers in our bosom. And the sad situation is that the owners of this collective power are under illusion; they have authorized their leaders to transmogrify into demagogues, ultracrepidarians and megalomaniacs to an extent of promulgating personal interest over public interest. Are you able to answer the question now? If not, please follow as we take a dialectical approach to uncover the manipulated reality.

Africa Brings a Knife to A Gunfight

There can never be a roof without a superstructure and a substructure, and the quality of the roof depends on the quality of the aforesaid structures of the building. Likewise, political leaders emerge from grassroots and entities for the purpose of outstanding leadership intended to benefit everyone involved. However, the African polity, off the blocks, has been a ludic environment; where political players, in government, are seen disconcerting the two major interventions, of the government, for their own personal gains. On the other hand, behold the political juggernauts, from other continents, with a full grasp that politics is for public interest, and that interventions are meant to provide, both, general and specific solutions for public good. Why then letting the external leaders, with such mental dexterity, to cause salvos of confusion across Africa through our leaders?

For permitting our inept political leaders to interfere with structured interventions is a lucid indication that Africa is bogged down in morass of ignorance; this has turned Africa into a dumping ground and a hotbed of subpar goods and services. For qualifying our leaders, in public offices, to disturb our unstructured interventions is a confirmation that the grassroots (the owners of collective powers) are ignorant of their own powers, rights and why they vote.

All told, our leaders are illegitimate, because the manner in which they are ushered into power is blighted; with hindsight, most of them have gone down in the annals of our history by mistake, and with foresight, cerebrating any ostensible independence must be regarded as an insult to a wise person. The world was created at the same time, but why being colonised? and now neo-colonialism is at work under our beady eye. Our structured interventions are awash with charlatans, because no one is concerned with quality and order; therefore, our convention wisdom are fallacious; everyone is busy with their own illegal personal interests. Note: quality supports quantity, but quantity without quality is a recipe for fiasco; Africa’s problem. Also, most of our hoi polloi are not fit to make objective decisions, in their own respective countries, hence serpentine leaders in African countries.

Carpetbaggers in Control – Abnormal Becomes Normal

A Gaboon viper and a puff adder, together is quite possible, they are both snakes, but not to an extent of forgetting their own, unless the abnormal becomes normal. If having a prodigious number of foreign nationals, in the country, is a barometer to ascendancy and positive change, Zambia would be one of the most developed countries in the world; It has a cornucopia of enclaves of foreign nationals to a degree of rendering the natives worthless. Sadly, the Zambian economy is being run and controlled by these foreign nationals. Here is what is obtaining in Zambia:
– The public supply locations are in the hands of foreign nationals: wholesales, supermarkets and retail shops are run by foreign nationals.

– Commercial farming, food processing and manufacturing of goods are being done by foreign nationals. The largest portion of land, which should have been utilised by the locals, is lying fallow; the preponderance of its population is in urban areas vegetating.

– The entire formal sector (structured interventions) is oozing with a motley of simpletons, buffoons and ignorami, and some unqualified foreign nationals have been slinked in by venal natives.

To cap it all, all these grim situations, highlighted above, are happening under the watch of the political, traditional/community, church leaders and the self-acclaimed well-read population. The Ministry of Home Affair and Internal Security (MHAIS) and The Ministry of Labour and Social Security (MLSS)were confronted over their failures to control the entrance of foreign nationals and their stay in the country, but all to no avail. Regrettably, Zambia, like any other African country, on their convenient dates, cerebrates its freedom (cerebrating ignorance and laziness). Africans chose to be Independent from knowledge and hard work – meanwhile their counterparts, from other continents, are getting it right, through authentic knowledge and hard work.

Conclusion and Way Forward for Africa

As a conclusive fact, a fool and their money as soon parted; relatedly, African leaders have impignorated our natural resources for the money which is spent on ill-fitting and transient things and some of it disappears into thin air. For Africans to scrape the bottom of the barrel, in the land of plenty, it shows that our leaders are birds in a gilded cage; they have allowed the external forces to annex our continent (they have changed our identity, taken our resources and introduced an aura of disorder). In addition, here is a bevy of facts to buttress the claim that Africa brings a knife in a gunfight:
– Our leaders have failed to marshal everyone involved towards a frugal management of our natural endowment for our own benefit.

– Our educated population have failed to descry that their approach to life is wrong and their involvement have landed Africa in incessant problems. They have ignorantly betrayed the universal truth to a point where the entire population is scraping the surface in most cases.

– The entire grassroots have failed to recognise that political power belongs to them; due to that, we end up with unqualified and sly leaders in power. As a result, the general public are unable to demand for befitting quality of goods and services, through their leaders.

Despite everything, zemblanity is an immemorial issue for African continent; this has seen our continent out of the champions league. Accordingly, any positive achievement chalked up, in Africa, is by serendipity and some are just flashes in the pan. At this point, we can collectively aver, without fear of contradiction, that Africans employ to share the money and not for purpose, and hence its parlous position.

Recommendations:
It is impossible to conciliate things that are incompatible; Africans must learn to be comfortable in their own skin. Therefore, in order for Africa to be relevant to the world, and be worth of a permanent seat at United Nations (Security Council), the following steps are veritably recommended:
– Africans must embrace diversity as they approach life; it has many faces. If all you have is a hummer, everything looks like a nail; this has been, a bad, African approach to life. Now is the time to encourage everyone to carve out a niche for their own survival; a country is made wealthy by its own people, through hard work guided by accurate mastery.

– The universal truth must be the centrepiece in African continent; objectivism must supplant obscurantism in order for grassroots to realise that power belongs to them, and that any decision they make must be for the common good.

– Plus ca change must be avoided by developing and implementing befitting and ironclad standards and systems that will automatically preclude charlatans and simpletons from occupying the limited and key positions at leadership (political) and management levels of the government.

– There is need to patriatethe governing laws and their implementation; the laws are there to maintain normalcy and must be anchored on the basic principles, and should never be in conflict with common sense.

Syllogism:
A continent has everything to sustain and improve the lives of its people; Africa is a continent, therefore, Africa must sustain and improve the lives of its citizenry. Remember, your failure is a bonanza for someone else; be warned.

A Big Shout-Out to: Prof. PLO Lumumba (East Africa),Joshua Maponga (Southern Africa) and Ugezu J. Ugezu(West Africa).