Our beloved Africa is bleeding; we as sons and daughters of Africa, must come to her risky, stand up to protect the interests and priorities, and advance the progress and growth of our beloved continent. It’s time as Africans, we take action more than words without glorifying speeches to appease the very people who have intentionally became a stumbling block to our progress.
Africa as a continent does not need permission from any country, continent or so-called world economic prowess to develop or under take development projects to the benefit of its citizens. Let us as citizens of Africa arise collectively to fight poverty, stigma, and racism, inequalities among other social vices that hinders our development and progress as Africans.
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The time is now! African youth must be angry enough, it’s sad to observe how our leaders dine and wine, shove hands with the very people that undermine, exploit our continent for their greedy interest and turned to accuse us as corrupt, and incompetent individuals who are not capable of managing their own affairs.
To the sons and daughters of Africa, the future is now! We cannot afford to fail our generation yet unborn neither can we continue to wallow in abject poverty and marginalisation at the expense of our rich mineral resources in the name of global trade.
Arguably, Africa does not need the approval of the United Nations (UN) to take its future in its own hands, what we need in Africa is a possibility mindset and renewed commitment and efforts to be able to take the continent to the promised lands of glory; hence we must allow our actions speak louder than words.
As usual, during this year’s United Nations General Assembly held in the New York City, the leadership of the 54-countries member continent were not left out and there was a full representation with many on the African leaders reading speeches before the 193 member countries general assembly.
Whereas many stood firm and committed to hold the feet of the leadership of UN to accountability and equity, several others chose to present mere gossip and cheap propaganda to earn food on their table from the so-called world economy prowess.
Some speeches that were thought provoking and worth encouraging and so daring to the sons and daughters of Africa and the spirit of our forefathers were those read by the President of Kenya, William Ruto and the President of Ghana, John Dramani Mahama.
Ghana’s President John Dramani Mahama was right that the UN founding charter is outdated when it comes to representation. With the fast evolution of globalization, how can the most powerful post-World War 2 nations are still being rewarded with an almost totalitarian guardianship over the rest of the world? This contradicts the first sentence in Chapter 2, Article 1 of the UN charter which declares that “The Organisation is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its members.” If this were indeed true, a continent as large and with as many UN Member states as Africa would have at least one permanent seat on the Security Council.
President Mahama argued that veto power should not be limited to five nations, and it should not be absolute. There must be a way for the General Assembly to counter a veto and No single nation should be able to use a veto that is absolute to further its own interests in a conflict.
To Kenyan President William Ruto, Africa’s exclusion from permanent membership on the Security Council is unfair and undermines the UN’s credibility, arguing the continent bears the “heaviest cost of instability”.
President Ruto, however, exposed the United Nations weakness, calling for the reform of the United Nations as African countries still do not have a seat at the United Nations with the big five according to the Turkish president Tayip Recit Edorgan who say that the world is bigger than five countries referring to France, China, Russia, United Kingdom, and United States.
These were not just mere speeches read neither commentaries from African heads of States but inspire hope, invoke our spirit of pan-Africanism and reecho the stands and preparedness of African to carry the bull by the horns to defend itself if the UN failed to heed to our demands for a permanent seat at the general assembly for equal representation.
Those were not threats but to put it better was genuine concerns and demands made and should not be too difficult for the leadership of the United Nations to intervene to avoid the impending calamity as the its end time draws nearer failure to ascend to the demands of African leaders.
It’s either now or never; Ghana and Kenya are the last hope of Africa and the duo must arise to shine beyond imaginations to inspire other African countries by leading charge against infiltration of westernization in Africa. Our friends from the Western World knows the truth, understands the genuineness of our concerns being raised, they found themselves in a fixed situation or dilemma. With little press, we’ll overcome them. Our demands threatens their economic growth and progress, as we champion this cause, they’ll employ the old tactics of imposing higher tariffs on imports and exports from our continent to sway us from our quest.
The time for words, commentaries, beautiful and polished speeches is over! These must be dark days the West. Africa remain the food basket of the western world; without Africa the western economies will grand to a halt or recess. They need raw materials from Africa to feed into their processing plants to refine or process to keep their economies running yet Africa remains the periphery of underdevelopment and threatened with sanctions despite our continent’s richness both in manpower and natural resources. We solely depend on importation, it’s about time Africa adopts a ‘production to consumption’ approach by advocating for “African made products” consumption to reduce importation of foreign goods.
We, the youth of Africa, must take keen interest in developing our continent to become conducive for settlement rather than chasing greener pastures and allowing our big dreams to die slowly with us. The development of Africa is non-negotiable; we must kill our brain-drain or continue to risk our youth to the Mediterranean seas. However, our request for a UN permanent seat for Africa must not be taken lightly, but a “do-or-die” affair and we must back our leaders to relinquish their UN membership failure for the UN leadership to grant our request.
By PAUL NYOJAH DALAFU
The Writer is a Journalist, Public Relations practitioner and communications specialist. Email address: paulnyojah30@gmail.com
