It was Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first Prime Minister, who famously declared during the founding of the Organisation of Africa Union (OAU) in Addis Ababa on 24th May 1963 that Africa, which was gradually emerging from the furnace of colonialism, must unite if she must confront and wade off the yoke of neo-colonialism. In his words, the great pan-Africanism proponent thundered to his audience that the continent “must unite now or perish”. He reminded the countries that gathered from different blocs of the continent that “independence is only the prelude to a new and more involved struggle for the right to conduct our own economic and social affairs”. Other speakers like Julius Nyerere at that August event passionately shared the sentiments and the need for a united continent.
These founding fathers might not be prophets, but they had a foresight of the struggles that this newborn independent child as it were, would face growing interference from the West who has seen her enormous and blessed natural resources. More than 60 years since they made those onerous calls, the reality of what they feared is evident in the continent. More than 60 years later, the continent is struggling to free itself from the high-handedness of the overarching influence of so-called super powers and developed democracies like the United States of America (USA).
Africa has so many leeches deliberately working to hamper its growth and to manifest its true essence, and the overt and covert activities and overbearing influence of the USA through its criminal and murderous world police known as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has held the continent bound. The US through the CIA has instigated unnecessary and avoidable conflicts and political instabilities that have resulted in various violations of human rights, unwanted loss of lives and hampered the continent’s development. It does this by working with and recruiting agents of ossifications who are mostly Africans, of course with a bait of some kind of remuneration and reward.
The CIA has been found culpable in so many political instabilities, including Somalia, Cameroon, Kenya, Libya, Mauritania, Gambia, Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso, with its direct involvement in the Angolan civil war, and its clandestine activities in Gabon and Madagascar and many other nations on the continent. During the cold war, the CIA served as a potent weapon of the US to topple Afrocentric and purposeful leaders like Nkrumah, the assassination plans against and eventual murder of the late Patrice Lumumba.
The height of all these interferences by the CIA is that a country like the US that prides itself as the watchdog for human rights abuses and keeper of peace across the world has never taken any responsibility for its criminality and excesses on the continent. It has instead made frantic and concerted efforts towards shielding its sordid and heinous crimes. Each year, the US spends billions of her citizens’ monies collected from heavy taxes to champion cold unrest across the world and the African continent.
As an African, I am displeased and worried by the height and depth of pains the US has brought to my continent. I am worried by the sight of hunger in troubled Ethiopia, the nakedness in Libya, the destitution on the streets of the Central African Republic (CAR), the fear and disruption caused by constant military takeovers in Mali, the homelessness and growing number of displaced persons in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) caused by the USA.
My continent is abundantly blessed with mind-blowing natural and human resources that if it is allowed to prosper without the constant meddling by a so-called troubling “Big Brother” like the US, Africa would and should become the envy and pride of the world. The US cannot continue to sponsor wickedness and instigate terrorism on the continent while it continues to dump peanuts to her as a form of aid. No, it can’t. Africa, by her endowments, does not need any forms of aid from the US; it only needs peace and space to realise its full potential for itself and for the good of her citizenry scattered all over the world as seekers of greener pastures.
In June 2020, a wave of civil disobedience and protest was seen across God’s Own Country following the brutal and gruesome murder of Gorge Floyd by the now jailed Californian policeman. Before his unfortunate death, Floyd was captured from CCTV footage and other visuals shouting he could not breathe due to the way he was pinned down on the neck by the killer cop. He was heard in his words saying “I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.” Although there were other conspiracy theories as to the kind of person Floyd was, one thing that could not be denied is that he died from complications arising from his pinning down. Like Floyd, Africa and Africans have been shouting and crying for more than 60 years of its independence: it can’t breathe. And the foremost cop holding him down is the USA through its notorious CIA.
The US must let go off its knees from the African continent so it could breathe. The US cannot continue to sponsor unrest on the continent through its proxies. It must desist from its war of calumny against the cradle of humanity. We didn’t beg to be blessed with resources, but our makers did. Therefore, our blessings should not be the reason why the US with its investment in advanced intelligence and super military hardware would continue to distablize her. Africans deserve a peaceful life, with strong and viable institutions. Africa deserves to compete favourably on the global stage without being schemed against by an overbearing partner like the US.
It cannot rely on the CIA to continue to make decisions and slam unjustifiable and crippling sanctions against the continent like it is doing in South Sudan. It cannot continue to accuse countries within the continent of human rights abuses while it commits the same as shown in various reports and findings. The US must allow Africa and her citizens to choose the way they should be governed and not as it thinks. For the continent to realise its full potential, the US must sincerely make commitment to her peace and also hold itself to the standard it holds to other nations in the world. It must stop playing the devil’s advocate on the continent.
