Hard Truths Told and Digested

Only a black man, only a black man who is president of a free and democratic country, only a black man who is president of a free and democratic country whose father experienced life as a black man living in a corrupt African milieu could express those truths. That Africa will only be saved from its current state of ineptitude, disease, turmoil and tribal battles when it decides to become mature enough to shed corruption and the propensity of its leaders to cheat their populations of what is rightfully theirs.

All the attention and the hand-wringing and the administrative and material and volunteer-agency support sent to Africa is as nothing to the greater need of those countries whose leaders remain convinced that foreign aid of any kind is meant for their personal aggrandizement. Africans, U.S. President Barack Obama stressed on his visit to Ghana - one of the few African countries making a realistic attempt to fairly represent the needs of its people, and practising as a true democracy - must and can do better.

"No person wants to live in a society where the rule of law gives way to the rule of brutality and bribery. That is not democracy, that is tyranny and now is the time for it to end." Africans shelter themselves from the reality of their own failure to develop and mature, by claiming to have been set back immeasurably by forced colonialism, and while there is a certain reality to that claim, it's too tired and redundant at this time to remain forever the 'reason' why African cannot attempt to do better for itself.

The foreign aid representing billions of dollars of investments by wealthy countries of the world has proven to be useless. It is absorbed by the tyrants, the dictators who rule, and the people continue to live impoverished lives, assailed by diseases that could be battled with simple mechanical means available for little expenditure, but of disinterest to those who rule. Education for the young, health systems for the population, equal opportunities for people to thrive, encouragement of basic agriculture to feed the population fall by the wayside.

"We must start with a simple premise that Africa's future is up to Africans. The West is not responsible for the destruction of the Zimbabwean economy over the last decade, or wars in which children are enlisted as combatants", President Obama lectured. "In my father's life it was partly tribalism and patronage in an independent Kenya that, for a long stretch, derailed his career, and we know that this kind of corruption is a daily fact of life for too many."

The choice of Ghana for the president's first visit to an African country, as the first black president of the most powerful country on Earth is instructive. He chose an emerging African success story as his podium to address the rest of Africa, most of which is staggering under the burdens of war, famine, corruption, disease. "Here in Ghana, you show us a face of Africa that is too often overlooked by a world that sees only tragedy or the need for charity.

"The people of Ghana have worked hard to put democracy on firmer footing, with peaceful transfers of power even in the wake of closely contested elections. Government institutions that attend to the needs of the people, independent courts that uphold their rights, and a sense of unity that transcends tribal and religious differences will help Africa meet its vast potential. Africa doesn't need strongmen, it needs strong institutions", he said.

How many will he have offended and angered, one wonders, nailing on the head what is horrendously wrong with the Continent?