There was a time in America’s dark past when the lives of Black children were worth less than the bullets used to hunt beasts. During the centuries of slavery and Jim Crow, there existed a practice so cruel, so dehumanizing, and so ungodly: the use of Black babies as bait to lure alligators. Plantation owners and hunters would snatch infants from enslaved mothers, place them at the edge of swamps, and wait for the reptiles to surface as the reptiles hear the cry of the innocent babies. When the unsuspecting alligator lunged, the hunters fired, capturing the animal and sometimes retrieving the mutilated body of the child, whose life had been deemed valueless.
It was called “gator bait”. And it was more than a hunting technique, for it was seen as entertainment and adopted as a tradition. They took photos with the mutilated black babies together with the captured alligators’ for entertainment purposes. It was a reflection of how white supremacy viewed Black existence: useful only as a means to feed the appetite of empire.
Today, the chains have changed, but the hunger remains. The same twisted psychology that fed alligators with Black babies now feeds global greed with African lives. Only the tools are different; wars instead of whips, inflation instead of chains, and poisonous products instead of open plantations.
Africa, the cradle of humanity and the birth place of civilization, is now the feeding ground of modern empires. Multinational corporations and foreign governments sow chaos across the continent to secure their supply lines of gold, cobalt, oil, human organs and rare earth minerals. They fan the flames of tribal and religious conflicts, arm both sides of civil wars, and then sell “peacekeeping” solutions wrapped in debt and dependency. They set fire in the dark and call for water in the open, then give harsh conditions to quench the fire with their water. They flood our markets with expired drugs and genetically altered foods, claiming to “support development,” while slowly poisoning generations.
They preach about democracy while installing puppets who sell their nations’ resources for the price of a champagne glass in Paris or a handshake in Washington. They devalue African currencies through financial manipulations, create artificial scarcity to cause inflation, and call it “economic policy”.
What the alligator trap did to the Black child’s body, modern imperialism does to the African soul. It lures us into believing we are partners in a global economy while feeding on our hunger, confusion, and desperation. Every war in Congo, every famine in Sudan, every terror in Nigeria, every instability in the Sahel, and every coup d’état is part of a grand design to keep Africa fractured and feeble to remain an open wound for foreign interests to feast upon.
But the most dangerous trap is psychological. We are conditioned to accept this order, to believe our survival depends on Western charity or the World Bank’s favour. We are told to imitate their systems, borrow their models, believe in their fictional religions and consume their products, while our own innovations, medicines, cultures and agricultural potentials are dismissed as “primitive”. This mental colonization, especially that of religion, is more effective than any slave chain because it convinces the victim to hold the chain himself.
The fight for African liberation therefore, as I have always stated, can no longer be fought only with guns or protests. It must be fought in the mind. We must reclaim the narrative that tells us we are the problem, when in truth, we are the prize. Our resources are the foundation of global wealth, and our awakening is the empire’s greatest fear.
The Black babies of the swamp were innocent victims of a cruel world that saw them as bait. The Africans of today face the same trap, disguised in diplomacy, wrapped in aid, decorated with the false promise of a beautiful life after death, and labeled as “progress”. They give Africans hell on earth and promise them heaven in death. Yet, Africans ignorantly believe them. Until Africa learns to recognize the modern alligator, we will continue to mistake predation for partnership. And until we fight with knowledge, unity, and self-reliance, we will remain bait in the hands of those who profit from our pain.
– Ambassador Ezewele Cyril Abionanojie is the author of the book ‘The Enemy Called Corruption’ an award winner of Best Columnist of the year 2020, Giant in Security Support, Statesmanship Integrity & Productivity Award Among others. He is the President of Peace Ambassador Global.