Household Adversaries

AMBASSADOR EZEWELE CYRIL ABIONANOJIE

Slavery has been in operation as recorded as far back as 3500 BC before the period Moses in his book of Genesis claimed the first man Adam was made. But the Atlantic slave trade started in the 16^th century by the Portuguese.  In the year 1619, twenty Africans were taken to Jamestown, Virginia for the first time. The first Africans that were taken to the English colonies were rated as indentured servants. And before then, the Arabs were taking Africans away for enslavement far before the Atlantic slave trade era. And it was regarded as legal transaction by the slave masters and their governments. Their economies were dependent on slavery for the production of crops, goods, construction of roads, tunnels, houses and so on. The progeny of any slave will automatically become a slave and the property of his or her parent’s owner. There were legal markets where slaves were being sold with other goods and services. The French, the British, the Spanish, the Portuguese and the Dutch Empire established outposts on the African coast where they buy slaves from local African leaders.

Throughout history, it has been the senseless and selfish efforts of our African local leaders without transparency of thoughts that facilitated the penetration of the evil intentions of our external oppressors. If you take a close study of our collective genetic predicaments historically, you will make a certain revelation that the tricks and strength of our external oppressors will hold no water without an enemy within us.

The Westerners have learnt to manipulate us through us without much stress on their side. And this has remained the reason why anyone of us who endeavors to uplift our Continent to the prestigious league of able people is being easily conquered by our colonial nations. There is no way we can mention the victims of such external and local coalition against the just and the innocent pro people heroes in Africa and forget the person of Patrice Lumumba of Democratic Republic of Congo. The people of Democratic Republic of Congo supported Belgium and America to assassinate one of their own, their first elected Prime Minister, who was with a sense of positive purpose with clarity of thought to economically liberate Congo from colonial con stars whose appetite for African wealth can never be satisfied. They foolishly as a result of greed abetted Belgium to kill him, burn him and pour acid over his remains. And since then Congo has never known peace. Women are being raped; civil war, abuse of human rights and all kinds of crime against humanity have taken over the culture of their land. And their lands among many lands in Africa have become experimental grounds for scientifically manufactured imported diseases such as the killer EBOLA.

Or, should we forget in hurry, the contribution and the good intentions of Muammar Mohammed Gaddafi of Libya for Africa and Africans? He turned the economy of his country to be one of the best economies in the world where the citizens of his country were living like kings and queens. He was a unifier of Africans against the negative intentions of the West. He was struggling towards the procurement of one currency and one African government for all. He carried out the world largest irrigation project known as manmade river to make water available to all Libyans. He introduced and maintained free health care system, free educational system, free electricity, free farm lands, free live stock and seeds with a free house which he considered a human right in Libya. If there was heaven on Earth, Libya was the very place.

The Westerners cajoled the people of Benghazi, in the name of vendetta to protest against Gaddafi in order to provoke a situation to depose Gaddafi. Some groups in Libya, financed, trained and armed by the West fought against his government with the support of heavy bombardment from Western Countries with France taking the lead, captured and tortured him before bullets fired by unknown person from unknown location pierced his body severally and killed him. And that was the end of Libya. Since the fall of Gaddafi, Libya has become a home of terror and horror; militia factions against another, tribe against tribe and government against government. It has become a huge market for human organ and slavery. In fact, the fall of Gaddafi is the fall of Libya and to a very high degree, a dent on Africa tomorrow.

Thomas Isidore Noel Sankara, a Pan African, is another good example of the victims of evil external and local coalition against the just and the innocent pro people individuals in Africa. With the help of some West African countries and a top associate of Thomas Sankara, France was able to assassinate him and enthroned the traitor (the house-hold adversary) as the person of their choice, Blaise Compaore, who is in the best position to tell us the where about of his friend, Thomas Sankara.

The Westerners have ways of convincing some of us to work against the interest of our people. They know and can rewrite or forge your history as they reasoned fit. They may come through our past disputes, religious differences, negative ethnicity supremacy that has nothing to do with reality, political differences, empowerment of one over another, through financial gains or any other means that engenders divisions. According to Robert Nester Marley, “Through political strategy, they keep us hungry. And when you want to get some food, your brother gat to be your enemy……….Ambush in the night”.

They implanted the idea of ethnicity differences in us and encourage different religions in our midst to keep us divided against each other. In the real sense, religion and ethnicity have nothing positive to do with the realities of life. They are seeming differences that only exist in the imagination. It is a pity that most of our leaders capitalize on religion and ethnicity for decision making. Our ethnic or religious groups only feel satisfied when one of their own is in a position of authority. We need clarity of thought where ethnic extraction and religious affiliation are rendered impotent. Our leaders need to sit and be lectured in this regard by some of us who have seen the light and the infallible strength of unity. Western countries, whom our leaders claimed to be our mentors, do not see their differences in language as a tool for measuring different tribes. In fact, the Europeans do not even refer to their different nationality extractions as different tribes. That is why a person of one European nationality can move to another European nation and become a citizen of that new nation if he so wished. Whenever they are at war among themselves, they call it World War. Never tribal war! But in Africa, even when some elements of a particular dialect are fighting another group of the same dialect, they call it tribal war. We are entangled and mentally caged by negative ethnicity and religious humanistic ideologies that are totally based on human inventive tradition.

Karl Max, a German philosopher, historian, economist, sociologist, journalist and political theorist asserts, “The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion” and he also revealed that, “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of the heartless world, and the soul of a soulless condition. It is the opium of the people”. While Lucius Annaeus Seneca quotes, “Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful”

There is no way we can survive thoroughly when we have remained toddlers in our adulthood that can easily be deceived to ignorantly act in the defence of religious faith, selfish gains or that of our so called tribe at the detriment of our collective interests. Our division energizes foreign powers to keep manipulating us as simple know-bots.

“We do not need magic to change the world; we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.” (J.K Rowling, author of Harry Potter series). Viz, We Only Need To Change Our Thoughts In Order To Upgrade Our Worth And Be Liberated From External Rogues.

In the truest sense, the procurement of independence from colonial masters does not make you a free People indeed. You must be supple to keep paying the price of freedom which is eternal vigilance, for the death that killed the mother hen would not sit to watch her kids grow.

Ambassador Ezewele Cyril Abionanojie is the author of the book ‘The Enemy Called Corruption’ and writes from Lagos.