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Opinions of Tuesday, 1 May 2018

Columnist: IDDRISU ABDUL HAKEEM.

Africa`s several centuries of woes: the gods must be useless

Iddrisu Abdul Hakeem Iddrisu Abdul Hakeem

Indeed, Africa as a continent has come a long way: from physical slavery to mental slavery under the inescapable scorching and burning sun.

As Africans, we have seen so much though there's an obvious evidence that this is just the beginning!

The recent menace of unprescribable dosages of TRAMADOL usage by some misguided majority of the youth of our republic and elsewhere in Africa, is quite alarming.

Could this be a curse from the gods, in spite of our endless services of worship to them over the centuries or they are simply "useless gods" who can't help us and studiously choose to ignore us in our agony?

From superstition to bad governance, Africa seems to remain the biggest disappointment in the entire human history.

It beats my intelligence that despite our numerous gods worshipped including those who came before us, we remain the most "offensive insult" to the human race when it comes to development because of negative factors seemingly preprogrammed.

Few days ago, I listened with rather dissatisfaction, anger, and shame, on Multi media House (news file on Joy news), about the recent menace of TRAMADOL, a legal drug that has been abused ignorantly by majority of youth of Africa especially our motherland Ghana.

As if Africa had waken up from the left hand side since its creation, the bad omens are linked to one another in chains thwarting our growth as a people.

We have had a storm of governments that are simply less than competent ever since Africa was liberated from the manacles, shackles, and bondage of European colonization.

Just before we relief ourselves of these catastrophes of nauseating leadership, corruption reared its ugliest head that undermined our growth.
As if that was not bad enough, conflicts got held of us in the muddy waters of underdevelopment.

Immediately we relatively put the continent above these brutal civil wars some of which were caused by a Guinea fowl, avoidable diseases such as cholera, malaria, and the Almighty Ebola that proved to be more lethal than atomic bomb, afflicted and inflicted us left right and center, amputating our progress.

What a torrent of woes?

Now that bad governance, conflicts, diseases, and corruption seem to have gotten a cure with the emergence of capable leaders like Nana Akufo Ado of Ghana, Paul Kagame of Rwanda, and John Magufuli of Tanzania among others, another fresh hindrance to our development appears, this time, among the youth in a form of *drug abuse!*

Edmund Burke once observed that "tell me the prevailing sentiments that preoccupy the minds of your youngsters, and will tell you what it's like the future of the next generation

If our forefathers didn't abuse TRAMADOL yet they are the reason for our present pain, what shall be our legacy when we finally takeover the mantle of leadership with mentally demented citizens?

What a continent?
Meanwhile, we are the most demoted worshippers.

From human beings, rivers, forests, to kitchen utensils, we either prostrate, bow, kneel, or even lie down to worship, yet we are the most miserable, farther behind the rest of the world.

Has Africa been cursed by its Creator because of the numerous gods the earlier generations worshipped to the disregard of the real Creat

But even if our homeland must have been cursed by its Creator as a result of the sheer disloyalty and ingratitude of those who came before us, why will we atone for the sins of others?

Why will the Creator torment us for the sins of others?


The woes of Africa continues to escalate: from incompetent, corrupt, merciless, and dishonest leadership to tribal governance, that's often full of "greedy bastards" who are the cruelest parasitic entities heavily c God, help us.

Despite our subterranean attempts for several decades to navigate our way out of the embarrassing underdevelopment that has manifested in the form of intolerable levels of penury, there's nothing still good to write home about

As if Africa is carrying the whole of mankind's burdens and tribulations, we are never being released by the jugular off the unthinkable.

Anytime we seem to be directed to the main road of the "promised land" giving away the previous misleading ones, another fresh and more dangerous, and disastrous near-earthquake-causing ones emerge to cripple us into inertia!

If this is indeed a curse upon us, we pray in the mighty name of our God, our Creator to diffuse such a curse that has rendered a rather Eldorado and silicon valley of the world to a mere geographical expression called Africa in human history!

This is our challenge as youth and the next generation

Our almost wasted generation still has a role to play through guidelines and advises.

They must not left us ajar to our faith because we are in so-called modern era.

This, and not by miracle shall help turn things around with change of hearts and retooling of our mindsets.

It is time to refuse copying blindly the traditions of unbeknownst cultures of the "worse" mistaken as the West.

The West have been through a lot before their present station in society, and we must not miscopy that without being through what they had been through.

The gods of Africa may not be useless, we just give them what they don't need to the neglect of what we need.

Long Live Africa.