THE PROBLEM WITH AFRICA 10

This was a joke made popular by a Uche Ogbuagu a jokestar. He said, a man visited LAGOS for the first time and was amazed at the sky scrapers and got lost while looking at them, one of the ‘Agbero’  (hooligans)  noticed by the way he was looking at those buildings that he was a ‘JJC’ (Newbie in town) walked up to him and charged him money telling him, those buildings cost 100 Naira to see each. The Agbero said, ‘I noticed you have looked at 5 of the buildings therefore you’ll pay #500’. He was happy to pay it and left saying to himself ‘I cheated on him, I looked at more than 12 Buildings and he only charged me for 5’.
An average African wants to exploit you.
Walking the streets of Accra to buy something, immediately they by my intonation suspected I am Nigerian, they hiked the price; same thing happened in Harare when I went to pay for a Hall and when I was in a cloth market in Addis Ababa.
After noticing the price I bought certain things, my friends would say, it’s because they noticed you are ignorant of the price and that you are from a farther land.
An average African is looking for whom to exploit because she too was exploited. There is whole circle of exploitation in Africa, from the rulers to the ruled, leaders to the led.
‘bring the mugu let's chop am’ is a common phrase in Nigeria whenever they want you to exploit anyone because he is either physically or mentally weak and damn the social consequences.
Hunters hunt polar bears by sticking firmly a sharp knife bathed in blood into an ice. When the polar bear finds it by tracing the smell of the blood will begin licking it and while its licking it, the sharp knife would cut open its tongue and it will continue licking it believing its getting the blood from the knife not knowing it is its blood that its now licking until it bleeds out and dies.
When we are exploiting others, we don’t know we are exploiting ourselves. This is one of the reasons Africa hasn’t moved forward.
Like that polar bear that wanted to suck the blood on the knife, ending up bleeding to death, Africa is bleeding because of the harm Africans did to herself.
Whatsoever you did to another, it’s what you’ve done to yourself in a greater way.
The government of Africa exploits Africans every day, and her entrepreneurs do same and this precedence will make the sons of Africa to continue to suffer exploitations and to exploit whenever he finds someone weaker physically or mentally, thus no one would move forward in Africa. Africa has become a wild ground where if you aren’t the predator you’ll be preyed on.
If we must grow as Africans, we need to stop exploiting people, we need to make Africa a friendly ground even for the weak and ignorant, live honestly, respect the uninformed and feeble amongst us and never seek to get what we’ve not worked for.
God bless you
Promise Ikpe