Africans for Change Project…what the Africans are saying

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

                                               – Martin Luther King, Jr.

Great kudos go to International organizations like the United Nations and other regional organizations for all their supportive roles and contributions in alleviating poverty and underdevelopment in the nations of the world. However, it is on record that the greater bulk of the aid and assistance are directed to the third world, predominantly the “Black race”, most especially to the people in the African continent. The resultant effect is that this good gesture has always made our identity that of an underdog. We have always been pitied or tolerated as beggars.

Listen to these words of the sage:

“Today, Africa is a continent of COMPETING BEGGAR-NATIONS. We vie with one another for favors from our former colonial masters, and we deliberately fall over one another to invite neocolonialists to come to our different territories to preside over our economic fortunes.

As long as we permit ourselves to play this role, with so much apparent relish and enthusiasm, as we have so far been doing, so long will poverty, ignorance, and disease, with their concomitant phenomena, such as colonialism and neo-colonialism, prevail in Africa. ”

–       Awolowo (1967)

Puzzle:

The puzzle is: Has the situation in Africa changed for the better since 1967 when the sage observed this sullen and vicious cycle the African Continent found herself?