Today as always, men fall into two groups: slaves and free men. Those who will not reason are bigots, those who cannot are fools and those who dare not are slaves.
The Caucasian blood have succeeded in breeding these three categories of humans, to a very large extent in Africa, to keep us as perpetual slaves even to their generations to come.
But for the fact that a very few of us, Africans, have escaped from the dungeon of these three categories, we will push and push till we make a headway in resetting the minds of our brothers and sisters already lost in a world that has never been ours.
The subjugation of the black race, the source of life to mankind, remains a hard pill to swallow; it is inexplicably bitter and too harsh to comfortably go down the throat. It was the desecration of the people we were, the rape of our mothers and motherland, the molestation and dehumanization of our ancestral heritage, the mesmerization of our spirituality, the contamination of our serene environment and shameless attempts to excommunicate us from the class of higher animals.
In their bid to make us non-persons; members of a race of nobodies, they continuously engage in frantic efforts to prove that we have never had significant histories as a people. A generation of mental dwarfs blackmailing the great generation of the people of the Nubia, Kemete , Kerma, Kush, Blemmyes, Numidia, Nekor, Alodia, Makuria, and Ife, to mention but a few. What an irony of life; the world isn’t truly balanced and a fair place!
However, having stepped out free from a brainwashed mechanism, we have come to identify our land as the cradle of life to mankind, and will not trade away the truth for whatever value or worth.
The ancient Africa setting, before the Atlantic slave trade, was characterized by well organised societies around the family unit, and the strength of every society was determined by the amount of gold held. Leadership and followership were premised on mutual understanding and love.
The ancient Africa traded in tobacco, gold, copper, spices, ebony, ivory and skins. So, trade was and has been an integral part of the people from time immemorial. Religion was integrated into all aspects of life.The supernatural was involved in virtually everything, and the efficacy of the deities kept crime rate under check while peace reigned supreme. Crimes were punished to serve as deterrent to potential culprits of one crime or another.
Hospitality was embedded in the blood of our ancestors to accommodate others. They opened a trade path to the Caucasians believing they were a people of good intentions. Alas, the opposite was the case! They came in and destabilized our societal structure through their infiltration from the West African coastline.
They drew people from the center of the continent and sold them into slavery. We were a people; content with life and opened to humanity. We were happy and wanted the same for others. It is, however, quite unfortunate that our ancestors were short of the knowledge that the “devil could come in white colour.”
The slave trade was brutal and horrific, and the enslavement of Africans was cruel, exploitative and dehumanizing. Nothing less than 11 million Africans were bought as slaves by Europeans between 1450 and 1870. The estimates for the total number of Africans lost to the slave trade ranges from 25m to 50m.
In the middle of this evil to humanity and the land of the cradle of life stood ” Leopold the 2nd of Belgium.” He made the entire world believe that he was going to help Congo. But under his watch, over 500,000 died of diseases and many died of starvation as well. He murdered over 10m Congolese and earned himself a title of one of the most wicked souls that ever lived.
“So enormous, so dreadful, so irremediable did the slave trade’s wickedness appear that my own mind was completely made up for abolition. Let the consequences be what they would: “I from this time determined that I would never rest until I had effected its abolition” – William Wilberforce.
So much was the evil of slave trade that William Wilberforce, one of the main actors and beneficiaries of slave trade, became tired and haunted by the inhumane displays of man to humanity.The guilt was so heavy on his mind that he fervently fought for the abolition of slave trade.
Although slave trade was abolished, slavery was never abolished.The black race was immediately recolonized under “the mechanism of mental slavery” as noted by Marcus Mosiah Garvey. Mental slavery is the worst form of slavery. It gives you the illusion of freedom, makes you trust, love and defend your oppressors while making an enemy of those who are trying to free you or open your mind and eyes.
The death sentence melted out to our ancestors, by the slave masters, for kicking against being enslaved has not stopped.This time, it is technically done using the black men with low mentality.
The elimination of Martin Luther King Junior, Malcolm X, Harry and Harriette Moore, Fred Hampton, Medgar Evers , George W. Lee, Leon Jordan, Sammy Younge Jr., James E. Chaney , Vernon Dahmer, all black activists to mention a few, were carried out by white supremacists and mentally enslaved black men and backed by racist authorities and the police.
“Imperialism as a system of exploitation occurs not only in brutal forms of those who come with guns to conquer territory. Imperialism often occurs in more subtle forms; a loan, food , aid and blackmail. We are fighting this system that allows a handful of men on earth to rule all of humanity”- these were the very words of Thomas Isidore Noel Sankara. He talked-the-talk and did the deed to liberate his people and set Africa on the path of total freedom and greatness.
A Marxist-Leninist and pan-Africanist to the core appointed as the Prime Minister of the Upper Volta in 1983. He was incarcerated for having disputes with the sitting government. While under house arrest, a group of revolutionaries hijacked power on his behalf to become the President in a popularly-supported coup later that year.
He launched programmes for social, ecological and economic change and renamed the country from the French colonial name “Upper Volta” to “Burkina Faso (land of Incorruptible People)” his foreign policies were centred on anti-imperialism, with his government boycotting all foreign aids, pushing for debt reduction, nationalizing all land and mineral wealth and averting the power and influence of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (IBRD) for he believed that “he who feeds you controls you.”
His domestic policies were focused on preventing famine with agrarian self-sufficiency and land reform, prioritizing education with a nation wide literacy campaign and promoting public health by vaccinating 2.5m children against measles, yellow-fever and meningitis.
The policies of Sankara alienated and antagonised several groups, which included the small but powerful Burkinabe middle class; the tribal leaders who were stripped of their long-held traditional privileges of forced labour and tribute payments, and the governments of France and its ally, the Ivory Coast, though Isidore was setting Africa on a path of total liberation and greatness.
On 15 October , 1987, our very own Noel- the voice of the voiceless Africans, was brutally murdered by an armed group with twelve other officials in a coup d’ etat organised by his former colleague, Blaise Compaore ( a man with a low mentality and a puppet in the hands of the French government). In his narratives for the reasons for his action.
Judas Compaore alleged that Sankara jeopardized foreign relations with former colonial power France( the descendants of Leopold) and neighbouring Ivory Coast ( France’s puppet) and an unproven allegation of Isidore wanting to eliminate his opponents.
Having taken our hero ‘SANKARA’ out. Africa was reset to a backward mode of the 18th century of the “scramble for Africa.” Today, the continent of Africa remains at the mercy of the world power and even China; a bridge we would have crossed if our Wakanda Prince ‘Thomas Isidore Noel Sankara’ had lived longer..
From time to time, our ancestors reincarnate in the chosen ones among us to see to our total liberation from foreign shackles, in Dr Arikana Chihombori- Quao I see one of the recent reincarnations of our ancestors. Dr Arikana, a doctor, activist, public speaker, educator, diplomat, entrepreneur and founder of medical clinics, was appointed the AU Permanent Representative to the US in December, 2016.
Just like our darling and daring son “Isidore” she fearlessly hit hard on the French government for their atrocious neo-colonial exploitation nearly 50years after the Francophone countries under them were granted independence.
She revealed that the French government forced 14 Francophone countries to sign a pact for the continuation of colonization.These countries were to keep 85% of their bank reserve with French Central Bank under the watch of the French Finance Minister.
These countries are allowed to borrow up to 20% of their 85% reserve kept in the previous year as a loan with interest.” Over $500b goes out of Africa every year to France , yet France had the guts to call Africans poor” were her fervent submission. In her very words: “We are the original people and we have every reason to stand up on the tallest mountains to proclaim who we are……. we are beautiful, intelligent, sophisticated, highly adaptable and totally indestructible-the Africans.”
“Any other race that would have gone through what we have been subjected to would have been extinct and that’s the truth.”
“Consequences…… for Africa to take its rightful place on the world stage, the gutter of mind we have lived in for centuries must be cleared out.” Now or never.
“Everybody is talking about the monkeys and squirrels in the room (Africans), but no one wants to touch the 10000-pound gorilla in the room( the Leopoldic descendants), and that is our thinking of the African people.”
Our Wakanda queen was too tough for them, she made the stage uncomfortable and unbearable for them. Her voice subdued that of hundreds of the slave masters.
She couldn’t be handled directly; and as usual, another African with a low mentality-the AU Commission Chairman for 2019, the Chad President Moussa Faki Mahama, was used to relieve Dr Arikana of her position through baseless allegations.
A great Wakanda Prince and Warrior-John Jerry RAWLINGS (MAY HIS SOUL CONTINUE TO REST IN POWER), tagged the action shameful.
It is time to emancipate ourselves from “mental slavery.” There is no “Wilberforce” to lead on our behalf for none but ourselves can free our minds!
FIGHT ON DR ARIKANA, OUR DISTINGUISHED WAKANDA QUEEN!
HAPPY POSTHUMOUS BIRTHDAY, OUR KEMETIC KING , THOMAS ISIDORE NOEL SANKARA!!
THE WAKANDA PRINCE! WE WILL FOREVER LOVE YOU; CONTINUE TO REST IN POWER!!!
Odusanya is the convener of AFRICA COVENANT RESCUE INITIATIVE ACRI
