Princewill Odidi|20 February 2016|11:21am
Colonialism's greatest effect on most Africans was the creation of a psychological defeatist mentality responsible for making most African leaders to feel inferior to the whiteman. Only very few African leaders have been liberated from these defeatist attitude.
Most African political leaders, act dumb when dealing with any man whose skin is white. I traveled once with a white guy who told me he was a manager in a project in Nigeria called escavous. He said he has Nigerians with masters degree working under him. Out of curiosity I inquired about his qualifications, he said he holds American 12th grade diploma, which is equivalent to WAEC in Nigeria, but that he worked and retired with the US Army Corp Engineers as a technician. You can imagine a technician training Nigerian engineers.
The problem is Colonialism has made most Africans to feel inferior to the whiteman. This explains why most of our political leaders prefer to deal with the whiteman even on issues that our local capacity could do a better job.
Today Asians have to come and plant palms for us, Israelis have to teach us how to farm, foreign agricultural companies have to execute farm projects for us, even our hotels and event centers have to be managed by the whiteman.
This white superiority mentality is so grave that Nigerians who travel overseas and need to take a photograph would prefer to take a photo where a white man is shown on the background.
Is it that our Colleges of Agriculture and Agriculture departments in our universities cannot manage a simple farm?
Must the whiteman teach us everything? What most of our leaders dont know is that these white guys laugh at us, they make a mockery of how Africans would even drink urine and call it vitamins drink so long it is manufactured by a whiteman.
Recently in Abuja, I was informed of a group of whitemen who move from state to state in Nigeria meeting with state Governors and doing presentations. Sometime they claim they are from Spain, in other places they claim they are Americans.
Another group doing the same thing now in Abuja are a group of Lebanese and Israelis, they even have offices in Abuja that you can hire them to follow you to presentation as white technical partners.
Today, our political leaders see any association with a whiteman as a big achievement.
Worst more, our political leaders would leave everything they are doing to see the whiteman, not knowing all these so call whitemen are more Nigerian than some black people.
Let me state this very clear, no nation can develop by looking outwards. The Chinese are developing China, the Americans are developing America, why cant Africans develop Africa?
Our leadership has failed us and continue to fail us. NeoColonialism, this new form of colonialism, and the worship of the whiteman in the name of investment and development is worst than slavery.
Most of these guys are actually rented, that is you pay them and they join you to see government officials.
Until we are decolonized in our minds and mentality, Africa has a long way to go.
Today to get a contract in Nigeria, just rent a whiteman to accompany you to Nigeria to do a presentation, you get the job. Until Nigeria is able to have a political leadership that is courageous enough to engage the world with faith in her people, we will continue to be a beggarly nation and the whiteman will continue to teach us how to govern ourselves, how to plant our food, how to build our roads and how to even type a memo. The whiteman and the rest of us….God save us….
Princewill Odidi writes from Atlanta.
