Date Published: 07/21/09
Why do we need others’ validation?
By Idang Alibi
A huge issue has been made by especially Nigerians over the decision of USA President Barack Obama to visit Ghana instead of Nigeria the so-called Giant of Africa, in his first ever visit to an African country since his inauguration as President last January. The way so much noise has been made by my countrymen over this so-called snub makes me wonder why we Nigerians, or rather we Africans as whole, seem to crave other people’ validation or affirmation before we feel good about ourselves or others’ rebuke before we know that what we are doing is wrong.
Why should we think that Obama’s decision to visit Ghana first is a snub, a subtle rebuke that we are not doing well? And if it is true that Obama has sent a coded, guided intercontinental ballistic signal to us that he does not like the way we are running our country, why do we have to cry so much about it like infants weeping over the denial of milk to them? Do we need an Obama to come to our country first before we know whether we are doing well or not?
Why should Ghanaians who have been ‘favoured’ with a visit by Obama feel so good about themselves because the president of another country has visited them? Have they bothered to ask themselves whether the Americans will feel the same way if Ghanaian President John Attah Mills visits them? Will the people of America feel snubbed if an Attah Mills decide to visit Mexico first instead of the United States of America? If the answer to all these is no as is obviously the case, why all the fuss about Obama and his visit to Ghana?
Every day, we Africans show our inferiority complex and not even the thinkers among us can point out to us how shameless we always portray ourselves. It is our commentators and pundits who have led the way in the lamentation about Obama.
When African leaders are invited to some international fora, some times as mere observers, they shamelessly seek for photo opportunities to be seen back home ‘rubbing shoulders’ with ‘world leaders’. It does not occur to them to seek to do something and become ‘world leaders’ themselves; they merely want to be seen as measuring up to some ‘world leaders’.
When an African leader rigs election or stages a coup to get to power, he will not feel fulfilled or get a sense of legitimacy unless he is granted audience by an American president. When Obama was to be inaugurated as the first Black President of the USA, many African leaders who could not get invitation to witness the event sulked openly. And I ask myself why it is so? And I tell myself that it is so because we have not come to a realisation that we must sit down, plan and build our countries and continent so that we can become relevant. Today, we are a scar on the conscience of humanity as some one once described us. We are a strange people who do not seem to have the reasoning power to govern ourselves.
If I were God I will be very unhappy with Nigerians and other Africans who make mere humans like the heads of government of some western countries look like gods. The way some of my people have wept themselves sore and some have even worn sack clothes and ashes over the refusal of Obama to honour Nigeria with his mighty presence, will arouse my anger and jealousy.
I do not intend any insult here but the pain in my heart is so much that I will say something of us here that will sound rude: we seem to have the mentality of infants. We are not mentally developed yet. Or may be am mistaken. What I ought to say is that we lack confidence in ourselves. We wait for the rebuke or affirmation of others before we can behave ourselves.
Some one can accuse me of being extra sensitive but the way I see Obama’s visit to Africa is that it is extremely patronising. I may be wrong but my interpretation of it is as follows: Africa as a whole is a sorry case. Obama who has an African blood in him is extremely embarrassed by the condition of his cousins on that vast continent. Others in the world are equally embarrassed but they can not speak frankly to people of the continent lest a huge cry of racism issues forth from the continent against them.
But because of his antecedents, such a cry can not be raised against Obama. So the man sits down and decides which country of the continent is like the one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind which he can visit and use her platform to preach to others. He says it is Ghana. And he comes to that country to preach an indicting sermon against the leaders and peoples of the continent.
And even he, with his clear advantages, could not afford to be brutally frank and honest in his denunciation of the foolishness that goes on in the continent. Obama is a smart man. He knows that Africans are dangerous. With their infantile sentimentalities, a well-meaning man can be easily misunderstood so Obama had to be careful. And so he came to Ghana, only the better of the basket cases, mark you, and spoke in parables and innuendoes against the corruption, arbitrariness and incompetent leadership that are the woes of the continent.
When Obama visits other countries in other continents, he is usually there to talk to them man to man or as equals, negotiating over issues that are mutually beneficial to America and those nations. But when Obama comes to Africa, he comes to give a subtle pat on the back for one country that is trying to do well and to condemn many others who have no respect for the rule of law, who tolerate bribery and corruption and who can not organise free, fair and credible elections.
When Obama went to Saudi Arabia, he did not say a word of rebuke to the king and princes of that kingdom who have never organised a single election in that country. The monarchy in that country is working well for the good of the people of that country. But in Africa, our democracy does not work; our monarchy does not work and our autocracy does not work either.
And instead of sitting down and soberly considering what is wrong with us, we spend precious time wondering why Obama chooses to visit one country at a particular time and not another as if that is so important.
My dear continent men, what we need is not the validation or endorsement of others. What this continent direly needs is simple, honest, competent, just, patriotic and fair-minded leaders who can mobilise, inspire and motivate the peoples of Africa to begin the business of development. It is a shame that what others take for granted in their country is what an Obama will come thousands of kilometres across the Atlantic to commend one of us for and to indict many of us for not striving to get them.
Even this Ghana that Obama came to commend, what extra-ordinary thing has it done if it were not that things are worse in many of our other countries? In spite of the hype, I hear for instance that we still have power failure in much of Ghana. What is so extra-ordinary in organising a change from one government to another if it is not that we are talking about Africa? Why should anyone commend Ghana for waging a serious war against bribery and corruption except that we are comparing her to other countries of Africa where some governments are waging war against anti-corruption war? In a sense therefore, Ghana is getting the applause based on the ‘law of relativity’- the one-eyed man is king in the law of the blind.
Let no one say I am saying this because I am a Nigeria who is jealous of Ghana. Jealousy and mean-spiritedness have no place in my noble heart. Rather, what is tormenting me is patriotic pain for this much abused continent. When Ghana is commended, I feel tormented by what Chinua Achebe would describe as hailing the tallest man in Lilliput. What use is it in making so much fuss about the order of precedence between a flea and a louse?
I never tire of pointing out that we Africans have so embarrassingly underachieved that at this level no African country should beat its chest about anything. If people commend us for anything, they are just being polite. And some time, some of the commendations look too patronising. It makes us look like crying babies who need to be cuddled and cajoled so they can behave well. It hurts a sensitive man like me. It offends the sensibility of a self-confident man like me.
People will come and continue to lecture us on standards of good behaviour unless we DECIDE to sit up and plot our development. We will continue to seek the validation of other people unless we realise that God has endowed us with as much brains as he has given to other of his children in other continents.
For us in Nigeria, we must see the so-called Obama snub as a wake up call for us to take ourselves and our country more seriously. We spend too much time on slogans and on empty boasts about our being ‘Giant of Africa’. I agree with Wole Soyinka that a tiger does not proclaim his tigritude. Rather, he shows it! Let us begin to show our ‘giantitude’ rather than endlessly proclaiming it. We can not earn the respect of the world with the way we are running our country.
Idang Alibi is an Abuja-based journalist.
