BY ZII MASIYE
THE ANVIL
June 16 and the month of June have come to be embraced well beyond the borders of South Africa as a significant symbol of struggle and revolution…an awakening of the defiant, youthful spirit of African rebellion.
Rebellion against discriminatory socialisaton and ‘bantu’ education… rebellion against apartheid, colonialism and institutionalized inequality… rebellion against a governance culture designed to stunt black growth and to thwart opportunities for the effective advancement and development of young Africans.
For too long now, Africa has been touted on many fronts as the continent that holds great hope for the future.
Besides her aesthetic appeal, sheer ambience, spatial bounty, seamless resources and raw authentic potential, the continent is home perhaps to the largest, young vibrant population in a world that is generally aging and virtually moribund.
Yet years after Mbongeni Ngema’s Sarafina, and that iconic youth protest in Soweto, it is not-yet-Uhuru for many young Africans; the war- dividend, the evidence of real milestones of change in the lives and conditions of life and in the aspirations of young Africans is scant.
With all her charm and intrinsic allure, Mother Africa is exciting to brand on a T-shirt, but she is not the preferred life destination of millions of her young children.
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Is June 16 just another of Africa’s calendar window- dressings?
Decades after the last bullet was fired to free South Africa, the continent’s young yet live and feel bonded lives… where every 20year old holds on dearly to a passport and dreams daily of a one way ticket to Hollywood, to Brisbane, to Perth, to Hong Kong, to Frankfurt, to Ottawa..; where a beast is slaughtered to mark an important university graduation, as it is to celebrate the achievement of a visa!
Africa remains a sad net exporter of her most productive human resources, both finished and raw.
Some 70 years apart and long after imperial governance – you would think you’re reading from the self-same script, if you were to check the push factors that explain the unrelenting mass exodus of African youth off African to Europe, the US and far off destinations so called “Diaspora”.
It’s a shame such tasteless ‘four-letter word’ should remain pleasurable on the palate and wish-list of our children!
Africa has failed her young generation.
She has failed to tap profitably onto her huge, God-gifted resources.
Over the years, whether it was a global wave backed by mechanization, electrication or technology and digitalisation, Africa simply failed the urge and the self-agency to industrialise.
She was always content to remain a hapless source of virtually free resources and free labour flowing Northward, like manna out of her borders… a disinterested observer and by-stander, a gullible market and dumping site and a price taker rather than a price maker.
Our governments have failed, invariably to leverage the continent’s comparative advantage and to create conditions to absorb our youth and retain willing citizenship and proud loyalty of belonging.
As they bid farewell to arguably the last of a rare breed of those selfless Pan Africans of old, who invested a lifetime into the consuming broader vision of an unapologetic truly united, free and prosperous Africa -Kenneth Kanda- , what should Africa’s born-free digital generation be thinking of their legacy, their continent and seized by as the young African cadre that should deliver where their fathers and grandfathers have so dismally failed?
Africa’s absent vaccines
Our helpless and legendary charity status has once more been on glaring global display in the very current crisis that’s brought the world to a screeching halt.
We are on the cusp of an extremely brutal thirdwave, the Delta variant of Covid-19 as I type.
The greatest threat, by World Health Organisation standards, even as God clearly grants special favour to Africans, is Africa and the continent’s absolute lack of preparedness and a resigned dearth of agency.
We have 55 countries, world class universities and medical research institutions.
We do have world acclaimed scientists and virologists in the continent (although many have their skills invested elsewhere with Big Pharma) .
We have very potent, indigenous approaches and compelling herbal solutions that remain only known to ourselves and used with shame in the dark.
Yet out best contribution to this global puzzle so far is zero, only another begging bowl and a place on the long queue of charitable cases, waiting to be served our usual crumbs!
As Delta threatens to spike, the official UN vaccine sharing facility, Covax just reneged on a commitment to deliver 700 million doses of vaccine to Africa last week.
Only 1.5% of the 2.7 billion administered globally are actually administered in Africa.
How pathetic!
An entire capable continent swims in foggy fear of potential medical genocide and endless conspiracy narratives as big pharma forces through their ring fenced, sophisticated, patented vaccine solutions that are pinned on super profits.
It is a tragic indictment on our governments that 1.4 billion Africans should wait and depend entirely on far off, Johnson and Johnson, SinoVac, Pfizer, Moderna, Astra-Zenecca on a monumental, life and death matter.
Young Africans must reject both the exploitative arrogance of Northeners and the obsequious mentality of their geriatric governments and incompetent leaders.
Young Africans must insist on a Health revolution across the continent; a mandatory 20% budget investment on health research and development, vaccine manufacturing capacity as a bare minimum of good governance.
Beyond Covid-19, vaccine sufficiency and vaccines sovereignty must be an enduring vision of Africa, while the capacity of Africans to develop and sell medicines on the global like everyone else must be the aim of debunking global health myopia and big pharma exploitation.
It is a drop in the ocean, but an instructive milestone and strategic game changer to hear of the early seeds of a mooted African Vaccine Manufacturing plant in Nigeria.
In Health, in education, in technology , in housing as in sport, it must set the thinking for Young Africans.
The adhoc and piecemeal success stories of the Kanu Nwankwos, Drogbas and Adebayors of this world cannot be relied on.
Young Africans must insist on assured investment in excellence, on predictable and systemic structure.
The success of young people in every discipline must not be a function of unparalleled talent, lucky breaks or good personal parenting.
Africa has larger pool and greater youth talent than all other continents, but poor leadership buries it all before it rises and shines.
The ability to churn out multiple world class football talent and legions of Kalusha Bwalya, Okocha, Peter Ndlovu and Lucas Radebe strewn all over the villages and townships of Africa must hinge on focused, great leadership, effective planning and governmance excellence across CAF and all its regions.
CAF president, Patrice Motsepe’s borderless dream of an African Super League, a revolutionary, broadly supported and inclusive continental league with the capacity to generate up to US$3 billion in every five year cyle, must be the kind of thinking that should drive young Africans not only in future football,but in all Sport and Art in Africa.
There is no free lunch! African governments must abandon the propensity for proxy ‘governments’ to routinely prop our critical services as sovereign and self- respecting Africans
They must give up on their appetite for donor freebies if the continent must move forward.
Africa’s youths must collectively frown at promises of hand-outs and infact punish any African politician who seeks office on a ticket of Western or Eastern donor benevolence.
Ahead of elections across the continent, and even before the silly manifestos of shame are out.
Young Africans, who comprise a good 61% of the plebiscite must chart the narrative and withhold their vote from leaders in the habit of packaging and selling poverty and freebies to them.
Young Africans, must demand political formations that bite the bullet, mobilise the abundant spirit, the abundant local resources and the abundant people power to redefine and reconstruct Africa from within.
*Zii Masiye writes elsewhere as Mathabelazitha, The Anvil .
