US President Barack Obama signed into law Monday a measure aimed at expanding electricity to millions of households in sub-Saharan Africa, a measure supporters say will save lives and accelerate growth on the continent.
Please. Someone. Anyone of African origin. Why is this bill being celebrated?
Has it gotten so bad that we’ve given up all hope in our own governments that we are wholesale handing out the responsibility to develop our continent to others? What happened to our pride? Our agency? Is this the legacy we are writing for the 500 million youth on the continent under 15 – that it is not their responsibility to work hard and contribute to the development of their own continent?
Why did we work so hard to achieve independence if 50 years later, we are celebrating America coming to install electricity for our children. What else are we going to celebrate handing over?
Do we not realize this is a bill to provide loans for US private sector energy firms to build these projects for us? Well and good that they will electrify the continent, but at what cost to our future? At what cost to our dignity? At what cost to our agency.
The more we continue ceding our agency, the more we continue to reverse process and entrench in the minds of the world, that, see, the continent can’t take care of itself.
We are a rich continent and a rich people, but our minds are as poor as we allow them to be. Ceding our agency, mortgages our future generations – making it impossible for them to ever grasp the breadth and concept of agency, autonomy, or independence.
This is branding for US foreign policy and economic stimulus for the US economy, not Africa’s.
