Live free in Africa or die as useful fools (Slave) outside

We must ask ourselves repeatedly why our African Youths with all their talents and our politicians as useful fools, would rather squander and launder the wealth or talents that freed Asians from abject poverty? The next generation and history will take us to task about how the richest Continent God created abandoned its children like absentee deadbeat parents to the whims and Salvation of those that only see them as instruments of cheap labor. These children of Africa are no longer sold by Chiefs into Slave Ships.

African Youths use their first million, all their savings or borrowed money to board expensive planes or cross deserts and seas to reach their "promised land" outside Africa. https://time.com/longform/african-slave-trade/ Despite the numbers of thinkers and historians laborious efforts to inform and educate them constantly. No matter our efforts and information about what awaits them outside, they are blinded and overwhelmed with token few that tell them they saw the "Promised Land".

We just have to ask why a reasonable parent would be willing to give up children for adoption by dropping babies by the gutter, in a dustbin, in charge of Asma boys, tonton macoute, pollero/chayote, janjaweed slave traders in Sudan and Chard or drug traffickers as by seashore wishing that the daughter of Pharaoh would pass by and rescue Moses. https://time.com/5042560/libya-slave-trade/ Instead of putting all energy on prayer, we must understand that heaven helps those who help themselves.

So who are the Youths traveling out? Believe It or not, most are not the poorest, hungry and the destitute. Many of them are highly educated engineers, physicians, accountants, teachers etc that go out and start their own businesses abroad under strenuous situations worse than at home when they realized there was no other way to survive. Less effort could have rescued their own country. Some look at salaries for their professions overseas compared to local salaries, regardless of standard of living, gross domestic product or growth.

Most do not take into consideration the school loans professionals acquire abroad in the course of their study. We have to face the crises of African Youths escaping from their own countries by any means just to make a living. Most of them have training that has not got them their expected reward in the marketplace at home. It is too embarrassing or depressing for them. They would rather go hungry, homeless and underemployed with their skills and certificates outside home.

Therefore, we are not talking about the untalented, most wretched Africans fleeing their homes. Actually, most of those fleeing saved or borrowed from relatives, good money that could be used to start a business, rather than pay traveling agents marketing overseas opportunities and paying for tickets with everything they saved in order to escape. There are also slave traders willing to pay their expenses to Europe and America on contracts. They demand guarantee pay back with usury interest abroad.

Unfortunately, the girls end up as prostitutes and others used as body parts if their sponsors cannot pay back. Yet, the majority of those escaping “hell” in their countries are not the poorest in the community that cannot have three meals in a day. They are not the ones that either go hungry to bed, do without breakfast or lunch. They are the ones buying tickets or paying travel agents to escape. Most of these agents want some money down which the poor do not have except the use of their bodies. They pay dearly for what they had seen on their expensive Iphones at home.

Another lure abroad is their friends that have escaped, telling them they are making tons of money and living big. Even when this is true, they never mention the pains, indignity and the stress of surviving against all odds, no matter how highly qualified they are. How “temporary" are the top positions they hold before being replaced for any or no reason. Those frustrated out of jobs even as the head of dog catchers never relate their frustrations to those at home.

The greatest reason most Africans give is that they are ready to go through subjugation, discrimination and rejection overseas as price they have to pay so that their children can have a good education and future. If and only if Africans work half as hard in their countries as they do when they leave Africa, most of our countries would be a better place. The resentment between African Americans and Africans points to this fact that Africans do not have African American experience of the generational subjugation they suffered.

Recently, it is filtering through that some of their highly educated colleagues are not only underemployed but forced to take menial jobs to put food on the table for their families. The shame and embarrassment of relating disappointments back home are too great to expose. As most of these so-called highly successful workers abroad grow tired of the daily insults; they take to nefarious activities like drugs. Those too old to return home for lack of investment, become miserable and disappointed.

How can parents absorb these without affecting the same children, mentally and physically? It is the beginning of an inferiority complex as their children watch them being relegated to the bottom of their new communities. While it is true that first generation children of immigrants do not tolerate as much abuse as their parents, some of the abuse rub off on them right from kindergarten making it difficult to get into colleges unless they work against the odds inherent in communities abroad.

Most of the successful Africans overseas not only work twice as hard, but are also squeaky clean. Put the same persons in charge of funds in Africa, they would loot the allocation dry without a blink of an eye. They know every eye is on them waiting for them to make a mistake, fail or trip. But in Africa, they feel they can steal and go scott free since they know their way around the judicial process. Most of the Nigerian looters convicted for money laundering or facing charges abandoned the loots overseas to enjoy freedom at home.

There is no better place to fight for economic justice than in Africa where we still have ownership Rights against those encouraging us to sell ourselves for pittance or instant gratification. Everybody likes readymade and hunger is a very strong motivating force. We have seen homeless folks begging to work for food around the world. One of the most resentful sayings by Umaru Dikko was that he had not seen anybody picking food from garbage cans in Nigeria as he saw in America.

Well, that was years ago. Youths now eke out a living on environmental dumps. African politicians, even those old enough to expire, wish to be buried with their loots into the afterlife. They are taking actions against our children that slide us deeper into poverty because they cannot see beyond the immediate wants of their individual families. This is not different from a parent leaving a newborn on the street hoping against hope for a miracle.

However difficult it is to reverse this trend, the day we throw up our hands and give up is the day we all perish.