The West Wants Our Youth To Stay, But It Stole Their Future

Every week, a young Ghanaian drowns in the Mediterranean. Every week, another young Nigerian dies in the desert trying to reach Europe.

And every week, Europe asks: "Why don't they stay home?"

Stay home to what?

Stay home to no job? Stay home to no light? Stay home to a degree that cannot feed them? Stay home to a government that cannot protect them?

The West wants our youth to stay, but the West stole their future.

Let us tell the truth. Europe is old. Europe is ageing. Europe needs young hands to nurse its old people, to drive its buses, to clean its hospitals. But it wants those hands without the faces. It wants our labour, but it does not want our lives.

So it builds walls. It builds visas. It builds detention centres. It lets our children drown and calls it border control.

But when our youth do arrive, Europe benefits. The nurse from Ghana saves a life in London. The doctor from Nigeria saves a life in Manchester. The engineer from Kenya builds a road in Berlin. We trained them. We paid for their education. Europe harvests them.

That is not migration. That is theft of brains.

And what did Europe leave behind?

It left behind an Africa where a young man with a first-class degree cannot find a job, because the factory that should employ him is in China, the gold that should pay him is in London, and the cocoa that should feed him is sold for pennies.

Do not blame the boy in the boat. Blame the system that pushed him into the boat.

If you want our youth to stay, give them a reason to stay. Pay fair prices for our goods. Stop dumping your subsidized rice and chicken on our markets and killing our farmers. Stop stealing our doctors and then sending us aid to build hospitals with no doctors.

The African youth is not running to Europe because he loves Europe. He is running because Europe took his future and hid it in Europe.

Let him stay. But let him stay with dignity. Let him stay with a job. Let him stay with hope.

Until then, the boats will keep coming. Because a young man with no future will always choose a dangerous sea over a hopeless land.