Why are Africans Making a Mountain out of Donald Trump’s Shithole Molehill Accusation?

On 13 January 2018, I received the following message on my WhatsApp page. “So who are you? Third World? Poor countries? Banana Republics? Or Shitholes? Do we prefer any? What do we define ourselves as? My response was, “As all of the above if we were to face the reality. Until we change our ways, we are worse than subhuman”.

I could have done myself a great deal of service by delving into the folder containing my memoir to retrieve a page for public consumption or observation on my views regarding Africans with myself inclusive. However, the contents of that folder are for a future purpose hence deciding to spend a few minutes or hours of my precious time to write my comments on what the American President, Donald Trump, has said that is doing the heads of Africans in.

In Galatians 4:16, the Apostle Paul writes, “Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth?” Is it not said it hurts to tell the truth but in the end it brings comfort? Again, is it not said, “He who does not know, and knows not that he does not know, is a fool?”

Where has the American President gone wrong by telling Africans the truth as it should? Did we expect him to be a hypocrite who will be smiley on the face while being abusive behind your back? Why do we accuse him of racism by him being factual with us? For me, he is indirectly helping us by asking Africans to get their act together; to stand up tall to be counted by doing the right things that will make others recognise our usefulness on this planetary earth.

Even in the Ghanaian Akan language, there is a proverb that goes, “wabodwe rewae na somu na me nkote ahoma mekyekyere a wose se wo amma nntem a meregye mu”. In English it could mean, “If you are in difficulty and I am coming to your aid, you turn round to say if you don’t hurry up, then just leave it” Who cares and who suffers? Is it not the victim but not the helper? This is exactly the situation Africans and Donald Trump find themselves in at the moment.

Instead of Africans, especially their Presidents, seeing sense and learning from what Donald Trump has said regardless of how, when and where it was said, they are rather making a fuss about his allegation which is nothing, but the absolute truth.

Is it not said, “If you assume to be on top of the ladder whereas you are actually at the bottom, you cannot climb up any further but will rather have to climb down” Why do Africans try to deceive themselves by believing they are a force to reckon with whereas they are nobody but a bunch of disgraced people hence being ridiculed by our white contemporaries all of the time?

Let us face the facts. Are majority of Africans not living in penury and being constantly tormented by hunger and various diseases? In the midst of plenty, we are permanently poor owing to our disgusting behavioural attitudes. Are we not always looking up to the Whites to help us with everything starting from digging us manholes to the provision of potable water and other essentials of life?

While they have compassion on us for good or hidden mischievous reasons, we see our leaders stealing their countries’ money in millions to billions of US dollars and taking them to hide in their foreign bank accounts in the Whiteman’s countries. They steal the money at the expense of their citizens. The citizens also do nothing. They sit watching; cowards as they are, while these leaders they have entrusted their lives and welfare get away with blue murder. In so doing, African nations are deprived of the financial resources to develop the nations. The politicians, the traditional leaders and the public servants in leadership positions amass wealth illegally and to the detriment of the masses hence our countries becoming poor and dirty. This is an indisputable fact! I don’t care about the amount of defensive lies others will come up with or the insults they will hurl at me. A fact is a fact and the truth is only one.

Do we not factor donor’s contribution into our annual budget readings? When such projection fails, the budget is thrown into disarray. Does America, the United Kingdom, France or Germany prepare their annual budgets factoring in donor’s contribution as a component to achieving their goals or expectations for that particular year? The answer is a BIG NO! Why then Africans?

It is a fact that if you go to Accra today, in many areas, the people defecate in open spaces? I always question myself how the men could do that let alone, their women? Have we not been saying ourselves that Accra is being engulfed by stinking rubbish hence giving rise to outbreak of deadly diseases like cholera, typhoid fever and malaria?

I would rather Africans stopped burying their heads in the sand like the ostrich to see sense in what Donald Trump has said to begin to re-examine ourselves to see where we have gone wrong, and then start to do the right thing that will acquire us the recognition as useful people in the eyes of our fellow human beings in the other parts of the world.

The Late and Second World War British Prime Minster Winston Churchill said, “A Pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an Optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” How do Africans, especially our leaders, make use of this wise saying by Sir Winston Churchill? Can’t we for a minute be optimists to see a floodgate of opportunities opened before us by what Donald Trump has said rather than to keep on bitching and calling him racist and all sorts of names?

Africans must start to aggressively demand probity, accountability and transparency from their leaders or else, we shall forever remain shithole countries. I shall reserve my further comments for archiving in the folder of my memoir until God willing; it shall one day become a public knowledge.

To conclude, let me attempt to define the descriptions of African countries as stipulated above by referencing from some acclaimed sources.

1. A poor country is a weak and underdeveloped economy with a low per capita income (not appreciable Gross domestic product (GDP) based on purchasing-power-parity (PPP) per capita

1. Third World was first used in 1952, by a French demographer named Alfred Sauvy to describe how such poor countries are like the Third Estate of pre-revolutionary France, remarking “this ignored Third World, exploited, scorned like the Third Estate.” On the other hand, the term was supposedly first coined during the Cold War era and referred to the nations that were aligned with neither the U.S. nor the U.S.S.R. Most often, these were the developing nations of Africa, Asia and South America. (Alfred’s definition best suits Third World as implied by many)

1. Banana republic is disparagingly referred to any of the small countries in the tropics, especially in the Western Hemisphere, whose economies are largely dependent on fruit exports, tourism, and foreign investors.




2. Shithole means a disgusting place hence a shithole country is a country not worth living in because of its despicable state.

Why are Ghanaians and Africans in general seeking to risk their lives quitting their countries if their countries did not fall into all or any of the descriptions above? Look at how Black Africans are being maltreated and killed in Libya or in the Gulf States all in search of greener pastures because our countries are bad? Why are only Africans that take offence when immigration issues are raised in the Whiteman’s land?

Should we keep treating those telling us the truth as racists instead of learning a lesson from the bitter things they say to encourage us to develop, then God have mercy on us?

Africa in my estimation has never gone through any serious civil revolution that makes laws work and enforced hence our current derelict state; only to be left at the mercy of our shamelessly greedy and corrupt politicians. I am not talking about military junta and ethnic cleansing that go on in other African countries but real civil revolutions like that of the French in 1789 that liberated the commoners from the feudal lords and the autocratic monarchy. As said, every great nation on earth was built on the sweat and the blood of its citizens.

Africa is lacking something of which Donald Trump is helping us to find.

Lest I forget, the Japanese and the Chinese were once said to be teased by the Caucasians as short, yellow people with squinted eyes. However, ever since they excelled in technology with their economies booming, they are now kowtowed to by their former mockers. They exclude them when they talk about immigrants invading their countries. Therefore, it is not the colour of the African’s skin that makes him hated but his lack of intelligence to develop. Period!

Rockson Adofo