African states must be cautious in separating themselves from one master, if it is still to fall into the hands of another. This is the intellectual stance portrayed very often, by a number of stakeholders on the global geopolitical sphere, when it comes to the choices made by the countries of our continent. An attitude that seemingly altruistic, impartialand solely intended to remind us of the elementary principles of precaution. Except that the tone used conceals a hidden agenda.
In this case, our lesson givers in their dominant position tends to deprive us of our maturity and our right to exclusive ownership of our resources. This is tantamount to putting into question the very notions of freedom,independence and sovereignty which must be recalled, were not given to us by anyone, but which we fought so hard to achieve.
However, this is not where the real danger lies. The real danger is the frantic psittacism which has taken hold of some of us, who are more eager to justify and propagate the point of view of our predators of yesterday, potential opponents of tomorrow, rather than defending our strategic choices on diversifying partnerships and getting a balancecontract clauses ,which in the past, was to our disadvantage.
It is not new and with enough hindsight, that is to say with little observation, we can see that the same tactic of denigrating self-deprecation had already been used, particularly during the fight against the coronavirus pandemic, the infamous COVID-19. The inadequacies of our health systems were heavily criticized and scientifically exposed, as it was said at the time that , on the one hand , it was due to the inadequate technical equipment in our hospitals and on the other hand,the incompetence of our health practitioners.
At the time, the cognitive bias was recovered and widely disseminated by some of our people, probably those in search of fame, to the delight of detractors clearly satisfied with the intellectual domination exercised on Africans. The rest of the story unfolded by knocking them down a peg or two.
Before COVID-19, our counter-terrorism capabilities were similarly doubted, until it was statistically proven that our results in this area arefar better in the absence of a deliberately provoked foreign presence,who do not hesitate to use deceit to maintain their position. The result being this sort of emasculating supervision hindering our emancipation and our development.
More than ever, therefore, we have the imperative need to trust our own forces, as long as our interests are at stake, without relying on hypothetical external benevolence. Behind those dazzling white teeth incharming smiles, hide sharp fangs that are just waiting for the slightest opportunity to grab us by the throat.
