Why greatness eludes Africa

“Will we ever see in our lifetime the day of robust Africanity that can unleash Africa’s greatness? When will that day come?” – Nimi Wariboko, July 4, 2016

The foregoing quotation is taken from a seminal keynote address by Nimi Wariboko, distinguished Professor of Social Ethics at the University of Boston, United States to the sixth Toyin Falola International Conference held from Monday to Wednesday at the Redeemer’s University Ede. Characteristically, the event, an incisive intellectual parley brought together scholars from around the globe to ruminate on the theme, Africanity, defined by the organisers as “the essence of being an African and an awareness of mental decolonisation”.

The African enigma, typified by Nigeria, its most populous and perpetually promising country which never seems to make good its promise, is how a continent so wondrously endowed and which was once the pacesetter of human civilisation, today remains, short lived renaissances notwithstanding humanity’s backwater. Put differently: Why does Africa vegetate as the graveyard of dreams, with emerging democracies morphing into one man rule, and beckoning utopias signalling new dawns, quickly dissolve into dystopia? Wariboko in a bantering and imaginative recall of the language of the flamboyant politician, Dr. Kingsley Mbadiwe, suggests that “come can become came”, by drawing on the unrealised potential of the African past; “come can become to come”; connoting the passion of hope in the face of Africa’s growing mortification, “come can become becoming” through the miracle of emergence and new beginnings; and finally “when the come comes to become, the un-become must become” underlining the potency of human agency through the power of Africans to choose that which is edifying. In order to grasp the seemingly opaque language, we must recall Mbadiwe’s famous aphorism, that “when the come comes to become, the happen will happen.” Read more

Culled from Punch