If the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war has taught us anything, it is that Black Africans need to take stock of how we view ourselves vis-a-vis how we see others.
As a people, we must understand that we set the standard for how others see us and treat us. And what standards have we set? Please permit me to take a few paragraphs to explain something that you may or may not have noticed because it is quite subliminal.
Sadly, we Black Africans are the easiest people to mind control using the media. A Black African’s home can be on fire. His children may be starving. His health may be failing. But he will gladly deprioritise his interests and prioritise others because of what he sees on television.
Let me give an example. Ethiopia and its Tigray region have been at war. One thousand times the number of people killed in Ukraine has been killed in that war (this is no hyperbole, as I will later reveal). How many Black Africans started ‘Pray for Ethiopia’? How many went into a frenzy? How many of us even noticed? What did Europe and America do to help? Do you know that the weapons being used by those beautiful African people in that war came from Europe? But now that Europeans are fighting each other, you have turned into a prayer warrior!
As long as we Black Africans cry more for others than our own selves, we will always be treated scornfully and with disdain. Why? Because Christ did not teach us to love others more than we move ourselves. He taught us to love our neighbour as we love ourselves!
When I drew the attention of Nigerians to this, many responded, saying they are concerned because there are Nigerians living in Ukraine.
I have been to Ethiopia fifteen times. Not just the capital. The interior villages. Many Nigerians are even unaware that Aliko Dangote has a cement factory in the Oromia region of Ethiopia. Nigerians work at that factory. It was briefly surrounded by rebel forces.
More Nigerians live in Ethiopia than in Ukraine. But since Ethiopians are Black, you won’t notice! Your focus and attention are for White people, not your own kind.
This is so typical of our people. If it is White, it is right. If it is Black, put it at the back. And tomorrow we will cry out that we want #BlackLivesMatter. How are we showing that Black lives matters by our actions?
And another annoying thing is that our people have been so brainwashed by CNN and other liberal media that they are now calling this conflict World War Three.
Say what? Look, we must not allow our opinions to be handed out to us by the mainstream liberal media. Let us quit calling what is happening between Russia and Ukraine World War 3. It is not WW3. It is a European war. Wake up from your slumber. Europe is NOT the world. Both Russia and Ukraine are not even in the top ten nations by GDP.
We must put things into proper perspective. Not into CNN perspective. Don’t elevate a regional conflict to a global one.
If you are in a country like Nigeria for instance, one bullet, one missile, one grenade will not even touch you. You can even start preparing for owambe party, because Nigeria will reap a fortune from rising oil prices. Just be entertained by the European quarrel.
More people are dying in Nigeria on a daily basis due to terrorism, than in this European war falsely called a World War. Malaria will kill more Africans this year than the world lost due to #COVID19. Infant and maternal mortality will kill more Africans this year than the entire population of a province in Russia or Ukraine. What has either Russia or Ukraine done to stop that, that you are carrying their own deaths on your head?
It is this habit that we have of caring for others more than we care for ourselves that has made us the downtrodden of the Earth. Terrorists will kill 200 Nigerians, Buhari will travel. Terrorists will kill one European, Buhari will release condolence message and declare solidarity with them. You travel to Europe, you wait in line until their immigration finishes with their own people. You return to your country and your own immigration handles Europeans before handling your nationals. And you think you are different or better than Buhari? Value yourself first!
And another annoying aspect of this our mass inferiority complex is the tendency of Black Africans to use Scriptural eschatology to explain why they are so concerned about the Russia-Ukraine war, and not Ethiopia-Tigray conflict.
When people use Scriptural prophecy to justify their focus on Russia-Ukraine, I laugh. Ethiopia is the first nation mentioned in Scripture-Genesis 2:13. Ethiopia is the subject of more Scriptural prophecy than almost any other nation on Earth, including the return of Ethiopian Jews to Israel. How come we Black Africans have not shown the same concern over the war in Ethiopia, that has killed more people than the crisis in Ukraine?
Our inferiority complex is so deep in Black Africa. Africans would prefer to do business with a White person than their fellow Black Africans. They meet a White person and smile. They meet a fellow Black African and frown. War in a fellow Black African country is ignored. But Black Africans will weep and wail and roll on the ground over war in Europe. Oh my people! Who had bewitched you?
5.5 million Black Africans in northern Ethiopia are living with acute food insecurity because of the conflict. An estimated 150,000 Ethiopians have been killed. Where is our Black African outrage? Or is it exclusively for Ukraine?
What Africans and their governments should do is use this war to their own advantage, not by crying more than the bereaved, but by using their voice and diplomacy to further their economic interests.
And then those African nations, like Nigeria and South Africa, who have the wherewithal, should focus their real diplomatic and military efforts to ending the Ethiopia-Tigray conflict.
Nigeria’s government, for instance, showed great delinquency over its reaction to the Russia-Ukraine war. We waited for South Africa and other smaller African nations to speak before speaking to condemn Russia’s aggression.
The Buhari administration’s initial silence over the Russian invasion of Ukraine was very unwise. Nigeria hardly imports or exports anything from Russia. Russia also hardly gives us loans or financial/material aid. Russia, itself, is in need of aid. To alienate those who give us aid and loans by being silent on this will cost Nigeria!
The invasion is wrong. It is an act of aggression. It is globally unpopular. By being silent, until other African nations spoke, the Buhari regime displayed its usual intellectual laziness. Speaking up would have given us leverage with Western nations. Leverage we can never get from Russia.
Some have said that the Buhari regime failed to speak up because they feared China would stop giving them loans.
This is the challenge of our people. We do not know, and we do not take steps to know, and instead of knowing, we prefer to force our ignorance on those who know.
First of all, China no longer gives Nigeria loans. This much was said by Nigeria’s minister of information in a press conference. Nigeria now spends more money servicing loans than she does on infrastructure and the Chinese consider us too risky.
Secondly, China and Russia are not friends. They even fought each other in 1969. There is mutual distrust between them. Russia feels that China is upstaging her in Africa and the Middle East. China feels that Russian expansion will threaten its Manchurian borders. What they have is a common enemy, which makes them comrades, not friends.
Thirdly, China has a similar issue with Taiwan ROC. Seeing the economic harm Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is causing the world does three things to China.
The first is that China’s economy is heavily dependent on exports. This war will affect the economies of those nations that export from China, meaning that it will cost them financially.
The second is that the invasion is globally unpopular, with even governments that had hitherto thawed to Russia, like Turkey, condemning it. Meaning that that is what China will suffer if it tries the same thing in Taiwan ROC.
Thirdly, the invasion weakens the Democrats and strengthens the Republicans. China is heavily in favour of a Democratic administration in America, while Russia favours the Republicans, and specifically, Trump. China has suspicions that this invasion will increase Trump’s popularity.
No one could be more happy that Buhari is leaving in 2023. The man is too intellectually inferior to be in charge of Nigeria’s affairs. He waited for South Africa and other smaller African nations to speak on the Russia-Ukraine war, then just followed their lead.
May we never have such a leader (if you can call him that) ever again!
Reno’s Nuggets
At $230 billion, Elon Musk is richer than the biggest oil company doing business in Nigeria. It should teach Nigeria that our true wealth isn’t under the ground. It’s between our people’s ears. Arm yourself with knowledge, then weaponise it to kill poverty like Elon. One barrel of crude oil is about the same price as one Bitcoin (before the Russian invasion of Ukraine). Think about that. Financial intelligence is the future. That is why 10 years ago, an oil firm called Exxon Mobil was the most valuable company on Earth. Today, Apple is the world’s most valuable corporation. Crude knowledge is greater than crude oil. Fear is the evil twin brother of ignorance. Knowledge is to fear what water is to fire. The more knowledge you get, the less you fear. Increase in knowledge if you want to live a life of power. Be hungrier for knowledge than you are for food and intercourse!
Credit: Reno Omokri