The New Decade-Will Africa Get it Right?

Shifting from 2019 to 2020 is not only about entering into a new year. Heading into 2020 also means heading into a completely new decade. Have you asked yourself what you will achieve in the upcoming decade? 10 years from 2020 where will you be? In this piece, we will be breaking our narrative into Social, Culture & Religion, Economics, Technology, and The New World Order.

Social:- Our world today looks more unpredictable than what our last five decades have been. I quite remember growing up in a little town called Ahenema Kokoben in the Asante Region of Ghana where we had a tight-knit extended family bond. Food was eaten together by all the siblings and cousins in one bowl at a big family compound house of about twenty. We went to the farm together, washed our clothes on Saturday together, we went hunting together and many more things. In fact those days in the early 90s, our family house had a ‘black and white TV and on Sunday there used to be a popular TV program called Akan Drama that every kid looked forward to. That meant your chores had to be done before 8 pm on Sunday. Sending a kid on an errand around 7:45 pm is like denying him or her food for a week. Kids will queue to enter our compound, with my senior siblings acting as gatekeepers -inspecting and granting entry only to those who have had their day’s bath, and all these for access to watch a black and white TV. It looks funny today but in those days, it was really a thing of pride to have that facility and we had different kids being our friends just for that.

Some of us were largely privileged as our family house had royalty; the Chief and the queen mother of the town were members of my family, and the entire town was built by our ancestors. In the Asante history, the Oyoko Clan readily knows my great grandmother Nana Ago. According to our history, she came from Adweso Kokofu, a town where the Oyoko clan was said to have come from, and the occupant of the Golden stool ancestry. As Asante kids, cultural heritage and family bonds are part of our roots.

Sadly, that social fiber is gone and dead.In today’s world, kids don’t even know that anymore and we have fast moved to a more monologue family system. There are no more cousins, no more eating together. We have shrunk our society with increasing desire to be better than others leaving little room for empathy towards another.

How will we see our world in the next decade which starts in 2020? Can we be more deliberate, intentional, conscious, empathetic and compassionate about our social lives and revisit the original African setting of Ubuntu and look for one another? I strongly believe not only will we build an Africa that we want, but we will show to the world the ever forgiving spirit of Africans.

History and all available facts have shown that Africans truly are a happy people with an open mind, always ready to let go of their pains. I am very optimistic and looking at the continent from East, West, Central, North and South, the disposition of the young people, the middle aged, the old and the newborns, it is clear that we hold the joy and cord of the world. A strong Social cohesion not only will create a more connected humanity, but it is a great tool to mitigate ever growing social vices created by Self indoctrination instead of ‘We’ or ‘Our’.

Culture and Religion:- For me, culture is the source of our living life. I define culture as the primary or the foundation of our being. I had a conversation with a colleague and used the analogy of a house. For example, a beautiful house can’t ever be without the foundation (culture). Take away the foundation and that house with all of its architectural beauty fast becomes nothing. When a society or a group or an individual thinks less of his or her culture, no matter what (s)he does, everything built on top remains empty.

Africa is and continues to be a continent full of history, heritage and culture. But the continent gradually became amnesiac and allowed others to write her story. Eventually she sold her primary strength- her culture for a loaf of bread. Today Africa is without identity, 8 out of 10 Africans don’t know their history or worse, shy away from their source of humanity. We no longer want to be called by our native names; we don’t want to showcase our food, our dress, language etc.

We have Europeanized Africa and made Africa more European than Europe. You meet an African and he speaks like he is the original owner of French or English language, with an excuse that she or he is more civilized than the fellow who speaks in the local language.

Let’s do some facts check. The Chinese have kept their identity and culture for over 5000 years and yes, it has a direct impact on development. Just see how the Chinese have used the power of culture to lift up their society. Culture comes with the original laws of nature. It makes one to behave with high moral standards and do good in the society. It helps to make one think of the greater good of all in all he or she does.

Countries with great culture have a positive outlook in terms of development. Look at nations with a very conservative culture: India, China, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Poland, Sweden, Norway etc. For Africa to maximize her full potential, we need to crave and be angry to do everything possible to own our original identity and do things our own way not what was sold to us by the Code of 1884 in Berlin with force, intrusion and invasion of Africa in a deliberate agenda to alter our DNA into a genetically modified culture species.

The development of the world has been spearheaded by different continents, first was Europe by using Africa, second America again through Africa, third Asia and Middle East. This Time is Africa and everybody knows this but sadly we won’t make the best of our time unless we intentionally decide to respect and honor our own identity and be who we really are.

We can’t keep living in someone’s image or cloth and still feel we are on our own. It’s either we do away completely with self-doubt and scarcity mentality sold to us by the intruders and build on a culture of abundance and plenty or the continent will still be occupied by others and we will remain aliens in our mother and father land. It must be noted that, nobody has ever loved Africa and nobody truly loves to see Africa take her rightful glory. It is our duty to build and make this continent culturally viable, a tool for development.

On religion:-It is a secondary or a supplementary one which we picked while on earth. None was born to his current religious beliefs, we are all in one or the other due to were born and or who our parents are.

But everyone was born into cultural identity (foundation). I will deliberately not do more commentary on this, but we all are smart to know the damage imported religion has done on our continent today.

If we all feel it is still relevant with all the facts and evidence available, then we are good to go with what we have practiced for the last 135 years. For example, someone who was born deep in China, Afghanistan, Japan, Nepal, or India and has no clue of Christianity, where do we think they will be after death? I leave this to public opinion, because it is not what I intend to achieve with this story from Afrincan pespective.

Economic:-Africa controls over 65% of the wealth of the world, it is also a headquarters of global poverty and destination for all grants and aids. It’s quite intriguing to observe this, yet we keep hearing and reading about how the likes of UN, IMF, World Bank etc. keep coming up with different narratives on how Africa should be.

Why should the one with the ownership be left with nothing, yet, those who have none of these controls it, how fair is this?

Yet we have remained docile for centuries for this economic injustice and inequalities to fester with scholars leading our continent.

How do we explain to our kids and those behind us, that once upon a time our great grandparents were in captivity, used as builders for Europe and America and yet several decades of political independence, we still are at the mercy of those who forcefully stole and invaded our land and took away our artifacts, gold, gem, diamond and wealth to build their own heaven and gave us imagined heaven to wait for it to come before we can have decent living?

We have lived and survived on brick and mortar for centuries. We are content with basic needs of life, food, clothing and shelter. Going into a new decade, we need to go beyond the basic into safety, up to self-actualization level. We can’t get there with only creating political millionaires, what we need is a strong business community, entrepreneurs who create, generate wealth and redistribute it. For us to keep practicing this democracy, it is in the interest of those who govern to have an abundance mindset to implement sober national policies that will create business leaders who in turn will create more unicorns owned by the locals, to remain comfortable in their offices.

We are all sitting on time bombs and it’s never been more urgent to act in the interest of the public due to the growing number of despondency among our most agile, active youth. This danger can be mitigated with a thought leadership across the continent in lifting hope and aspirations of the populace.

Our youths will not need to go to Europe through the desert desperately in search for a better alternative. Europe does not hold any hope for our young people. This calls for a different mindset shift at all levels of our society and we don’t have any excuse to keep failing our own people when we have all it takes to build a Singapore, Dubai or Malaysia in record time.

Technology:-The last five decades have seen a number of innovations that were brought about by different tech stacks. In the late 60s and early 70s came TV, the early 80s came the Internet, the early 90s came email and late 90s came mobile phone. The early 2000 came E-commerce, mid 2000s came Social Media and many important disruptions.

In the last 20 years, technology has changed a lot in our lives. We have seen many ‘millennial's’ toppling old legacy systems with tech. The top 10 companies in the world since the late 2000s have all been Tech companies, unlike in the late 80s and 90s where top 10 companies were physical firms (oil, automobile, and mining). Today 95% of the top 10 firms have almost no physical offices. 90% of the top ten tech firms are all based in Silicon Valley. They operate globally but benefit only their home country in terms of the wealth generated.

We are entering into a new decade with a new disruption that is highly talked about this past decade. The new decade will advance its full potential. For the first time in over 70 years we have a new financial order to challenge what we have today. The current order replaced the first world economy of cowries, coins and barter.

In the last two decades different technology such as PayPal, switching companies like Interswitch has played a key role by moving analogue finance (AF) to digital finance (DF). We had a more integrated global financial system with digital finance innovation. What we lacked was financial independence, openness, transparency and utmost trust.

Millions of hard working people under the pyramid lost everything due to recklessness of fractional monetary system resulting into more inflation, more printing of money and increasing national debts. Today and the next decades ahead of us, we will see digital finance moving into a more secure, trusted and independent decentralized finance (DF) powered by Blockchain.

We have seen a lot of movement by different groups and sovereign powers to finally accept the obvious consequences technology brings. However the first part of the technology which is crypto is likely to have a more tightening effect. There will be a new wave for national digital currency in the name of stablecoins powered by Blockchain technology which will be everywhere and will truly integrate the world of trade and commerce, and payment at lightning fast speeds.

There are also other tech stacks in the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) such as Big Data, IoT, Robotics, Machine Learning, electrics cars, flying taxis and urban drones etc. that are interesting to observe in the coming years.

In short, our world is yet to see the best and we may not even be here to see the best in our world today.

Africa is still relying on brick and mortar to do her analysis of growth projections. Fossil fuel, in the next 10–20 years, its usage, I’m sure will not be up to 20% of the world’s needs. The global conversation is about greenhouse, climate change and environmental safety and this will determine what the future of the world will look like.

If we have a place in this new future and are willing to own our destiny, since it is predicted that Africa will be the next hotline for massive growth, then we have to drastically overhaul our thinking process, behaviors and take responsibility.

Till today, no single Western and Chinese firms are truly committed to giving Africans a seat on the table despite the fact that most of the hard work is mostly done by blacks. We just have to accept the economic imbalances and consciously work out our own path to the top.

The New World Order:-World history has it that nations and powers of influence in the last two centuries have revolved within Europe, Russia and the Americas. The crave for who controls the next five decades ahead of us is not going to be fought with mighty armory, but it’s purely going to be a battle of technology and who controls intelligence.

This is seriously going to be dependent on who controls big data, IoT and AI. Obviously China has shown with recent celebration of her 70th Anniversary that she is ready to lead the pack. The Chinese economic prowess in recent times only gives a clear indication of readiness to win the pack. Others dominated the world in a similar approach but in a more analogue manner, nations like West Germany, Britain, Japan, and America.

At least Africa has always been a fertile ground for all the superpowers. It seems that there is no desire by her leadership to manage and control her own affairs. The acclaimed Dr. Kwame Nkrumah proverbial statement that “The Black Man is Capable of managing her own affairs” is turning out to be just a wish that is yet to make any realistic sense to the growing population of the continent with surging hopelessness.

In the early sixties when most African nations were going through political freedom from the unlwful encroachment of the Europeans, at the same time countries like Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea were also battling for theirs. And as a matter of fact Ghana, Nigeria, and Kenya had a bigger economy and wealth than all of them combined. But today these countries have built a first class society with per capita income of over $17,000 and have societies that every sane human would want to pitch camp in.

Sadly Africa, a land of milk and honey, is still struggling to get basic infrastructure such as Power, Health, Education,Quality Transport system (Road,Water,Train) and Portable Water for her people to fend for themselves. We have failed to take our own destiny into our hands and still behave like the over pampered kid whose parents left him with so much yet he keeps begging for daily bread.

The future looks bright but to have a voice on the global table, we need to look into ourselves and do things differently and with boldness, so as to intentionally and more deliberately win at least a continental sovereignty.

Africans must integrate free movement of humans and goods, security, common economic convergence, and a strong African Union.

In summary, this new decade needs a total shift of the way and manner Africa has been administered the last 135 years since the first invasion of Europe. The 1884 accord has to be fully buried and build in Africa on a strong culture of love, care, empathy, and compassion to create the #Wakanda of our time.