The scramble from Africa

Let us take a rest from the various analyses on the elections. Therefore, our focus is on another element of the African tragedy. This tragedy relates to an inclement phenomenon in which thousands of young men and women head for Europe, via the Sahara Desert. If they ever make it through the desert, these hapless youths attempt a cross-over from say, Libya to Southern countries in Europe like Italy and Spain.

The latest of such touching and chilling ventures is in the news again. This time around, latest reports have it that around 400 African migrants died after their vessel capsized off the Libyan coast on Sunday.

This dismal occurrence is common place enough. Such, indeed, is the desire of man for greener pastures that he has never hesitated to vote with his feet and head for supposedly better climes. Our colleagues in migration studies attribute this untoward situation to what has been called the push and pull factors. As regards the former, i.e. the push factor,  what are mainly responsible are the terrible living conditions in the continent. A lot of this dismal situation is owed to malgovernance. African leaders, i.e. the new post-colonial masters have turned out to be predators and  kleptocrats.

In the process, resources that should have gone into making life better for the people are simply gobbled up by a parasitic elite who posture as politicians. In some instances, this gobbling-up is even given the respectable garb of Law.

Nigeria is a case in point.  How do we explain the stratospheric pensions which the various governors in both political parties have put in place? Details of these pension schemes for retiring governors and their deputies are out of this world. And at the risk of being contradicted, such pension schemes exist only in our own Nigeria. Even the British Raj, whose open mandate was to rob and plunder, did not put in place such a nefarious pension scheme.

In order to better appreciate the situation, we must put such schemes in context. They reflect nothing but the malgovernance which is the lot of many African countries. The upshot of this and other inhuman schemes is that our youths are left stranded. No jobs, no hope, no future, and hence the scramble for Europe begins. In a recent BBC documentary, there was a focus on this numbing issue. This time around, the migrants were lucky. They did not drown. Rather, they were rescued off the coast of Libya. Predictably, they were kept in squalid conditions.

The discerning young African viewer of the documentary is likely to say: but for the Grace of God, there goes I.

On the other hand, the pull factor can be attributed to the supposedly good life that is available in Europe. Owing partly to the organs of mass communication like BBC, CNN and the red of that tribe, Europe is portrayed in glossy and idyllic terms. Consequently, the young and impressionable mind is likely to be sucked in and head for Europe, since his future has been eaten up by irresponsible politicians in Africa. And migration is clearly just one answer to this scourge of malgovernnance in Africa. The other answers can be seen in the various shades of criminality which abound in the continent.

But even then, if and when the migrant manages to get to  Europe, he will find that the streets of Europe are not paved with gold. Rather, and to survive, the young African migrant has to live virtually in the shadows-one step ahead of the law. And to keep body and soul together, he has to make do with menial jobs. For those with a sense of history, this migratory pattern can be viewed as the return match. This is because, at an earlier time, there was the scramble for Africa, from the self-same Europe. But the power dynamics between the scramble for Africa and the scramble from Africa are clearly different. In the earlier scramble, the Caucasians came as overlords, colonialists and imperial masters.

This particular and contemporary scramble from Africa involves our youths seeing Europe as some form of haven. How times change. In any case, another sense of history reveals that, at a point in time, our youths were forcibly taken away from here, through the process of inter-related features like slave trade and slavery. This time around, the scramble from Africa can easily be regarded as voluntary slavery. Sad. Sadder still is the fact that this evolving reality has been on for quite some time.

And yet, officialdom in Africa has been noted more for its loud silence and indifference on this painful issue. Indeed, mum is the word from the continent. Our so-called leaders simply bury their heads in the sand like the proverbial ostrich. Unfortunately for them, the issues which have thrown up this peculiar migratory pattern will not go away. These issues will remain with us, as long as we have soulless leaders, whose respective visions in the continent are either dim or non-existent.

Kayode Soremekun