FIGHTING THE AFRICAN LIONS & BEARS...The African Mafia (IX)
Scripture: “Your servant KILLED (FOUGHT) both the LION and the BEAR; and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be like one of them, for he has defied the armies of the living God!” 1Sam. 17:36, AMBV, Addition & Emphasis Mine
“Hide me (the African) from the secret counsel and conspiracy (MAFIA) of the ungodly (LEADERS), from the scheming (manipulation) of evildoers.” Psalm 64:2, AMBV, Additions and Emphasis Mine
Dearly beloved, it’s once again a privilege and honour to come to your various homes, offices, shops, schools and in fact, all the places that you may be reading or watching the video on this platform. And though I may be the one opining on this topic, I believe that our collective efforts on a topic like this would yield gargantuan results. So let’s explore further into “The African Mafia” saga to know how we as Africans can strategize to fight against this diabolical system.
To start with let me salute Prof. Patrick Loch Otieno Lumumba of Kenya for his incessant advocacy on some African leaders, which he believes leaves much to be desired. Recently I listened to him when he was interviewed by a TV station in Lagos, Nigeria and he didn’t mince words at all on how some of our African leaders are conducting the affairs of their respective countries. As I listened, I was touched by a profound statement he made when he was asked the question why he was attacking most African leaders. This statement was “The spirit in me tells me to speak against things that aren’t right on the African continent.” In fact, it is the same spirit that urges me to interrogate the leadership styles of most African leaders. Indeed, suffice it to say that this leadership style does not only exist in our geo-political circles. It’s actually an endemic problem that has even infiltrated into most of our spiritual leadership. Some religious leaders in Africa use the scriptures to blindfold the masses so that they could take advantage of them.
You know, most of our religious leaders know that the average African doesn’t read a lot than to commit themselves to research. As such, matters of faith is sometimes used to hypnotize the minds of their following so that they cease to use their minds together with their spirits to interrogate sermons that come from the pulpit. I wish that I would wake up one day to see an Africa that behaves like the people in Berea as mentioned in the Bible as being people who searched the scriptures for themselves to see whether what the Apostles were telling them were true (see Acts 17:10-11).
But you know, my focus in this write-up isn’t much about the spiritual leadership than our political and opinion leaders. So kindly indulge me as I borrow some information from Tom Burgis’ book ‘THE LOOTING MACHINE’ to make my case. As we interrogate these facts it would shock you to know that most of the way some of our leaders govern is an aberration of how global civil societies should be governed. Unfortunately, this distortion that comes as a result of their bad leadership styles isn’t pernicious to them but to the masses. The question is, should the leadership style of African leaders be amorphous or it should have a non-nebulous structure for intra-continental cohesion? To answer this let’s interrogate some of the bad leadership styles of some African leaders that is used to mafia her people.
For instance Angola is touted as one of the African states that has a lot of hydrocarbons (i.e. crude oil and gas). Indeed it is only second to Nigeria, which makes Angola to have 98% of her exports being oil and gas as of 2015. Yet Angola falls within the category of countries that have been labeled as “resource curse” nations. And as though this “resource curse” phenomenon is predicated on economic factors, little did we know that it is as a result of unbridled looting by her potentates in cahoots with foreign vociferous greedy wealth tycoons.
And so records hold that when Jose Eduardo dos Santos took reins of government after the civil war in 1979, he formed a cabal, “Futungo”, made up of his family members and close associates, who turned the state assets into their personal milk cows. In doing so her daughter, Isabel dos Santos, amassed wealth such that Forbes magazine named her as the first female African billionaire in 2013. Not only that, this cabal mismanaged the oil revenue of Angola such that when the International Monetary Fund (IMF) audited Angola’s national accounts in 2011, it concluded that a whooping $32 billion couldn’t be accounted for. Indeed, this unaccounted for money was said to be greater than the combined Gross Domestic Products (GDPs) of some forty-three African countries. Furthermore, because Jose dos Santo wanted to entrench himself in power, his budget in 2013 allocated 18% to defence and public order and a meagre 8% and 5% to education and health respectively. By contrast, the UK in that same year for example spent four times as much on education and health as against that on defence. Meanwhile, Angola’s population of over 20 million people have 50% of them living below the international poverty line of $1.25 a day. What more can I say about how ‘The African Mafia’ in Angola has ripped his nation off and continues to do that even today.
I’ll continue next week to look at what “The African Mafia” also did in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). But as you go through this sequel, remember that there’s only one name given to men by which men would be saved. That Man, Jesus, doesn’t mafia the people who accept Him as Lord and Saviour. So if you hear my voice or read this text, always remember that He cares about you to the extent that He has stretched forth His hands to welcome you home. Know that He’s the same yesterday, today and forevermore (Hebs. 13:8). May the grace of God that came on men of reformist heart come on you as we explore the strategies to use to fight “The African Mafia” so that the people on the African continent shall be totally free to live lives as God wants it to be. Shalom!