Mr Follow Follow

An Essay on African Scholars

Jul 31, 2023

An Essay of African Scholarssub

"To control a people you must first control what they think about themselves and how they regard their history and culture. When your conqueror makes you ashamed of your culture and your history, he needs no prison walls and no chains to hold you" - Dr. John Henrik Clark

“An ignorant people is the blind tool of its own demise". - Hugo Chavez

“Some dey follow-follow, dem close dem eye (dem close eye, pin-pin-pin)

Some dey follow-follow, dem close dem mouth (dem close mouth, pam-pam-pam)

Some dey follow-follow, dem close dem ear (dem close ear, g'boing-boing-boing)

Some dey follow-follow, dem close dem sense (dem close sense, biri-biri)

“I say dem close sense

Say dem close sense

If you dey follow-follow

Make you open eye, open mouth, open sense

If you dey follow-follow

Make you open sense, open ear, open mouth

Na that time, na that time you no go fall

…

If you dey follow-follow dem book (na inside cupboard you go quench)

Cockroach dey, ee-rat dey, Ikan dey, darkness dey- ee

(Na inside cupboard you go quench).” - Fela, Mr. Follow Follow

I made myself a vow not to get involved with cyberwarfare and, so far, I have done my best to keep my vow. That was until three days ago when a friend asked me to comment on his post about African intellectuals.

My initial reply was brief but, as to be expected, sharp. I decided to expand on it because of the hullabaloo that it generated.

Here we are.

As a connoisseur of global news - geopolitical, scientific, cultural, philosophical, engineering, etc, distress does not even begin to define what I feel as I observe the situation in our African continent.

Questions like “Are we part of the human race, at all”, “Why are we not chalking up progress in any sphere of human activities, like the rest of humanity”, and “Will Africa get her Renaissance in my lifetime, if at all?”, keep my mind ablaze most of the time.

I think that it is time for us to denounce our so-called intellectuals as cowardly and lazy sellouts. After sixty years of our ostensible independence, it is right to ask what exactly has been the contribution of our well-degreed scholars to our national development, despite all the money and other resources that have been expended on them?

Thomas Sankara told us to look into our plates to see how neocolonial we are. Unfortunately, we remain as colonial as we ever were despite the appurtenances of ostensible independence.

Chinweizu begged us not to lose ourselves in abstract universalism. Sadly, that’s exactly what we have done!

We remain the only part of the human race which refuse to think that creating and living in one’s civilizational space is what sovereignty entails. We remain the only species of humanities that not only waste its resources in miseducating itself, but we are also the only one that consciously promotes OTHERS above SELF to the point where the more alienated from Africa an educated African is, the more glory and encomium is poured onto her!

Just watch the shameless spectacles of our universities' Graduations where batches of self-hating and African-loathing Graduands are degreed and passed out to go and inflict more neocolonial miseries upon our people!

Is there a reason why, after sixty years of independence African scholars do not find it both bizarre and shameful that our people still live under the institutions the colonialists imposed to make us obedient neocolonial subjects? Or which part of our governance system is indigenous to us, or even borrow from our traditions and culture? Or do African scholars forget that we self-governed ourselves for the thousands of years preceding the colonial interregnum?

Why do African scholars fail to learn from the examples of the Iranians and the Chinese who reached back and collect vital strength from their five-thousand years of Persian and Chinese history, to nurture and sustain themselves?

A rhetorical question: How many African scholars are conversant with Cheikh Anta Diop and his admonition: The history of Africa shall remain suspended until it is connected with Egypt?

Let’s take what we call the judiciary as an example, why do we in Ghana or Nigeria not consider it odd, even bizarre, to be judged by English laws?

Not only do our legal people pompously attire themselves like the Witches of Endor, they see nothing ironic in speaking foreign languages to our citizens in our courts.

Pray, what justice can be rendered in an intimidating environment like our courts where our poor folks are dragooned to be confronted by alien forms and symbols that could have been Martian?

The medical profession is not different. Those that we trained, at great expense, not only forget what their Chinese counterparts are doing to bring Chinese medicines to global attention but rather than work to improve upon them, they disdainfully dismiss African medicines as voodoo concoctions. Traditional medicines they sneeringly call it, as though all medicines are not traditional to their country of origin.

From infancy, we pay teachers to teach us how primitive our ways are; how our ancestors were stupid savages; how stupid our names are; how lousy our food; how unfit for purpose our languages are. Concomitantly, we promote and glorify our enslavers and colonizers - Arabic and European values became our yardsticks for civilization!

Of course, the result is the abysmal condition in which we find ourselves today - the scorn of the world.

I am engaged in small-scale farming, my heart bleeds whenever I see that even the simplest tool that I need is made in either India or China! Almost all the necessary inputs (seeds, fertilizer, etc) are foreign! What am I supposed to think or feel when I see a professor of Agric from one of the local universities parroting theoretical nonsense from obscure foreign literature?

Those engaged in teaching humanities are a shameless lot; they lack originality, and their absence of shame as they mimic their foreign counterparts is truly pathetic!

The question is beggared: How do these African intellectuals answer their foreign counterparts who want to know why their continent has so signally failed to raise the bar to, at least, provide food, shelter, water, and electricity for their people without foreign assistance?

The Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology was granted full university status in 1961. Here is the mission statement: KNUST exists to advance knowledge in science and technology by creating an environment for undertaking relevant research, quality teaching, entrepreneurship training, and community engagement to improve the quality of life. It says that its vision is to be among the top ten universities in Africa without telling us what that is supposed to mean.

Since its inception, KNUST has graduated thousands of engineers and technologists in various fields. But the question is never asked what exactly have these Engineers contributed to the nation’s technological development. What tools or implements have they forged or fashioned that are in use by the people of Ghana? No, I am not talking about esoteric or exotic stuff, just the basic tools that can take the toil from labor.

Our ancestors made the hoes and the cutlasses that we used today without attending any school, and without obtaining any diploma or degree.

No, I am not being unduly hard on our engineers or our universities, I am merely stating the fact that they have FAILED US WOEFULLY!

Since universities were set up to address and solve society’s problems, therefore the question needs to be asked: What is the purpose of spending a good chunk of our meager resources in running universities and other tertiary institutions that are not fit for purpose?

Universities were set up so that people can go there to get SPECIALISED training in solving the problems of societies - be it philosophical or technical. Many countries continue this tradition. An example is the Netherlands with its world-famous Technical University in Delft, and the University of Agriculture in Wageningen. These two world-class universities not only strive to be pioneers of innovations, but they have set up consultancy firms and agencies to generate for themselves and also for the tiny Royal NL Kingdom. BTW, Wageningen University has made it possible for the postage-stamp country to become the world’s NO 2 exporter of food and agric products.

What do we have in Africa except for pomp and ceremonies at Matriculations and more pomp and pageantries at Graduations? In the end, the only things we get are term papers and theses which no one bothers to read, which will get dusty and end up as wrapping materials for roasted corn or plantain or yam on our streets.

We waste our money, time, and energy to generate this waste, meanwhile, we do not ask for what purpose we train our children. Instead of creating unnecessary waste, why are our children not been be graded in Environmental Studies on how they beautify their schools and their communities instead of wasting their time writing useless papers? Another idea: Is there a reason why the universities at Legon, Winneba, and Cape Coast cannot come up with ideas on how to transform the Accra to Cape Coast road? These universities have both the Engineering (Technical and Civil) and also the Business Administration departments, can they not think of ways to work with the Ghana Army Corps of Engineers and work out how the road can be made more motorable, especially during the rainy season, and, in the process, earn themselves some income? The Professional Engineers Association can also chip in.

Maybe in our discussion on this subject, we should emphasize the need to change OUR MINDSETS.

We have lost our tradition of striving to earn honest pay from honest toil. We have abandoned all the traditional ethos and values and substituted in their places sanctimonious religious pretensions and supreme hypocrisy. We have run away from our roots as fast as our legs can carry us. In the process, we have become quite schizophrenic - neither authentically African nor passable Arab or Asian or European.

Of course, we will not own up to our failings - personal, national, or continental. We feel giddy with satisfaction as long as we can generate enough rhetoric to blame external forces.

Whom do we think that we fool by our crass hypocrisy and butter-will-not-melt-in-my-mouth useless rantings?

Without the boldness to say things as they are, nothing will work. We should own up to our failings and begin to address them.

Concluding, we can only say that the education system in Africa is a FRAUD. To those whose first instinct is to froth at the mouth and engage their mouth before their brains, here is a definition of what a scam is:

https://marketbusinessnews.com › financial-glossary › scam

What is a scam? Definition and examples - Market Business News

A scam is a dishonest or fraudulent scheme that attempts to take money or something of value from people. It is a confidence trick that dishonest groups, individuals, or companies perform. The person who carries out a scam is a scammer, trickster, or swindler.

There you have it. Go and argue with the dictionary if you cannot engage your brain sufficiently to know that when universities collect money, etc, from students and produce graduates that are not fit for purpose, they are engaged in fraudulent activities.

No, I don’t discount the fact that some brilliants scholars have produced outstanding students, my argument here is: If after sixty years of collecting money from the state and students, our universities have produced graduates who cannot help us to produce the food that we eat, the clothes and the shoes that we wear, and how to construct affordable houses for our people without foreign assistance, I say it is the time to scrap the whole scam and begin afresh.

To the minds that are inclined to say that It is the responsibility of national leaders to set the pace, I consider this a chicken-and-egg argument. I think that instead of saying that people deserve the type of leaders that they get, I think we can say that people get the type of leaders their educational (socialization) system can give them. We cannot expect to have purposeful leadership whilst our scholars continue to give certificates and diplomas to mediocre and imbeciles.

Let me end with these important quotations:

“O! had I the ability, and could I reach the nation’s ear, I would, today, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.” - Frederick Douglass

The national bourgeoisie discovers its historical mission as intermediary. As we have seen, its vocation is not to transform the nation but prosaically serve as a conveyor belt for capitalism, forced to camouflage itself behind the mask of neocolonialism. The national bourgeoisie, with no misgivings and with great pride, revels in the role of agent in its dealings with the Western bourgeoisie. This lucrative role, this function as small-time racketeer, this narrow-mindedness and lack of ambition are symptomatic of the incapacity of the national bourgeoisie to fulfill its historic role as bourgeoisie. The dynamic, pioneering aspect, the inventive, discoverer-of-new-worlds aspect common to every national bourgeoisie is here lamentably absent. At the core of the national bourgeoisie of the colonial countries, a hedonistic mentality prevails—because on a psychological level, it identifies with the Western bourgeoisie from which it has slurped every lesson. It mimics the Western bourgeoisie in its negative and decadent aspects without having accomplished the initial phases of exploration and invention that are the assets of this Western bourgeoisie whatever the circumstances. In its early days, the national bourgeoisie of the colonial countries identifies with the last stages of the Western bourgeoisie. Don’t believe it is taking shortcuts. In fact it starts at the end. It is already senile, having experienced neither the exuberance nor the brazen determination of youth and adolescence.” – Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth.

"What the African elites lack most is the courage to use their “own reason.” This, despite how modern they like to think of themselves, has actually kept them in an age of pre-modernity. The African governing class is in its great majority constituted by marionettes; and string-puppets, we know, cannot think for themselves. They dance to the rhythm of whoever pulls the strings. So do most African elites, dancing to perfection at the pull of the strings. Perfection is the operative word, for indeed, the marionette African elites are pathological perfectionists.

For Africa to develop, the black elites will have to learn to think by themselves. To the African elites, I say: Have the courage to use your own judgments." - M. Frindéthié, Black Leader, White Master.

July 31, 2023

My latest Book, From Stamp to Click (it’s still a hello) is published and is available online at:

https://www.africanbookscollective.com/books/from-stamp-to-click-its-still-hello

How to order it: https://www.africanbookscollective.com/how-to-order