Africa's great escape

As you read this article, several Africans are in the high seas and the Sahara desert, trying to cross borders and pay their way to ‘prosperity’. We have spent decades with leaders pillaging the land, raping it, and abusing and starving it citizens. Now we shift our burden to regions that we know very well, are as tired as we are of cleaning up the mess. We can go on blaming the colonialist for doing the same to us, but that just gets annoying and exhausting, the problem is ours, we need to solve it.

It’s pretty clear that it’s not going to come form the current leadership we have, but from the citizens around. Just recently some Eritreans and Somalis seeking asylum in Italy, where shipped back before they docked. This caused uproar by the international community. The 227 individuals were sent back to Libya, where the last leg of their journey had originated.

According to UNHCR officials, the Italians have acted against International law, which stipulates that refugees shouldn’t be returned against their will, to a country where they face persecution. Mr. Ron Redmond the UNHCR spokesman says that Italy was obliged to adhere to this legislation.


Quite frankly, however much we are meant to be living in an all united world, where we all hug and kiss each other and wish each other the best, the truth is, if I was Italy’s interior minister I would do the same thing. These so called developed nations, have an obligation to their tax payers, they have their own problems, there’s only so much they can do to assist.


Poverty, devastation, war, corruption and indifference causes African migrants to criss-cross the continent, to get to Morocco where they board small fishing boats, and head to the Spanish Canary islands. They brave the consequences of the voyage; they risk drowning, suicide, toppling over in the chilly waters, starvation and even crude mannerisms by fellow migrants. There have been reports of individuals forcing women to breast feed other passengers, regardless of whether they are lactating or not.


Now, African Migrants have a new route through Libya. This is a shorter route, about 310km to an island called Lampedusa on the south most part of Italy. UN statistics show that out of the 67,000 migrants who arrive in Europe, almost half pass through the Italian Island. This has put a lot of strain on the Islands 6,000 inhabitants, the coast guards and other law enforcement agencies which are ill equipped to handle the magnitude of the migrants.

I am not taking sides here, but you need to see the long term problem in Illegal migration. The Africans, more often than not, on arrival are detained in deplorable areas.

In Lampedusa Island, for example, the holding facility, designed to hold 850 has suffered from the influx of African migrants having risen to 1800. It’s forced people to sleep out in the open under plastic sheeting.The hospice, where the injured are, is packed like matchsticks in a box. This only worsens their already fragile condition.


I look at Illegal immigration as a sign of pure negligence and the irresponsibility of African governments; leadership that is asleep, self serving and blatantly indifferent.


Please tell me what the purpose of the African Union is, when Yoweri Kaguta Museveni insults and bullies Kenya, when Somalia is run by warlords, when People in Western Sahara are being exploited by Morocco, when the Democratic Republic of Congo has the largest number of UN peace keepers in history and Uncle Bob is running Zimbabwe to obscurity?

Are we going to keep waiting for treaties to be drawn, as the so called political elite, decide on how to screw up their respective country’s next?



They want to create a political federation; ‘The United states of Africa’, with ‘Uncle Gadaffi’, already calling himself the continent’s president. We have elderly and mostly senile people ruling. What are you doing about it as an African?

If you are the African brother or sister reaching out to the United States, the European Union or even China or the Middle East, YOU ARE LOST! You are the solution to the problems plaguing you and yours. Take the first step.



We have a lot of youthful people crying out for employment and opportunities. I believe it’s time we created and pushed on our own. What are you doing in your local community? Whatever it is, are you making life better for your brother or sister on the continent? Africa’s Solution….Now wants to know it and share it with the rest of the continent. The change comes from within the borders of Africa not the other way around.

We need to build our own industries, exploit our minerals, process, package and export, use the minds we have and solve the problem and quit being a burden to others.