I don't hold much hope for Africa or Africans.
I am not just saying this because of the "Zimbabwe effect", where Robert Mugabe has brought the country to its knees, starving and disease-ridden, while its neighbours look on. Nor am I saying it because of the economic regression of the continent, its primitive superstition, where voodoo-like practices, including child sacrifices, continue to flourish, or the total inhumanity with which many Africans treat one another.
I despair of any hope for Africa because many Africans appear to have become corrupted right to the bone. From chronic corruption among African officials to the fraud rackets run by Africans abroad, of which Nigerians have become most notorious, the comprehensive rejection by Africans of honesty as a norm and dishonesty as an aberration appears to lie right at the heart of the continent's problems.
This isn't about race. I am not a racist and I believe that all humans are intrinsically equal and should treat one another as equals, irrespective of race, colour or faith. In fact, I am lamenting the current reality of Africa and Africans first and foremost as an African Arab. This is about a set of social and political circumstances, some a hangover from the colonialist past but most homegrown by Africans in Africa, that today link the typical African, from South Africa to Nigeria to Kenya and beyond, with fraud and corruption in the eyes of many non-African observers.
Coincidentally, while I was writing this post, a friend telephoned me to share a frustrating experience he's been having over the past couple of days. He's been trying to sell an unwanted item on the online auction site Ebay. Three times he received attractive bids for his item only to be told by Ebay to ignore them because they were scams. In two cases the fraudsters were Nigerian and in the third they were South African.
I rest my case, and I pray for Africa.
