It is no longer news that the socio-economic problems of the African countries continue to worsen. The economy of most of the countries in Africa which is my focus in this article is so bad that the impacts of it in the lives of the citizens are better imagined than described. What we experience daily are the vicious consequences of unemployment, inadequate health and educational facilities, urban squalor resulting from a population explosion at the seams and most frightening of all the rate at which crimes of different forms like vandalism, kidnapping, armed robbery and so on are increasing.
It is also no longer news that many Africans now have no option than to consider migration to Europe and Americas as the solution to their plight. In this regard, the United States of America, Britain, Canada, Italy and Germany are the hot favourites for the most of the African migrants. Most of these Africans are usually so desperate to leave their countries of origin that they fall easy prey to all sorts of passport and visa fraud and this results most of the times to unhealthy practices. Desperate people who are denied visas often end up smuggling themselves abroad at all costs.
Unfortunately there are no jobs in those countries as they are made to believe and it means majority of them end up doing all manner of menial jobs. Some of the people who don’t have any means of livelihood take to crimes as they must feed and clothe themselves. Young girls who have been enticed with assurance of a rosy future often end up in forced prostitution with all its unpleasant consequences.
It is important to educate our people that there is nowhere that is better than home and migrating to other countries will not produce any desired solution. Of course not! There is no country in the world that has not had its own peculiar problems. Going out of your country to another country in search of the so-called greener pasture is akin to jumping from frying pan to fire.
What then should we do? We must look inwards for a more realistic solution. First and foremost, we must develop the will to tackle our problems. Like a popular saying “Where there is a will, there is a way”, we should therefore be patriotic enough to support our governments. Our leaders too shouldn’t overlook problems facing their countries, but do their best to tackle all the problems bedeviling the countries in Africa. We must do everything humanly possible to build the country and leave it better than we met it for our future generations to be proud of.
The national orientation agency should continue to educate the people towards self-reliance and self-employment instead of looking up to the government for employment. To this end we must seek for a long term solution by addressing the population issue. It is obvious that Africa’s population is one of the roots of the problems and this should be addressed by every country in Africa. I recommend one man, one wife.
The relevant question is, if the average family size in America and Britain were to be as large as the average African family, would these countries still be as attractive to us as they are now? If we like European and American cultures, and want to practice them we should also like their monogamous system of marriage with few number of children per family. It is puzzling that we in Africa adopt some of the western lifestyles in all our everyday life, but fail in some other respects, especially with regard to the family size.
Aminat Adesope is one of our Staff writers
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