Speeches

Whither Africa? Challenges And A New Vision

Oct 8, 2009 - I am truly appreciative for the opportunity of such a platform to address a pre-eminent gathering of lawyers, men and women from all over the world, who by their special skill and training continue to determine and shape the course of human destiny by rules and regulations, that define and preserve the extent of our interactions and inter-relationship with ourselves.

My subject “Whither Africa? Challenges and a New Vision” is indeed well thought out and I dare say quite challenging; but so is the forum. A gathering of lawyers to discuss Africa at a time of globalisation, a changing world, an environmentally heightened planet is probably the best that an African can ask for.

This is the time and age of the information technology revolution; probably the most profound yet of all human experience after the industrial revolution and World War II. It is a time that calls for a new international legal order in how so many things will be done.

What will be the new rules of international finance? What new legal order will regulate the relationship between sub-nationals at a time when there is no longer any debate about the need for a bottom up and hands-on approach to combating the World’s problems of poverty, disease and hunger for over two thirds of the World’s population? How will Africa respond this time around and what role does she have to play.

This is the time and forum to discuss Africa; because Africans have been seen by so much of the world as a hungry people who need charity, who are ravaged by internal strife, genocide and nature’s cruelty that manifest itself through drought and famine. A continent in chains.

But really and truly, this is not Africa.

This picture of Africa, painted by those who have taken advantage of her, overlooks her role as the continent that literally provides and supports the needs of almost the entire human race from its rich agricultural basket to its energy contributions from oil and gas, and its vast extensive extractive resources especially in gold, copper and tin that have been so critical to the success of the industrial revolution in the west and delivery of this information technology age.

This picture of Africa overlooks the fact that Africa’s human capital exploited by the most devastating human experience of cruelty and inhumanity, the trans-atlantic slave trade, built the resources, the infrastructure and economies of the World’s most powerful states.

The current global perception of Africa overlooks the fact that it was the resilience of Africans to brutal and debasing practices that helped shape and deliver justice for most oppressed peoples and minorities across the globe.

This picture of Africa is the picture preferred by those who benefit most from her, those she trusted, those who introduced her to their own concept of civilization and who took advantage of her. They raped her like a young woman, took her human and material resources, yet she remains beaten but unbowed.

The African story for me continues to remain an unfolding story. A story of pride rather than shame, for the human race.

Whereas so many races have suffered all forms of deprivations, but I stand to be corrected that only the African race has endured and survived captivity and from there risen to leadership. These have been the challenges of Africa.

It is a story still unfolding that shows the limitless capacity of this race, a story that requires those who disparaged her to stand back and away and take another look.

As the world economic, environmental and political leadership enters a new age of transformation, I venture to predict that so much of our planet’s future and its survival will depend on Africa’s blessings; her sun for renewable energy, her rain forests for medicine and protection of the eco-system, her natural extractive resources of oil, gas and solid minerals, but most importantly, on her people.

She must be approached with courtesy and respect and as a partner.

This will only happen with the development of a new inter-national legal order, which enables her people to be protected from leadership that abuses their trust, that enables them to be free from being victims of conflicts fuelled by small arms proliferation that propel western economies. A new legal order that reverses the current trend, where a gun is cheaper than a home.

A new legal order that will ensure that genocide and ethnic cleansing never takes place again in Africa or indeed any part of our planet without the ability of the human race to quickly and effectively avert it, while decisively sanctioning those who propagate it.

A legal order that allows the international community to act in the name of our common humanity, to lift the corporate veil of sovereignty and non-interference that currently exists in the United Nations in order to ensure and enthrone the truism of the jurisprudence that law was made by man for man, and not the man for the law.

A new legal order that gives meaning to peacekeeping.

This is the legal order that will unleash Africa’s potentials, that will prosper and empower her people, that will drive her agriculture and develop her vast resources for the natural benefit of the human race.

Any threat to the African race and continent is a huge threat to the human race and its survival chance.

Her history of endurance is her strength. Her history of abuse and rape is a store of vast experience. Wither Africa?

Although she has been abused and lost her innocence; she remains brutalized yet a desired maiden. Attractive to many suitors, ready only to enter upon an enduring partnership with those who will love, respect and cherish her.

This is Africa’s story of survival, the global model of human capabilities for endurance and triumph. This is the continent whose people and resources delivered the industrial revolution, she remains once again with her people, a huge market for global economic recovery, and her resources a most critical asset for delivery and sustenance of the information technology revolution.

Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN
Governor of Lagos State