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Jammeh to Africa: Do not depend on
colonialists for development Courtesy: Gambia News 10 April, 2010  The
Gambian leader, Yahya Jammeh, has called on Africans and their leaders
to take the development of the continent more seriously, saying that
Africans must not rely on the former colonists for their development.Jammeh made the call here on his return from Dakar where he joined 21 other African leaders to celebrate Senegal's 50th Independence Anniversary. Recalling his comments 16 years ago, Jammeh said "When I was talking about Africans taking their destiny into their own hands and not to depend on the West that have for so long underdeveloped us, nobody listened to me. They couldn't see what I saw 16 years ago, but now everybody is saying yes we should now take our development very seriously. "They waited for 16 years to realize that we should make use of our resources, depend on ourselves and let the assistance of others be complementary to our own effort." "African leaders should look inwards and take their development seriously and get rid of the notion that the West would spearhead the continent's development." Africans, he stressed, must work together and liberate the continent from the bondage of poverty, humiliation, destitution and general underdevelopment. Citing Gambia as an example, Jammeh said it was unreasonable to depend on the British who were in the Gambia over 400 years ago and couldn't develop the African country at that time to do anything tangible 45 years after independence. "As I always say, if we count on Britain today to develop The Gambia and make it a modern state, then something is definitely wrong with us," stated the president. The Gambian leader observed that most African countries had "very little to show for their independence," despite the fact that they were endowed with massive resources. "In Africa, the ruling minority has continued to enjoy while neglecting the others. That is why most of us are backwards," he stated. President Jammeh also expressed his dissatisfaction with the achievements made by ECOWAS, attributing some of its failures to the lack of prioritisation of meaningful projects that would have an impact on the development of the sub-regional bloc. He alleged that even when prodded by a World Bank offer of US$ 400 million, Africa could not come up with enough tangible projects to attract the institution pump such an amount into the continent. Commenting on the African Union (AU), the president stated that the 53-member continental body could not even solve the problem of Sudan and Chad. He urged African countries to resolve the issue of Eritrea and Ethiopia, still in a state of war, before thinking of forming the United States of Africa. "Let us make sure that we bring peace to these two countries. Let us also make sure we put an end to the violence in Somalia. African leaders are not taking our development seriously. And we still, unfortunately, believe that the West would come back and develop it for us," the Gambian leader said. |
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