@Salem_Solomon Why do some educated Africans shut their brains off when they see some things that are clearly wrong? Three possible reasons.

The FIRST possible reason is loyalty, affiliation, patronage or consideration. Some educated Africans may be active supporters of a terrible regime because of the perks, privileges or patronage they receive or expect to receive. Such people will defend the regime to the hilt. Others may feel “connected” to the regime by tribe, religion, ideology or party affiliation. Such people will simply remain silent when things are clearly wrong in an attempt to cut the regime some slack, hoping that it might correct its mistakes.

The SECOND explanation is intellectual astigmatism. Many educated Africans of the 1960s and 1970s generation were fed and raised on the “externalist orthodoxy” – that everything that w3ent wrong in Africa was caused by hostile external forces – Western imperialism, neo-colonialism, the World Bank, IMF, unjust international economic systems, etc. These educated Africans can see with eagle-eyed clarity the injustices perpetrated against Africans by whites or Westerners but are hopelessly blind to the equally heinous injustices perpetrated against Africans by their own leaders. They only see wrong-doing when it wears a white or Western face (intellectual astigmatism).

Many of them in this category are teachers, lecturers and professors, who, in my view, hae done enormous damage to their students. They have written articles, books, etc. and built their careers peddling the externalist orthodoxy. So when something goes terribly wrong in Africa, their instinctive reaction is to look for a foreign conspiracy and refuse to hold the leader accountable or responsible. For example, if some African leader butchers some of his people it is NOT his fault; rather, it is the fault of the US or Britain for supplying him with the weapons or propping him up.

The THIRD reason is FEAR. May educated Africans keep quiet when hey things going wrong out of fear that they may lose their jobs, reprisals may be taken against them or their families. Though the situation has improved marginally in recent years, intellectual repression prevails in much of Africa. Say something an African government doesn’t like and “Poof!” you are either dead, in exile or in jail. Security agents trailed me in Ghana and Zimbabwe; raided my hotel room in Kenya, and tossed me into jail in Senegal. Even in he U.S., I was not safe – received threatening phone calls and my office at American University was fire-bombed in 1999. But one can fight back. The trick is to adopt another African country.

You may have noticed that what I write about Nigeria is very strident. Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka can’t write that; neither can Chinua Achebe. But I can because I am not a Nigerian. If Wole Soyinka tried to, they might kill him. In fact, the late Nigerian dictator, General Sani Abacha, tried to and Soyinka had to flee Nigeria in 1994.

The strategy for educated Africans who see clearly that something is going wrong but are afraid to say so is for them to ADOPT ANOTHER African country. For example, if you are an Ethiopian and criticize the foolish policies of dictator, Meles Zanawi, you would be branded a “terrorist.” But you can safely vent your spleen at the dictator in neighboring Eritrea, Isaiah Afwerki. Both crocodile liberators are doing the same thing.

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