Social commentator, Sydney Casely Hayford has condemned the “lazy attitude” of Africans and the unwillingness and or inability to independently think and generate strategies for themselves with which they can develop their respective countries.
According to him, Africans have refused to think for themselves and generate concepts that will help build their respective countries. They would choose the ideas and policies of the so called “developed countries” any day rather than strategise themselves and generate ideas that will help develop their countries, he maintained.
“Africa has a serious brain problem, we don’t have enough clear thinkers, we have thinkers but we don’t have clear thinkers”, he stated.
Many African countries, he argued, though endowed with rich resources with which they can transform the face of their countries and economies, refuse to do so but would rather rely on the thinking and ideas from the so called “White countries” to develop theirs.
Citing Ghana and Ivory Coast as examples, Mr. Casely Hayford stated that though these countries are endowed with rich cocoa, they have not explored the various ways through which the resource can be exploited to produce and or yield maximum yields.
“Why is it that today in Ghana, the second largest cocoa producer in the world, we can’t even make a decent bar of chocolate that is internationally accepted? Why is it that Ivory Coast, the leading producer of cocoa in the world, doesn’t have a branded cocoa chocolate bar to boast about?, Why is it that Ghana, with so much gold and diamonds, we do not have diamond and gold jewelry refineries?”, he quizzed.
For him, debates on the ability of the “black man” to independently manage his affairs are baseless until the “black man” is truly able to present the proof or evidence that he is able to of himself make significant strides in the world.
“This concept of the black man being capable of managing his own affairs, we’ve talked about it over and over again. If you say that the black man is truly capable, then explain to me why you are in the situation you are today”, he stated.
