[Atabong]

To bring about Change in Africa is very simple: compulsory education; this is different from ‘free’ education.

Compulsory education puts the responsibility upon the leaders where they are not just expected, but obliged to put in place policies to ensure that what's been put into law really happens.
Many African leaders preach free education, bla bla bla, and go-ahead constructing unfurnished/unfinished ghost classrooms for the sole purpose of creating room to embezzle. Teachers are miserably paid and students have no incentives to go to School or carry out research.

Most government institutions are aging; administrators appointed on the basis of connection not merit. These people have no interest to modernize because this puts their positions at risk and so they stick to old corrupt practices, which benefits only them.So we see unequal distribution of resources, which further aggravate old sentiments and tribalism, leading to wars and bloodshed. Lack of a broad base and vibrant youth with audacity to achieve goals ensures that the old corrupt regimes remain where they have been (and will be) for decades. Corruption and nepotism are Africa’s biggest killers, not disease. All other problems we face are only a manifestation of these two.

It is also important to note that colonial educational policies were directed at producing ‘laborers’ for the colonizer’s needs (just like training a hunting dog); not for the purpose of making a person self supporting or producing civilized individuals who could further explore life’s abundant adventures, and not for assisting a person partake in the molding of his/her own destiny. Unfortunately, their successors follow these legacies strictly. African leaders of today fit the description of pigs in Animal Farm by British writer George Orwell.

Education is supposed to be what it is meant to be i.e. the act or process of imparting or acquiring knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for life in a civilized society.Educated/civilised people (irrespective of age, sex, Nationality, skin colour, religious or family background and the like ) make allowance for debate, tolerance and mutual respect and not easily resort to physical violence.

In the same token, the solution to all of Africa’s problems is to make education compulsory; reverse the coliniser’s trend and place an urgent priority on Formal Technical Education, which is the bedrock of every modern self sustaining society e.g. In 2007 Germany exported machinery, vehicles, chemicals, metals and manufactures, foodstuffs, textiles worth $1.361 trillion making it the world’s biggest exporting Country, that’s what we are talking about.

Sons and daughters of Africa are watching expectantly like orphans for that dare devil leader who will set the pace and unlike the so-called independence, a real wind of change will blow through Africa but this time around blowing rather from inside out.