Missiles flying high in the sky and exploding a little distance ahead of us. Twenty-two years and a month ago today, something seriously went wrong at the military barracks in one of my hometowns in Zambia. It was on the Africa Freedom Day holiday of 25th May 1988 when,as a seven-year old boy I ran unfathomable miles.
I remember vividly the commotion every direction I looked. People were confused and scampered as the thick pitch- black smoke advanced towards us. My whole family, except for our first born sister, were at home waiting in that moment for my parents to reach a decision on whether to follow the fleeing masses or to get into the house and just pray to meet the Lord there. Not until we felt the impact of one missile that landed close by did we all think of sweet life!
The smell of eminent war was too strong a stench to bear on that fateful Day.
Through all that and the blood shed by innocent lives and the gunshots I have heard and witnessed in riots, the Lord gave me a first-hand glimpse of the roots of a war situation and it's consequences.
Hatred, jealous, tribalism, racism, greed, insatiable hunger for power, xenophobia, mass inferiority complex (which leads to a group or class of people to think they are better than others), strong and wrong religious indoctrination and extremism, economic injustice, land ownership disputes, you name it, are all at the core of humanity's conflict.
We all know the outcome of such because we have, atleast, heard and seen through multi-media all or most of the evil and unprecedented suffering thrust upon civilians and their environment.
About a month ago while in Burkina Faso in West Africa, my friends and I randomly met two young men originally from Liberia who fled their country, during the last civil war, to Nigeria when Charles Taylor, their former president, inflicted untold pain and misery on incredible masses of his people. Refugees in search of anything green, they became friends with an Italian who promised them jobs if they could make it to Europe. So they set off on a clandestine voyage through the parched Sahara Desert and made it to Tripoli in Libya where they raised enough money to eventually cross the cold and dangerous Mediteranean Sea.
Had it not been for the EU Marine Police, the two would have either died on Sea or could have made it to the other side only to realise that life is not as easy for illegal immigrants.
Together with many others on pursuit of success and happiness, that seemingly can only be found in Europe (according to them), Daniel and Emmanuel's dreams were shuttered by getting sent to prison in Libya after which they were released in the desert and left there to die. Fortunately, they survived the harsh conditions and have since vowed to go back home to Liberia to start life afresh after living miserably in exile.
My friends and I assisted them with transport money to get them closer to home.
It is in situations like that when my heart is really broken for my motherland Africa. These injustices sweep through the whole continent. People are suffering and dying due to political leaders not doing what is supposed to be done and doing what is not to be done.
I have seen poverty from Cape Town to Cairo, from the Red Sea in Egypt to Tunis in Tunisia and accross to Casablanca in Morocco, and from Accra in Ghana to Aderbissinat in Niger. You can see on people's faces the expressions of hopelessness, apathy, desperation and on some of them the spell of death engraved on their foreheads. It's as if they are saying 'if only I can see tomorrow.' Africa is deeply in very short supply of servant leaders if there is any!
However, there is hope for Africa as God is raising up new leaders who see things that are not and ask why not. People who look at leadership as a tool to serve others, but not to plunder public resources. God is raising a generation of youth after His own heart. I am glad to be part of God's redemptive plan for Africa!