Let’s emulate the example of the Somali Diaspora

I was intrigued by a Facebook post sent by my nephew, who’s been away in Ireland for over a decade now! In it, there was a group of Batswana based in Ireland celebrating Botswana Day (September 30th) – and there was a whole lot of them!

Seeing them enjoying themselves in a party, memories came rushing into my mind. I remembered a trip I took to Kenya and The Gambia in 2016 as a delegate of the Civic Commission for Africa (CCfA) to participate in the first-ever Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) to be held on African soil!

It was the sixth edition of TICAD. I am eternally grateful to the president of CCfA, Maungo Mooki for that experience. She decided to tag me along in both my capacity as a reporter and then as a delegate of her pan African civil society mother-body, whose name was given by the former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair.

In Nairobi, Kenya during the civil society consultative meetings, I had an eye-opening conversation with one of the Cabinet Ministers that had come to officiate at the sessions. I was fascinated by the rate at which Nairobi is developing skyscrapers but then he told me something revolutionary!

The Minister told me that secretly his government was unhappy with these developments simply because they were the works of foreigners. So, I asked by foreigners did he mean the whites, the British that had colonised Kenya? No, not at all! By foreigners he meant Somalis! He told me that the Somali Diaspora owns much of the Nairobi real estate, they buy property whenever the opportunity presents itself.

And those Somalis who live outside Somalia, especially in Europe and the Americas, have grouped themselves into a society or company and have started a Fund into which they make monthly financial contributions.

It is from this Fund that the

Somali Diaspora buys prime property in Nairobi and other parts of Kenya, the Minister told me. We all know that Somalia is a wasteland, it has gone for a long time without a functional government. It only makes sense that its intellectuals, elite, rich and famous as well as its Diaspora would only look for foreign markets and opportunities outside their own country to invest their money. And so, Kenya provided the best place for the Somali Diaspora to invest their money. And now as we can all see, they are reaping the dividends!

This is the same message that has been harped by visionaries like the Pan Afrikanist Marcus Garvey. When he started the Black Star Line, a steamship corporation back in 1919 and the Negro World to propagate the Pan Afrikan message of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), the rallying cry was ‘Back to Afrika’ – Afrika for the Afrikans at home and abroad!

Those people were unapologetic, they were the real revolutionaries that Berhane Selassie spoke about when he said in Salisbury during the 1980 independence celebration after Prince Charles (now King Charles III) had brought down the Union Jack – ‘now we’ll see who are the real revolutionaries!

The UNIA preached Africa for the Africans, Europe for the Europeans, Asia for the Asians – one God, one destiny – and that destiny was Africa!

And this is the same message that fired the likes of Kwame Nkrumah when he learnt about Garvey during his study years in the United States of America. It is the same message that bequeathed us the Organisation of African Unity (today’s African Union) and by the Grace of God, it is the same message that will emancipate the people of Afrika into real economic liberation through the African Continental Free Trade Area (ACFTA). Indeed, none other than Arikana ChihomboriQuao the fierce diplomat and entrepreneur, has on many occasions spoken of the link between Africans at home and Africans abroad in the real work of Africa’s economic development. In fact, I was really impressed back in 1999 when I visited Zimbabwe for an environmental reporting conference and we were booked at Meikles Hotel in Harare on the same day that Michael Jackson checked out from the same hotel on his way to Mosi wa Thunya (Victoria Falls), where he pledged to build a tourist resort facility! I was really heart-broken when Michael Jackson died because that promise he made in Zimbabwe had not yet come to pass! I pray that his brothers and sisters could build on his legacy!

Anyway, back to our Batswana Diaspora not only in Ireland, but also in the UK, in the USA, in Europe and the Scandinavia as well as in Australia, New Zealand and other parts of the world – I say to them, you can easily emulate what the Somalis are doing in Kenya so that you reclaim this, your forefathers’ land that is currently the property and heritage of foreigners! If you the Tswana Diaspora don’t invest in your own country, at least invest in those countries where you have sought refuge, make us proud, stop gallivanting and showing off with white girls!

This message is also apt for the Batswana Nurses that have lately embarked on an exodus to the United Kingdom. Rather than boast of your days in the UK, save money, invest or send remittances to your families back home so that they can develop your plots in the village and farmlands as well as your cattle posts!

This is what we need to do to reclaim our land. We must do everything in our power to win back our land. It’s not nice to work in the Commerce Park, the International Finance Park or Game City only to be told that the land on which your offices sit belongs to the Vatican-based Roman Catholic Church.

Neither is it nice at all to see that the meat town of Lobatse has no breathing space and cannot extend anywhere because it is completely surrounded by farms, whose owners stay in Europe! It is the same sob story for the Gantsii farms and Tuli Block as well as Tati, the latter being an authority with powers akin to those of the Vatican! Real independence means when people own their land, and when they can exploit their land for economic benefit, anything else is Dependence! So, when you see Kgosikgolo Kgafela II fighting to reclaim Bakgatla land don’t be too quick to dismiss him, think about yourself and your progeny! When foreigners own vast tracts of land in your country yet you don’t have title to any piece of land, would you really consider a landlord in your own country?