Shaping the African Dream

By Okechukwu Okugo

There is no continent in this world opportunities don't abound. Be it Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Malawi, Burundi, Central African Republic, Niger etc.
Any where there are people living together, there must be needs to be met. Be it commercial needs or services.
No matter the weather or condition, people must eat, people must clothe themselves, build shelters, take care of their health and numerous other needs. Even in today's advanced world information technology and social media have become a need.
Needs are very important because they must be met and thereby creating opportunities.
But the appalling thing is that so many African youths today do not see opportunities that exist around them and that is why majority of them are ready to stake their lives to cross over the deadly Sahara desert and the Mediterranean Sea into Europe where they see as the land flowing with milk and honey and the land of actual opportunities.
Alas, many of them have perished on the wayside: dying under the intense scorching sun of the desert or drowning in their overloaded boats on the sea and becoming food for the sharks and other dangerous sea creatures waiting at the bottom of the ocean beds.
But had they stopped and looked around, they would have seen that a lot of Asians, Americans, Europeans are all around the African continent investing and harnessing opportunities. Thus the goldmine they African youths couldn't see on the African soil others are tapping.
And if opportunities aren't existing here for example the over one million estimated number of Chinese all around the cities, towns and villages of Africa wouldn't be there.
But one thing that caused them not to see these opportunities, even though they abound in different ways from country to country across the continent of Africa, is the lack of an African dream.
Many may have heard about the American dream which stipulates the ideal that every US citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative, embedded on national ethos and set of ideals.
And we know it has gone a long way to transform America.
This kind of dream is very important because it encourages each and every American to have a goal and seek to achieve it only through hard work and not by cutting corners.
And why this is so powerful is that anyone living and breathing, who has no goal, or set of goals set before the person is as good as living for nothing.
How can one achieve anything without setting a goal for himself or herself?
But the African dream I am talking about here is a kind of different.
Even though many people have nurtured and defined the idea of an African dream from different perspectives; many hoping that one day all of African set of dictators would be automatically replaced with great leaders; while others foreseeing the building of a stronger Africa through different means.
The African dream I am talking about is the ability of African youths identifying the numerous opportunities around them through self-development and hard work to utilize their skills, talents, and abilities to help themselves achieve success.
This is very important because many African governments do not take care of their citizens. The provision of social security for citizens in many African countries today is an Utopian dream not to talk of welfare packages.
But instead of sitting down and complaining or making a war, the wisest thing one can do is to help oneself achieve success by identifying the numerous opportunities that abound within the locale where one is living in Africa.
One who is not helped must help oneself.
Many Africans have already succeeded in helping themselves achieve success by identifying various opportunities that crop up around them utilizing their talents and abilities to achieve success through determination and hard work thereby fostering the African dream.
A dream of self-development. A dream of not setting their minds afar but identifying the opportunities within, a dream of identifying those things that bring expatriates unto the soils of Africa and asking themselves why can't they do something to harness this goldmine others come looking for in Africa? A dream of having a burning desire to contribute something to the society instead of only sitting back and complaining of bad situations, a dream of self-help through self-development, a dream of having a defined goal set for oneself as an African youth and not merely existing without thinking of any positive something to commit oneself to.
Imagine a country of 150 million people and each youth has a meaningful and positive thing to contribute to the society, imagine how strong that nation would be and then think about what it would do for the continent as a whole.
And that is how powerful shaping this African dream would be.