Lord, Let’s Talk This Citizenship Palaver

Dear Father,

Huh, you know,  he other day  some friends and I were discussing this citizenship issue on our village oracle. You know the one that says only Blackman can be citizen of our village ehn?

Yes, my son.

Father honestly, I find it quite interesting-I mean the passion with which some of my brothers and sisters voiced out their views and opinions on this topic.

It is quite an interesting topic though, which often comes and goes. But what amazes me most during these debates is the justifications given by those in support of this “racist clause” on the pages of our village oracle.

One of my friends during the discussion, when I asked him why he is not in support of giving citizenship status to a non-negro in our village?

He said: “When we give them citizenship, they will take all the prime places from us. All the front views in the city, the best places and we will have nowhere to stay except for the slums and villages. in fact, we may even be strangers in our own country.”

Father, with a pretending innocent tune, I asked: “so who owns all the building on the front views of our streets?”

“The Lebanese merchants”, my friend replied.

What about the mineral resources-gold, diamond and iron ore mines, the hydro carbon industry, the oil blocks, the major rubber plantations, the fishing industry, the most active construction companies in town etc, etc?

“The foreigners,” he answered. “Do you mean the Whiteman?” I quizzed further.

“Yes, my friend said.

“Then there is no need to argue because the ones you refer to as foreigners that are unfit to be citizenships of this village are already in control of our village,” I said.

With this statement Father, my friend conceded that we were already fast becoming strangers in our own village.

But isn’t it quite interesting that many of my fellow villagers who put up this kind of argument every day have loss track about what is unfolding currently in our village. They seemed to forget that in as much as we are saying on the pages of our village oracle that non-negro decent cannot be citizen here, they are already controlling our economy and leasing the prime property in town for as long as 25 years and above.

Secondly, they are already owner of our mineral resources even though we gave them away very cheaply too.

So after all this what else do we have to say in justifying this “racist clause” on the pages of our village oracle?

And do you know that while we are refusing to dust this thing off our books, we are also engaged in serious debate to allow some of our brothers and sisters hold dual citizenship-one from the Whiteman’s village?

The thing is you do not want the people to be citizens in your village but you are craving after their own.

Father, if the reasons being given our people are economic, then they must as well try to rethink because even some of the people who are asking for it and you are refusing to give, got all their wealth from here.

But what do the people care anyway. Most of the people who are our leaders in this village feels it’s okay to work here and get their  families living in other places like Uncle Sam’s village as home.

So they think it’s okay and normal to get people milking your resources and getting it out of this place without investing in real term here.

Ooh, what a village to be a citizen of. A people whose dream it is to make life in another man’s country. A people who don’t believe in themselves.