Dear Colonial Master, my name is Ejimadu Onyedikachi please don’t expect me to add the other name you gave to me which you used as a tool for religious indoctrination also known as baptism. I am from the country you called Nigeria or should I say the country that was named by a woman whose life story is not better than that of my grandmother but because of skin colour and white supremacy over blacks, she was allowed to name a country where men and women of honour ever lived, a country where people from different regions with diverse cultures and ways of life were forced to live together and are still living together even when it has become obvious that there should not have been any such formation on the first instance.
Dear colonial master, do I have to remind you that this has been over 50 years since you said you have given us independence but yet we can still feel your strong hands and chains which bonds us so tight like slaves with no knowledge of what to do. Did I just say independence? Dear colonial master, how can you say you gave a people who have been in existence as separate entities and was forced together without any dew consultation independence? Can one give out what he does not have? Is it possible for a river to flow up the mountain? Dear colonial master, we watched as you invaded our lands with your dry gin, whisky and even mirror as a way to carry out your trade by barter just to get hold of our God-given mineral resources.
Dear colonial master, we welcomed you with open arms but we did not know that you had your guns and arsenals docked by our seashores waiting to crush us if we ever try to resist. Of course, we did resist and you killed us and sold us into slavery with no regards for humanity. Even when we tried to speak up the second time, you released your white preachers with the book which was written by you to tell us that we should not take vengeance that vengeance is of the lord. You even told us that your god is the only true God and made us live our ways of worship. We were dumbfounded when we found out that you took all our symbolic artefact which you told was the worship of idol to your country and told them into a money-making venture.
Dear colonial master, I have been meaning to ask you this question; did you truly come to help us grow or did you come for your gain? I don’t expect you to be sincere because you have been lying to us right from day 1. You brought your education to us not because you wanted to teach us how to solve our problems rather you brought it because you wanted us to answer your names and speak your language as a means of colonization. The education you gave to our children was different from the one you thought your children because your aim was just to get us to speak and write our names, the names you gave to us.
Dear colonial master, I am always troubled each time I hear you call us a developing country. It makes me wonder and ponder on the reason why you came to invade us or should I say colonize us. if you knew that after coming here and forcing us to stay together in this dark place that we would not attain the same greatness which you have attained why then did you come here? Each time I walk around the streets I see hunger dealing heavy and painful blow on our children whose great grandfather’s and mother’s you sold to slavery to go and work and toil in your farmlands, why did you not allow then to farm here or better still, why didn’t you teach them how to mechanize their farming system as a way to grow their economy?
Dear colonial master, I can go on and on with all the things in my heart I want to say to you but what will be the need for me to say all of them when you have closed your eyes to the evil happening here daily? You keep a blind eye when we are slaughtered in thousands by the same people you forced on us but when one of your own becomes sick, you go to the length of sending in a private doctor or even flying him out of the darkness you created. You told us that malaria is a very deadly virus that can kill if it enters the body and that you have developed countless drugs that can fight it off from the body but you did not tell us how you were able to get the insect that carries it out of your country. How sure am I that you did not transport them here, as a way to keep a ready market for the malaria drugs you produce?
Dear colonial master, I cannot say all that I have and wish to say to you but I know that you understand this language more than I do and I must implore you to not close your eyes to this article. One last thing my dear colonial master, is it possible for a snake to give birth to a snail or is it possible for a wealthy man to give birth to a poverty-stricken child? You are doing great in fact you are among the people that determine what happens in the world and yet the baby you have claimed to have given birth to is still dangerously crawling with no future hope of standing up talk more of walking or even running.
Dear colonial master, what truth are you not telling us? What is that thing you have decided not to share with us because you believe that if you do, we will end up just walking, we will run and even jump over every obstacle that may arise? Dear colonial master, I am still that young man you forced his mother and father into slavery because of your selfish interest. Please dear colonial master, do not allow my generation to suffer the same faith as our forefathers did because you will not be able to silence us again. Remember that we now have read.cash and other platforms where we air our views. So don’t mess with us, please.
Yours broken but not shattered
Child from Nigeria.
Ejimadu Onyedikachi
CAVEAT: This article was not written for caricature sake rather it was writing as a means to x-ray the mistakes of our colonial master
Do you think we are free from the hands of our colonial masters? If you think so then you really need to think again.
Why is Africa still considered as developing content? Answer that and get the answers you want.