(A dispatch from the Republic of Uncommon Sense)
When the Ancestors Blink
In the quiet corridors of the afterlife, Julius Nyerere was sipping ethereal tea when the evening news from Earth floated through the clouds. “Hundreds die after elections in Tanzania!” the headlines screamed. The old teacher dropped his cup. “But that’s my country!”
Around him, Ahmadou Ahidjo raised an eyebrow from Cameroon’s corner, Houphouët-Boigny frowned from his Ivorian veranda in heaven, and Sam Nujoma from Namibia polished his celestial medal. “Again?” they murmured.
It was a tragic symphony: Tanzania burning, Cameroon boiling, Côte d’Ivoire cracking, Sudan sinking—and somewhere between them, democracy tuning her harp while the drummer of violence refused to stop. The ancestors looked down, and for the first time, even ghosts wept.
The Return of the Founding Fathers
If one were to stand by the gates of African history, one would see our founding fathers shaking their heads like disappointed headmasters.
Nyerere still wore his threadbare ujamaa cloak, muttering, “This isn’t the unity I meant!”
Ahidjo, looking toward Yaoundé, sighed, “How long can a man be president and still not finish the syllabus?”
Biya’s name echoed from the living world, confusing even the spirits. “Wait,” asked Houphouët-Boigny, “is Paul Biya dead or just governing from eternity?”
“Neither,” whispered Nujoma. “He’s simply on African Time.”
From their celestial perch, they observed today’s leaders—many of them their ideological grandchildren—turning ballots into bayonets. A ghostly voice commented, “In our day, we fought to end colonial rule; in theirs, they fight to rule the colonies they have created.”
Elections and Explosions – Democracy, African Edition
Once upon a ballot, democracy was the belle of the continental ball. Today she arrives late, bruised, and escorted by tear gas.
In Tanzania, citizens queued under the morning sun to choose a future. By evening, soldiers chose for them. The opposition cried foul, the government cried fake news, and the people cried—period.
Cameroon, meanwhile, continues its duet of guns and governance, with voices of dissent drowned in the rhythm of artillery. Côte d’Ivoire’s politicians have turned succession into a relay race where every runner refuses to hand over the baton. And Sudan—poor ancient Sudan—once the land of the Nile, now seems to be drowning in it.
Every election season across Africa feels like a festival of hope married to a funeral of trust. Voters hold their breath not to cast ballots, but to avoid inhaling tear gas. Our constitutions are so amended they now resemble WhatsApp chats—edited, forwarded, and sometimes deleted.
We shout “democracy!” but govern with demo-crazy.
The Ballot Box and the Blackout
Nothing defines modern African politics better than the paradox of progress: fiber-optic cables above ground, but truths buried underneath.
In 2025’s Tanzania, as protests erupted, the internet mysteriously “took annual leave.” Mobile money froze, journalists vanished into the fog of “national security,” and social media became social silence.
One witty protester wrote on a cardboard: “We wanted freedom of expression, they gave us freedom from connection.”
It’s hard to run a cashless economy when even the truth has no signal.
When Wi-Fi Met Ujamaa
Once, Nyerere dreamt of ujamaa—familyhood, collective responsibility, and moral purpose. But in the Republics of today, the family meeting has turned into a shareholders’ conference of cronies.
Youthful activists tweet revolutions by day and dodge curfews by night. The digital generation is demanding Wi-Fi instead of war cries. Their battlefield is the comment section; their ammunition, memes. But regimes respond the old-fashioned way—with boots, batons, and blackouts.
“Democracy,” one young Tanzanian told the BBC, “is when we can argue with our president without disappearing.”
A Continent in Transit
Every nation is a moving bus. Some countries have drivers who learned in traffic school; others have drivers who inherited the steering wheel from their fathers.
In the 1960s, the road to freedom was steep but clear. Independence heroes carried rifles and manifestos. Today’s generation carries hashtags and frustration. Then, we fought for flags; now, we fight for functioning routers.
Our grandfathers broke chains of colonialism; our grandchildren must break the addiction to strongmen. Freedom came on foot, but democracy keeps arriving late by trotro.
The Cost of Forgetting
The trouble with Africa’s memory is that it suffers from selective amnesia. We remember who colonized us, but not who monopolized us after independence. We celebrate Independence Day with parades, not progress.
We polish the statues of dead heroes while ignoring the dreams they died for. We call our roads after Nkrumah, Nyerere, and Mandela, but we drive those roads straight into potholes of corruption.
As one Ghanaian wag put it: “We have the best manifestos money can buy and the worst accountability it can’t.”
The Healing We Refuse
Some call it political instability; others call it an identity crisis. I call it a national fever untreated since 1960. The medicine is simple but bitter: education, healing, and inspiration.
Education—not just literacy, but civic wisdom. The kind that teaches citizens that the ballot box is not a begging bowl.
Healing—not just hospitals, but history lessons. The courage to confront our wounds instead of painting them national colors.
And inspiration—the oxygen of leadership. Because a nation without inspired youth is a graveyard with Wi-Fi.
Times change, Times have Changed, and Change will continue with the appropriate generation. But if the mind remains in the past, even the calendar can’t save us.
New Faces in Old Mirrors
Not every story is despair. Namibia and Botswana—Nujoma and Seretse Khama’s children—still dance to a quieter rhythm. Not perfect, but hopeful. Leadership rotates without gunfire; economies grow without curfews.
It proves Africa’s illness is not hereditary. Some families simply follow the prescription.
Botswana’s citizens debate policy on radio, not in refugee camps. Namibia’s parliament occasionally argues, not explodes. The rest of us might borrow their recipe: fewer entourages, more ethics; fewer slogans, more substance.
The Mirror Room – Where Tomorrow Waits
So here we stand, the latest generation of Africans, selfie-sticks in hand, standing between the ghosts of our founders and the ghosts we are about to become.
In the Republic of Uncommon Sense, we hold weekly prayers for common sense to resurrect across the continent. Our anthem begins with, “Arise, O Compatriots, but kindly check your conscience before rising.”
We don’t need another coup or constitution. We need a classroom, a clinic, and a conscience.
If Nyerere, Ahidjo, Houphouët-Boigny, and Nujoma could speak today, they might say: “We gave you flags, not fangs. We handed you freedom, not frenzy. The real struggle now is to free the mind from its own chains.”
And if the youth listen closely, they will hear the rhythm of change calling—not from gunfire, but from the pages of books, the hum of innovation, and the laughter of informed citizens.
Because the true revolution is not televised—it is educated, healed, and inspired.
Satirical Sign-off
In this great African play, everyone wants to play President; nobody wants to rehearse for citizenship. But until we fix that, we shall keep voting for breakfast and waking up to bullets for dinner.
The Republic of Uncommon Sense salutes all nations still trying to prove that the ballot can beat the bayonet—without Wi-Fi buffering halfway through.
Jimmy Aglah is a media executive, author and satirist behind The Republic of Uncommon Sense and Once Upon a Time in Ghana.
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DISCLAIMER: The Views, Comments, Opinions, Contributions and Statements made by Readers and Contributors on this platform do not necessarily represent the views or policy of Multimedia Group Limited.
Source: myjoyonline.com
