As the train pulls over at Kings Cross station, I lift my wrist to glance at the time on my watch; 7:45 a.m on the dot.
In 15 minutes I would be sitting at my desk at Morris and Greens Inc. on Whitechapel road where I worked as a systems auditor. Enough time to browse through the dailies on the street corner, pick a couple, and stroll to the Victorian building housing my office.
‘14 expatriates kidnapped at oil facility in the Niger Delta!’, screams one of the headlines.
‘Ex-minister denies allegation of embezzling public funds!’
‘Coup scare as dictator declares self president or life’!
‘20 feared dead in vandalized oil pipeline inferno’!
‘Always, Africa with the bad news, brother?’, a voice from behind echoes my thought.
I turn to stare at the elderly man with a rich bouquet of grey hair. His accent betrays his origin as a fellow countryman, certainly an African as me.
‘Makes you wish you were born in some place else, or not at all, not so?’
I shrug my shoulders, not really knowing what to say.
‘Young man, you know how long I have been in the U.K?’
I shake head slowly
‘Twenty years, and some! I planned to return home after my 6 years study, you know. Then I travel home to my fatherland and what do I see? Poor power supply, no good roads, poor transport system, no good hospital, no security, bad governance…nothing working back home! And you know what I say to myself?’ he asks.
I shake my head slowly again.
“Never! Never will I set foot back home again. Maybe my wife to visit their fatherland but for me I say ‘goodbye, my Africa.’’
I pick a couple of the tabloids, pay the vendor and salute my elderly countryman with a nod as I walk away towards my office.
Reflecting in the past 3 years of my stay in the UK after my post graduate studies I realise that subconsciously I have shared the same sense of disappointment with the continual failings my people to get things right. It just seems the black continent has agreed to remain …well, black!
I recollect my early days here. Even after preparing my mind from all the stories the ‘been toes’- those who had travelled to the developed countries- had filled my ears with, I was still numbed, yes, and embarrassed by the level of advancement I came to see.
‘Everything operates here like clock work.’, Dede, my fellow African roommate who had come to campus a year earlier confirmed to me after our first outing on the town.
‘The train runs on time, there is constant electricity and water flowing from the taps; the bus service is excellent, the roads are tarred…you name it! Everything works here unlike back at home. Then tell me why these people won’t be more developed than we are. Tell me why anybody will want to return back after having witnessed such civilization!”
I couldn’t agree any less with Dede after I visited home 12 months later, only to find that things were worse than when I left. There was barely any remarkable new development anywhere, rather all what I witnessed was plain retrogression in the little advancements earlier recorded some years back. It was a clear case of two steps forward and one step backwards.
I have been trying to convince myself of the notion that ‘north, south, east, west….home is the best’ but truthfully speaking, home for me may never come, not with the daily tales of unnecessary, mind-boggling drama that continues to unfold on my mother continent, Africa.
Like my elderly compatriot, I am having good reason to dream up a life without the inefficiencies of the Africa I know.
‘Goodbye, my Africa!’ Those words replay in my head. ‘Goodbye, my Africa…’
