Roger Milla: The African of the Decade into the 21st Century -- Part 2

By Louis Egbe Mbua

Poor Julius Nyerere! He chose the Socialist path and instituted a kind of system of "Villagisation" which nobody understood or had heard of. Poetically, his country languished in poverty and want: although the Chinese managed to help him build the excellent Tanzaam Railway Line. However, he prospered politically and we all respected the Late Leader's intellect.

And Nkrumah? He did not actually take sides in the end. Having spent extravagantly for eight years, one morning the Governor of the Central Bank of Ghana asked for an audience with the great man. Nkrumah was quickly informed that his country was bankrupt. Needless to say that he at first refused to accept this grim news; and now it was time for the West to move for the kill. Western financial Institutions pulled the rug from under him. Being a fighter, he turned to the socialist Camp for financial help. It was while he was visiting China, begging, that he was overthrown in 1966. He died in Bucharest in 1972, surely a broken man.

Nkrumah's legacy to Africa is incalculable. The Cambridge Encyclopaedia eulogised that "he was a significant leader of both the movement against White Domination and of Pan African Feeling. He was the moving spirit behind the Charter of African States (1961)." This document gave rise to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in 1963. It is a mark of respect for Nkrumah that W.E.B. Dubois chose Ghana as the African country of his choice to return more than 400 years after slavery. I do not believe Dubois could have chosen any other African country were he could safely consider himself as a free African man.

Nkrumah's only flaw which most certainly disqualified him as African of the century was his practice of personality cult and his institution of a one-party state that eroded the democratic gains of the 1950s and1960s. Since Nkrumah was the living spirit in Africa at the time, whatever he did was quickly emulated everywhere in the Continent. His undemocratic and autocratic propensities gave rise to one-party States all over Africa: Ahidjo's Cameroon, Kenya, Tanzania, Guinea, Zambia etc. His personality cult obsession was re-incarnated in ruffians, butchers, cannibals, megalomaniacs and kleptomaniacs such as Idi Amin, Macias Nguema, Joseph-Desire Mobutu (of the Sese Seko), Afrifa, Acheampong, "Emperor" Jean-Bedel Bokassa, General Abacha, and Master Sergeant Doe. These were the mad men who nearly took Africa back to the Stone Age; causing untold suffering, death, poverty, ignorance, and want to millions of Africans.

The brain drain as a result of the actions of these men is so drastic that, the West Africa magazine stated that there are 24,000 (Twenty-four-Thousand) Igbo Medical Doctors in America alone. Where does that leave us in the twenty-first century? Bryan Appleyard of The Sunday Times in London effectively captured the global mood at the end of the twentieth century. In a prophetic headline article titled "The Party to end all Parties", he wrote: "The 20th century, the bloodiest in human history, has gone, not with a bang but with a whimper. With one last ironic master-stroke, the age of Mao and Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot, of My Lai and Auschwitz, bowed its head and said an amazingly peaceful good night. The global party passed almost without incident." After reading his extract, one wondered why he did not include some African tyrants and why he said "almost without incident” when it to the author that he was writing from a global perspective while excluding Africa. Why? How can that be? Surely, this is unfair, I mused. Then I quickly cast my mind on the Coup in Ivory Coast on Christmas Eve. So the twentieth century did not end in Africa with a "whimper” but Bang! Bang! You are dead! God help Africa!

The general impression, therefore, is there are no plausible reasons to choose any African politician as The African of the twentieth Century. One is so disappointed with their performance; and the catalogue of failures, and woes that it is inconceivable to vote them to the coveted title. One would have been inclined to vote for Nelson Mandela, but he did little to change black people's poverty in South Africa while President. Mohammad Ali? Well, it depends on whether he can be nominated as a full African. Cheikh Anta Diop? An intellectual giant; and a pure Pan-Africanist: but intellect alone cannot save us. Moreover, he did most of his archaeological research in Europe: which leaves us with one choice: Roger Milla! A true African with the humblest of spirits; and a dedicated professional who played for his country at the age of 42: becoming the oldest man to score in a World Cup Final. What Milla did to African Pride in Italia'90, is equivalent to all the work of all African politicians put together. Because of Milla, Africa became recognisable again in the world stage. Africa had been forgotten by the World. Nobody gave a thought about the people. We were seen as pariahs, beggars and weakling, a useless continent. Certain Westerners were even proposing re-colonisation. Milla's four goals changed all that. I was watching the Cameroon-Columbia match, together with some Cameroonians and an English friend in my small one-bed flat in Muswell Hill, North London. One can hardly forget the joy and pride that filled our hearts as Africans when Milla beat Rene Aguitato score the second and winning goal. Few people used to respect Africans. But since that incident, wherever, we go we are respected, being offered free drinks to this day. I recently met a Rwandan Doctor who also said the same thing happened to him in Romania.

There are things money cannot buy - self-worth. Cameroon's performance in that tournament caused the Independent in London to feature an African Nation in their headline for the first time for something good. Cameroonian Mr. Tah Ndifornyen of the Tandy fame, owner of the Victoria pub in London, was in the front page News dancing in his pub. When Roger Milla and his Lions marginally lost to England, the England Manager, Bobby Robson, said "We pulled it out of the fire", and that it was "the hand of God" that helped England. If all our African leaders do their jobs as effectively, humbly, patriotically and selflessly as Milla, then "the hand of God" will save us and our poverty will disappear for good. Roger Milla! The African of the 20th Century.