If you want to understand the story of Africa and how it will continue to serve Europe and America, the ongoing world cup will give you a clue.

Even if you are not a football fan, you can easily count more than 17 African-born players who represented/representing non-African nations in the ongoing 2022 world cup.

Cameronian-born Youssoufa Moukoko played for Germany, and Breel Embolo is playing for Switzerland.

Guinea-Bissau-born Ansu Fati is playing for Spain, while Danilo Pereira is playing for Portugal. William Carvalho of Angola is also playing for Portugal.

The already knocked-out Australia team had Keanu Baccus from South Africa, Garang Kuol from Egypt, Thomas Deng and Awer Mabil who are both born South Sudanese refugees in Kenya.

Canada team had Ismail Kone from Cote d’Ivoire and Alphonso Davies from Ghana.

France’s team has Steve Mandanda of DRC and Eduardo Camavinga whose parents are Congolese. For France, let’s just stay with that two because if we go deeper, you may discover that more than half of France’s players have connections/roots in Africa.

Or should I talk about the England team? Who scored the last goal in England’s match against Senegal? Is he not our own Bukayo, a Yoruba man whose parents are Nigerians even though he was not born in Nigeria?

I can’t exhaust the list and I don’t want to bore you with names. Let me go straight to the point of this post.

The point here is that it is easier to see someone who has an African root playing for the national team of countries in the western world and adopting the same country as his than you will see western players playing for and adopting any country in Africa as his.

All the African countries that came for the world cup, can you mention the name of one player whose parents are Americans or from Britain or France?

The simple reason for all this is that our house is not in order. I do not blame anyone of those Africans playing for Western countries and adopting those countries as theirs. If I am also given the opportunity, I will do the same.

Is it not in this same Africa that robbers broke into my house, and after robbing, they forgot two cutlasses in my room? I was even thanking God that they left evidence. I made sure I did not touch the cutlasses with my bare hands. I carefully handed the cutlasses to the police hoping they will do a fingerprint on it and catch the person, I did not know I was whining myself. As I reach the station, na police people collect the cutlasses with their bare hands, almost romancing dem as if them want use am cut a birthday cake.

Peter Obi during the recent presidential debate, while answering the question on health and whether he will use foreign hospitals, did he not admit that in some cases, patients might be given a referral from doctors? The big question is, why can’t US or UK refer patients to us as well? When are we going to get to that stage?

So, just like football, a lot of our great brains are serving in foreign hospitals as doctors or nurses. A lot are into engineering. Some have even been given some political positions in those countries due to their capabilities. But here in Africa, we are still using tribe or religion to vote, and in our social media, we are still debating about the economic importance of balablue and bulaba.

If I talk now, they will say Fr Kelvin talks too much. . .Is it not about 6 days ago that the Spanish Coast guard rescued three stowaways found sitting on the rudder of a ship after an 11-day journey from Nigeria? Will Spanish people take such a risk just to come to Nigeria or any African country?

Let us make Africa better. . . We can’t continue to run away from our homeland. Vote wisely during elections and seek accountability from those you elected.