It has become a cliché now days to talk about moving back to Africa, because “that is where the opportunities are.”
Some have already done it, some of us will eventually do it, most will never move back to Africa, because it is easier to sit in this part of the world and talk about how good, things are getting on the continent.
Among those who did it, half of them moved there because with their “connections” they enjoy fabulous life that they can only dream of in the west, so even though they moved there, they live as if they are still living in the West, going around complaining constantly about how inefficient things are, how the electricity doesn’t work all the time, as it does in Canada.
I call them ‘enemies within”.
We see them in Accra all the time and they are the same as the ones you will see in most African cities. It reminds me of this rich man I have come in contact with in Accra few years ago. The man moved there from Canada almost ten years ago but he is still very well aware of the cultural life of Montreal as if he was still living here. Meanwhile he has no idea of what is happening in his backyard. He kept his Montreal magazine subscription from ten years ago that he still gets from Canada, which keeps him up to date about Montreal night life. Last time I spoke to him, he was considering opening a bar that will be called “ADANAC”. You would have guessed easily that this is another attempt to show the world that he came from Canada. This big man, with all his money and government connections, enjoys fabulous life on the continent, but he is totally not interested in associating himself with anything happening there.
They are the enemies within.
They have cable TV and get their African news from CNN. Everyone he associates himself with, either lives in the West or has once lived in the west. Most of their conversations have something to do with what is happening in Montreal, Toronto or London. They call themselves Africans, we call them enemies. One of these days, you might run into an enemy,
Following are some of the signs to spot an enemy if you happen to find yourself in the streets of Lagos, Accra, Nairobi, Ouagadougou or Lome
• He hangs out almost exclusively in the best clubs in town, usually with his expats friends.
• He complains about mosquitoes all the time
• He has difficulties adjusting himself to the speed of people in Africa
• He constantly talks about how great things work outside of Africa
• He is a champion of voicing his complaints about pretty much everything including the electricity that never works in Africa
• He wears white T-shirt with sunglasses on constantly, because he has recently figured out that, the sun in Africa is very hot.
• He has many girlfriends, most of them 15 years younger than himself and he enjoys parading them around
• He gets very moody if he cannot have his coffee in the morning and goes around talking about how easy it is to find a Starbucks in Canada
• He most of the time drive an SUV that he has shipped from the West many years ago
• In certain cities, they live among themselves. Please avoid the following areas if you don’t want to run into enemies. In Accra, avoid the Labone and Tessano. In Ouagadougou, you will find them in Ouaga 2000. And in Lome, you will mostly find them in Lome 2 area.
• They get very fat after few years of living on the continent because they don’t see themselves exercising with the general population on the beach. They are too “chic” for that.