Tag: African development

Meeting the President of Botswana

I am earnestly committed to the Cause of African Nation-building. So I focus my energy on what affects the lives of the African people, and prioritize relationships with people who are earnestly committed to this goal, or who enhance my life in varied ways which enables me to better pursue this goal. 

In this process, life naturally orchestrates connections with people at all levels—even the highest professionally—who also share this goal in their own unique way. 

One such encounter recently occurred on Friday, March 7, 2025 at the Embassy of Botswana in Washington DC. There, I had the pleasure of meeting and interacting with two other nation-builders and rising political stars in Africa: the newly elected President Duma Boko of Botswana, and Bogolo Kenewendo, Minister of Minerals and Energy of Botswana. Of course, all discourses had one theme: African nation-building. After meeting them, my confidence in Botswana’s bright future is reinforced. 

President Duma Boko and Dr. Ikenna Ezealah
Minister Bogolo Kenewendo and Dr. Ikenna Ezealah

Photos are great, but I should emphasize that my aim is beyond photo-ops. It is focused on a broader coalition-building of people who are committed to forming strategies and taking energetic actions that will physically manifest in the continent to directly improve the lives of the African people. 

I hope to unite with such people who are focused on building a brighter African present and future. 

~Dr. Ikenna Ezealah

“Builder of the African Future”

…Dr. Juris-Diplomat

For Africa To Develop, Is Democracy The Right Form Of Government?

Summary: I ask the fundamental question: “For Africa to Develop, Is Democracy the Right Form of Government?” I address it by reexamining the basic principle of the US system, the colonial systems, and some developed countries today. A pattern emerges that shows a different truth than what is sold to Africa. The basic principle which Africa can use to achieve development once it is indigenously adjusted to its context.

Onward & Upward!

~Dr. Ikenna Ezealah

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSfMQyHZJdU

GAPID: A Proposal For The Global African Peoples

A CONTEXT
Currently the global African people are not united and lack a common symbol that would help to create a sense of collective unity. By global African peoples I mean Africans in Africa, the diaspora, and Africans who left via the slave trade and are now citizens of independent countries. Collective identity and meaning are important prerequisites for unity and cooperation for the global African peoples, and cultural or national symbols are powerful aids to fostering this sense of unity!

ISSUE:
Currently the global African peoples celebrate different independence days, based on when their different countries obtained independence. The global African peoples do not keep up with the plethora of dates, and many end up celebrating only their individual country’s independence or at most a few other countries. This leads to a fracturing among the global African people’s, who often do not really internalize the independence celebrations of another African country/people or relate it to their own heritage and history.

THE QUESTION:
What is one creative way that independence day celebrations can be strategically harnessed to foster a greater sense of collective unity among the global African peoples?

A SOLUTION (one of many)
I propose GAPID: “Global African People’s Independence Day.” A commemorative day when the global African people’s across all African countries, the Caribbean, and the America’s celebrate a day of collective independence. A day when all historical sons and daughters of Mother Africa unite as one people, raise different flags only as part of a broader mosaic of the global African peoples, celebrate commonalities, shared experiences, but also our unique evolutions and transformed identities that are beautiful feathers of the same bird. A day when we stand as one people, looking to the past, present, and future!


WORD OF CAUTION
The proposal would need to be carefully enacted with other proposals, so we avoid the danger of making the contemporary history of the global African peoples associated with slavery and colonization the primary marker of their collective identity! For the African peoples have a rich history of cultures and kingdoms whose elements would need to be factored to broaden the scope of the proposal.

CLOSING
The Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah forwarded “Africa must unite!” Here, the proposal of GAPID – Global African People’s Independence Day seeks to advance that vision! Thus, I also call for the formation of GAPCON: Global African People’s Council of Nations, and the creation of a corresponding flag!

We must no longer stand aside and passively hope for a brighter African future, but with gaze focused upward and daring vision we must boldly spin the wheels of development forward! While diligently using our God-given abilities to energetically forge the African destiny into reality!

One Africa, One People… Focused Upward, Forever Onward!

~Dr. Ikenna Ezealah

Garvey-Nkrumah Fellowship Program

It is with great joy I announce that, this Summer, I will be a Legal Fellow and global cohort class member of the 2024 Garvey-Nkrumah Fellowship Program!

The Garvey-Nkrumah Fellowship Program, established in honor of international civil rights leaders, political theorists, and dignitaries Marcus Garvey and Kwame Nkrumah, is a summer leadership and professional development initiative designed to train aspiring lawyers and future leaders of African descent in the areas of International Trade & Development, Public Policy & Diplomacy, Conflict & Dispute Resolution, and Civil & Human Rights. Fellows will engage in a comprehensive learning experience through a legal internship, a trip to Ghana and Rwanda, and a self-directed capstone project designed to advance solutions that address legal, social, economic, and/or public policy issues within Africa, the Caribbean, and the Americas.

This Legal Fellowship is a big victory, for it strategically builds on my professional experiences from 2023: (1) International Trade Intern at the United Nations International Trade Center in Geneva, Switzerland; (2) International Diplomatic Immersion experience at the Washington International Diplomatic Academy; and (3) Multilateral Diplomacy training at the United Nations Immersion Program for Multilateral Diplomacy.

With unswerving precision it also furthers my professional goal:

To be an international nation-building diplomat who creates and implements policies that drives the indigenous development, progress, self-sufficiency, and economic integration of the African continent.

I resolved to go to law school to answer an inner call to support the emergence of genuine leadership in Africa, to partake in the work of institutional transformation in post-colonial Africa so it reflects the cultural heritage and indigenous nature of the people, and to create frameworks that encourages the creative expression of the natural abilities of the African people for the progress of the African continent.

Yet I knew my designs and efforts alone would be insufficient, for I needed the decisive Grace of God and His Blessing to guide my earnest efforts to reach the goal! Thus, I find success because I try to lean into the guidance of God to know where I am to energetically exert diligent efforts to achieve victory! I am thankful to the Almighty for His Grace that opens doors!

My formula is: The will + higher guidance + strategic diligence /(over) time = unconditional victory! Every element in the equation must be balanced for the victory to be unconditional

I am honored to be a Garvey-Nkrumah Fellow, in the names of two men whose lives are a signpost to my own destiny. Yet I know every success I am afforded is only a Divine loan I am to repay through the service of my life to help my people. Thus, what drives me is not personal success, but to achieve my life’s objective:

To be a servant of God on earth, and a helper and guardian of the welfare and further development of the African people!

Onward & Upward!

~Dr. Ikenna Ezealah

Garvey-Nkrumah Fellowship Program 2024

Seven Questions For African Development

Sometimes a danger to real African development are Africans with a lot of formal western education, because many can only think within the foreign framework they learned in schools. So, their idea of development is reproducing on the African people the ideas, institutions, and societal forms that apply to Western societies, to the subordination of their own indigenous systems, believing it will also work for the African people. Thus, they wrongly regard imitation as progress so long as it produces an outwardly visible benefit. But this is not development, just copying and long-term stagnation.

What is development? The concept must first be clarified. To achieve clarity, we must not draw opinions from our thoughts, but observe the Laws of Nature!

In Nature development is endogenic…from within. A rose develops when its inner qualities unfold outwardly, and when the guidance for this unfolding comes exclusively from within. The seed never needs instructions from without, only a supportive environment for what is within to unfold. Thus, development is a progressive unfolding of inner qualities, a sequential expression of indigenous capabilities, and a logical building out of inner components to outward completion, in accord with the inherent nature of the species.

To be “African development”, an initiative must come from within the souls of the African people, as a natural expression and a progressive building out of their indigenous qualities and cultural heritage. It must not come from without, otherwise it is adoption or an unnatural imposition. In Nature, even when something comes from without (water, sunlight), it only neutrally reinforces and helps the species express its inherent qualities.

So when people have big initiatives, plans, and developmental agendas concerning Africa, some questions to ask are:

  1. Is the plan driven by genuine love for the welfare of the African people?
  2. Did the central idea originate from the soul of the African people?
  3. Will the initiative help to unfold and mature the natural abilities of the people?
  4. Is the concept in harmony with their cultural heritage and indigenous nature?
  5. Do the plans build-on and improve their preexisting systems and social frameworks?
  6. Will the African people be uninfluenced implementing the initiatives?
  7. Is the final goal to make them self-sufficient and independent from foreign governments and institutions?

If initiatives are earnestly examined by these questions, and all answers are not a resounding yes, then real African leaders should relentlessly call them to account! African development should not advance foreign norms and institutions on the African people, but it should really operate in strict accord with the concept of development. The “African” welfare and interests coming first to then lead and guide the strategic implementation of “development”.

~Dr. Ikenna Ezealah

The African Issue

Many overanalyze the issues facing Africa, make effects into causes, and try to treat symptoms without focusing on the root issue with the most far-reaching consequences.

The most fundamental issue facing Africa today is simply that leadership, power, and governance are in the wrong hands. Most who have shared office since the wave of post-independence coups, including “elected” officials today, simply lack the vision, ability, and capacity to lead the people in genuine nation-building.

Every initiative, program, policy, and national strategy by domestic and foreign institutions, will either always fail or be limited in the scope of its success unless governance and power returns to the hands of those endowed by Nature with the natural ability and vision to lead the African people.

When a home lacks parental leadership, children can never supplemental the void because they lack the ability and maturity that Nature assigned to parenthood which is needed to provide order, guidance, and support for the collective development. Despite best efforts by the children, the woeful gaps and disorder will become apparent in all domestic processes. The same with Africa today in all institutions. The wrong people are in office, and those with natural leadership ability have either left or in most cases are just quietly pursing a mundane life of personal success.

The other issue are coups led by people who see the issues and are filled with the genuine desire and energy for real change. But the problem is that in almost all cases, these coup leaders might have the enthusiasm and energy, but they lack the genuine vision and ability to lead comprehensive nation-building! The force required to change, is not the same as the vision and strategy to guide lasting change. Thus, despite the genuine will, most overthrowers will in time become the same as previous governments because they themselves lack what is required.

Those with ability and vision in Africa need to step forward and vigorously engage the process. Form coalitions domestically and in the diaspora, harness your collective resources and expertise, infiltrate institutions, and take possession of governance so that power and leadership can return to the right hands and can be properly applied for the welfare and further development of the African people! People with a lot of education sometimes overthink the simplest issues. Here also, advanced degrees will not earn you an opportunity for governance and leadership, but only vigorous action, strategic coalitions, and sustained noble struggle will win the day.

The opportunity for genuine leadership and governance in Africa, to promote the welfare and development of the African people, will never be given. It must be won by coordinated and organized severe exertion, perpetual vigilance, and unflagging assiduity.

Let those who are serious understand that such a noble struggle is naturally incompatible with the comfortable and predictable life that many wish. For to earn such a victory requires personal cost and sacrifice. But it is worth it, because the collective welfare and development of the African people who look to leadership full of hope for a brighter present and future depend on it!

Servants, helpers, and guardians of the welfare of the African people, discard your tentative volition, step forward, and brace yourself for action.

~Dr. Ikenna Ezealah