Peace and Unity In Africa

If you were a leader, what would you do to ensure that peace and security is achieved and sustained in Africa?

Peace can simply be defined as a period when there is no war or war has ended. But what is war especially in the African context? War can be defined as a state of armed conflict between countries or between groups in a country.

In a continent of more than 1 billion people, what is our source of conflict? The major source of conflict in any environment is when a group either feels that its right has been denied or indeed their rights are been denied. When a group feels that its rights are been denied, it simply means the mind of such group is either misinformed or simply corrupt. When the mind of a group is misinformed, how do we fix that? To fix such minds the people must be educated. Education is not only about going to school. It is about stating the facts and making it available to everyone. It is about been transparent and open in every transaction carried out. It is about carrying everyone along in all the processes involved. Most people who are usually misinformed are usually fed with biased information which makes it really difficult to guide such people. However, by presenting the information in every media outlet, people can be able to think for themselves and hopefully see the truth and follow it. And for the people who provide this biased information, a stern judgment would have to be delivered to deter others who want to follow in such footsteps.

So the most important way to ensure peace and unity is to educate people. Provide them with all the necessary information they need to make informed decisions about what is happening in their environment. As such, the minds of people is repaired and peace can find a place. It is said that our thoughts become our actions. And our mind is the factory of our thoughts. If our minds are clean, then our thoughts and consequently our actions would indeed become good.

Moving on to the group of people whose rights have indeed been denied. How do we return peace to the mind and environment of such people? It begins with accepting all the mistakes that have been done in the past. The idea of accepting mistakes is not to go back to the past, but because without understanding the past, the future might be very hard to achieve. After accepting the mistakes of the past, people must understand that sacrifices have to be made to make the future better than the present. By accepting mistakes, solutions on how the problems would be fixed are stated and everyone is informed of how it would be done. The idea of explaining the solution is to create in the mind of the people a solution-oriented government. By understanding how the solutions would be achieved, it would be much easier to carry everyone along.

Also, the minds of people who are indeed denied their rights must be made clean. Revenge is never the way to solve a problem. Learn from your past and build a better future should be the motto of the society.

Fast-tracking the development of infrastructures that improve the lives of people. The basic needs of people which are food, clothing, and shelter must be given higher priorities because, in fact, the African continent is still overwhelmed with providing these basic infrastructures. Agriculture which is one of our major source of income must be subsidized to make food provision a problem of the past. Also, by providing food, employment issues can be greatly eradicated. The African continent is still battling with hunger and famine. With great food supply, people would be able to focus on more important things like education, peace, and unity because, without food, we all cannot do anything.

Eradicating diseases will help improve the lives of people. By improving lives, it is easy to discuss peace and unity because when people are sick and dying, who are we going to discuss people and unity with.

Programs that help introduce ethics in every human endeavor is introduced. This is because the ethics of almost every profession in the African community has been thrown to the dogs and people simply want to feed their own stomachs and their families. Living extravagant lives with the funds meant for the development of the community. People can now sacrifice almost anything just to be rewarded with money. Introducing ethics would definitely make everyone aware of what is right and what is wrong. And also enforcing the ethics is very necessary. It is surprising that a lot of these professionals understand what the ethics are, but they simply do not follow it. But by creating institutions that enforce ethics in every human endeavor, people are indeed careful in the way they behave. And with such moves, peace and unity is achieved

Punishment for every crime is enforced because as humans, we sometimes need to be scared to do the right thing. By introducing unbiased laws for every crime, every person is more careful in their conduct.

History of past leaders who have fought for the liberation of the African continent from the hands of our colonial masters must be taught in schools. This is necessary to help mold the current generation into a set of selfless youths. This is because if the current generation is left to continue in the current state that we are in now, it would not be long before all the history of our great leaders is forever lost. The culture of the people must also be upheld. The culture that promotes moral uprightness in every area of life is inculcated. The belief that our culture is inferior to that of the western world must be discouraged.

Leaders who have been found guilty of running the country to the ground must be made to atone for their sins. It is not enough to simply discuss peace and unity, but also lay some examples so that everyone realizes that the struggle to maintain peace and unity is real. When people can see that equality between the rich and the poor is upheld, people would follow their leaders and secure peace and unity for their communities.

Lastly, rewards must be put in place to encourage those who have taken the path least followed. The path of Patriotism, honor and higher moral conduct. People who have sacrificed their personal gains for the betterment of the whole humanity are highly rewarded which would, in turn, encourage everyone to become better. By being better, we become more peaceful and more united.