I have always expressed my indignation on this column lamenting how the West paints Africa though at the same time I would love Africans to prove our critics wrong.
I say this because often times, we live up to the accusations of not being a focused people.
We should own up to why we are in such a mess instead of always offering some defence on why things usually don’t work in this part of the world.
This brings me to the recent honest admission by Muhammad Buhari that Nigeria is corrupt.
The admittance came after the former British prime minister, David Cameron, was overheard telling Queen Elizabeth II that Afghanistan and Nigeria were “fantastically corrupt countries,” and “possibly the two most corrupt countries in the world.”
The comments at a Buckingham Palace party, in advance of a summit meeting created considerable awkwardness.
Surprising though President Buhari said he was “deeply shocked and embarrassed” by Mr. Cameron’s remarks —he did not rebut the remarks.
Asked if Nigeria was “fantastically corrupt,” Mr. Buhari responded: “Yes.”
Mr. Buhari, who has devoted himself to rooting out graft in Africa’s largest economy, added, “I am not going to demand any apology from anybody.”
This is the honesty we need from our leaders and intellectuals instead becoming apologists who rebut whatever arsenals are thrown at Africa.
Even the salvo made by Donald Trump when he described Africans as “lazy fools only good at eating, lovemaking and thuggery should be addressed with cool headedness.
I say this considering that though some accusations are based on racism; others have some aorta of truth in them.
Remember in his salvo, Trump singled out African countries such as Kenya, whose leaders he accused of stealing from their own governments and investing the money in foreign accounts.
The famous Kenyan writer Ngugi Wa Thio’ngo has raised this accusation before and since he is black, somehow people have understood. The only difference is that Trump is white though both him and Ngugi are calling a spade a spade.
“From the government to the opposition, they (Africans) only qualify to be used as a case study whenever bad examples are required.  How do you trust even those who have run away to hide here in the United States, hiding behind education? Trump states.”
The American politicians further states that in his opinion, most African countries ought to be recolonised again for another 100 years because they know nothing about leadership and self-governance.
Farfetched and even racist as these statements appear, they hold a cruel truth that needs retrospection.
As Africans we need a solid ground to stand on to protest some of these dehumanising comments made about us.  But do we?
Do our leaders even read some of these things and resolve to do things right?  So far, I do not think so because there are no signs that we are in a hurry to erase some of these negative impressions about us.
It is true our leaders continue to raid our national coffers to siphon hard-earned cash to foreign lands.
It is also cruelly true that some African countries have become failed states with no hope of things improving. Doesn’t that call for recolonisation by their former colonial masters who ‘discovered’ them in the first place?
Even the much written about accusation that we do not manufacture anything apart from exporting everything raw to foreign lands to be processed should be addressed frontally.
We should not continue celebrating mediocrity and rejoicing democracy on paper, since in real life we lack the courage to go by its tenets.
It is this desperate situation that has led to writers like Louise Linton writing fiction peddled as non-fiction in books like In Congo’s Shadow inventing a country called Zambia habited by sick people pretending to be human beings.
Though understandably the book has compelled Zambians to take to Twitter and Facebook to complain, there is another layer that needs discussing honestly.
The message once more is to stand up to whatever criticism is levelled and debate honestly the accusations, no matter how farfetched or even racist they are.