© Numero Unoma
It’s not an accurate statistic, more a metaphor really, but one in ten people takes care of number one only.
Think about it. I’m sure you can think of people you know who are just takers. Cold and callous accumulators of wealth at any cost. And what do they do with the wealth? Vanity. Nothing else. Nothing for society, maybe the occasional eye service CSR program with which they adorn themselves, as proof of what good people they are. Maybe they will spend money on a man after he has died, that they never helped him with during his lifetime, when he needed it most. You can fool some people some of the time, but you can’t fool all the people all of the time.
But that can’t be the only narrative. Surely there is also a redeeming minority?
I have read the Black thinkers of history for as far back as I can remember. My siblings will bear witness to the fact that we were not just voracious, but precocious readers. From primary school days, Time Magazine, Newsweek and the Economist were ‘de rigeure’ in our household, and by extension I was reading the more serious stuff on the bookshelves long before many of my peers. We all know heroes like Patrice Lumumba, Steve Biko and Thomas Sankara, who in usual White Inferiority fashion had to be Jim crow’d and metaphorically lynched. (As an aside, if Ndiocha were so supreme, then why would these Brothers even have been on their radar?)
Just like with thinkers, philosophers or revolutionaries anywhere in the world, none of ours are perfect, or have all the answers. However, much as I continue to find resonance in African thoughts writings, I am more inclined nowadays, to seek practical solutions, or at least tangible actions that aim to achieve such. Historically, the black people who have had it the absolute hardest of all, have been African Americans. Without ever experiencing true freedom, they had to picket fence their way out of oppression within their own country, not coming from outside or elsewhere. In that seemingly impossible situation, they first had to think the whole thing through, draw conclusions, and then strategise to act on them. One perspective that continues to be interesting to me, even with its flawed double consciousness (aka Colo Mentality) and where this too may have led us, was W.E.B. Du Bois’ theory that there was (is?) what he coined to be the “Talented Tenth”, who would lead us Black people to a better place. In his mind, these consisted of a highly educated Black elite, who would, by virtue of their qualifications, possess the knowledge and leadership skills to take us all out of Babylon, to a metaphorical promised land, where we could be free and prosperous.
Specifically here in Africa, what have our Talented Tenth achieved over six decades, since the first wave of African Independence? Not much really, just an elephant in the room. It is an indictment against them, that those who have achieved the most in Africa, are in fact their antithesis, the Tainted Tenth, a term I have coined to summarise the scourge and bane of Black progress.
But who exactly are the Tainted Tenth?
They are the slave raiders and traders of ancient. They are the dictators (military or otherwise) who do nothing with their absolute power but plunder and pillage. (Give me a dictator any day who actually achieves progress for his people). The Tainted Tenth are the politicians who enter the arena not for the betterment of community, society or country, but to appropriate commonwealth for self aggrandisement. Importantly, they are also the Quislings who connive with foreigners, and sell us all out from the inside, and who give foreigners the perfect excuse for the atrocities they continue to commit against us all.
The Tainted Tenth are the so-called elite who grow rich on the labour of their staff, while they owe them months and months of salaries and employment benefits. Indeed, they are a government so blinded by it’s own lack of literacy, that it cannot see the damage it is doing to our future, through not treating professionals like doctors and academics with requisite regard, but would rather hold a country in the limbo of industrial action, than have a reasonable and intelligent dialogue to mitigate the situation, if only for the sake of all the young people they are exposing to early ruin and desperation through not being able to continue their studies, even as their own offspring study abroad.
They are rich who see the suffering masses as nothing more than a natural resource to be exploited, that is when they see them at all. All they see in those they have disenfranchised are domestic help, or a source of fresh organs for their own loved ones abroad. The Ekweremadu story illustrates what can happen when the oppressed retaliate. The so-called elite should beware, because the oppressed have nothing to lose. But they make good bedfellows, because beside the person who has nothing to lose, the next most dangerous person to deal with is the shameless man or women. Shameless people do shameful things without compunction. Like the Tainted Tenth.
There are also others who belong to the Tainted Tenth, like those bitter descendants of the Middle Passage so damaged by the Ma’afa (the Swahili word adopted for what happened to abducted Africans during and through enslavement and slavery) that they feel they must revenge on any African that comes their way, especially if they have a little power over us.
And there are those descendants of the Middle Passage who facilitate the shipping out of Africa today, of either natural resources such as gold and diamonds, or the cash proceeds of these, for laundering.
But let me tell you the most striking thing about the Tainted Tenth: they are invariably men, and always have been. Yeah sure, we have odd and rare exceptions like Nigeria’s most famous slave trader Madam Tinubu, whose statue in Isale-Eko really should have been torn down by now. But let’s be clear, the few women who can be counted among the Tainted Tenth could only have operated within the structure of our all- and ever-powerful patriarchy. We women are not in charge, and historically we have not ever been in charge. It is men who have instigated and engineered every ill that has befallen black people in history, and it is men who continue to perpetuate the wretchedness. That is not to blame ALL black men for the woes of the Black race, but those with the power, who are culpable, have always been, and to this day remain…MALE. Yes it’s true, it is BLACK MEN who are the architects of the woes of Black people. Let’s call a spade a spade today, and not a shovel.
For all those who love to blame women for everything…like the Old Testament…I say unto to you: why are you blaming Eve that Adam could not man up. Foolish long-throat woman-wrapper, what happened to being the man of the house, or is that not what we women constantly get lorded over us, and shoved down our throats, to this day?
Dear Tainted Tenth, dear Brothas, dear few Bad Black Men,
I speak on behalf of all the oppressed, but most loudly on behalf of the most oppressed of them all, Black women. We have always been the bottom of the heap. It’s a man’s world, and even among the feminists of the world (with whom I happen to disagree on many points, btw), our needs are not addressed by white feminism. ICYDK, go read bell hooks (yes, no caps in her name). We are womanists. There is a difference. FYI, the Womanist cause is not just about the rights of black females, but we seek to disrupt oppressive social hierarchies for all the subdued and subjugated of the world.
It is time, dear Tainted Tenth, that you move over, abeg dress, and allow the Talented Tenth to step in and mop up the astronomical mess you have created.
Unlike W.E.B. Du Bois, I am not of the opinion that it only takes an erudite elite like doctors, engineers and lawyers, especially NOT lawyers, my people, they have not proven themselves to be so-called Learned Friends, rather manipulators of the law, and creators of Nigeria’s nonconstitution. I think it takes several strata of society to take us forward. A talented tenth consists also of any skilled able-bodied and like-minded person who involves themselves proactively and tangibly in positively changing the status quo for good. And I mean for good, as in forever.
I love what artists and artistes are doing across Nigeria currently, and let me just note, that many in the CCI (Cultural and Creative Industries) are indeed graduates. I see TikToks, and free concerts all over the place calling the youth to arms. Not to wield weapons, but to use their voices, to speak up, arm in arm, indeed armed, but with nothing more than a PVC and their vote, their final say.
It will take the Talented Tenth to topple the Tainted Tenth, and take back control of the narrative of Black people, but they need the support of the people. So be careful of whom you align yourself with in all that you do. Ask yourself, are they talented or are they tainted?
Make no mistake: if you’re not part of the solution, then you’re part of the problem.