Africa must reject US-led post-colonial slavery

In 2010, South Africa, an African country, hosted one of the most spectacular tournaments the world has ever witnessed. Writing a review of the soccer spectacle, Owen Gibson, chief sports correspondent of UK’s award-winning The Guardian says; “South Africa leaves a World Cup legacy to remember. The crime and crumbling stadiums that doom-mongers warned of failed to materialise.”

Gibson went further to write; “By the end of the group stages, the FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke felt secure enough to joke that South Africa had been so successful that it would become “plan B” for all future tournaments”. This was said despite FIFA earlier pondering the thoughts of a “plan B” should the country fail to be ready to host the tournament in 2010.

During the past month, barely five years after the hosting the tournament, allegations of bribery have emerged. It is alleged that South African authorities paid a bribe of $10-million for a right to host the World Cup in 2010. Two separate investigations, conducted by US and Swiss agencies, have allegedly uncovered a trail of corruption and racketeering syndicates involving FIFA, and South Africa 2010 World Cup is reportedly one of those.

Well there is nothing wrong for the US Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and the Swiss Federal Office of Justice to investigate crimes committed in their lands. But there is a problem if such investigations seem to drive a particular political agenda. Any investigation that seeks to promote propaganda is simply unfair and needs to be rejected. I have no doubt that this US and Swiss investigation is nothing but a political campaign.

Firstly, it amazes me that the FBI’s investigation dates back to 1991, a year after the World Cup was held in Italy, another force of the US-led Western neo-colonial bloc. If the US is so passionate about exposing corruption, why not investigate all the tournaments? Is this a campaign aimed at devaluing the legacy that non-Western bloc countries (like South Africa, Brazil, etc) left after hosting the Cup?

Secondly, I suspect that the US investigations into FIFA corruption were initiated after the World Cup was held in South Africa in 2010.

That the investigation has been extended to 1991 is but an act of convenience intended to hide America’s ugly intentions. To understand how I arrived at this conclusion, the reader is requested to spend a few minutes interrogating the history of America’s international bullying in economy, the military, politics and other areas.

The US, through its bullying tactics, has misused its power to influence powerful bodies like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the United Nations for its own benefit.
Unlike within its own shores, where trading by foreigners is restricted, US companies are operating freely throughout the world, even using military power to monopolize economies in those countries.

Using a camouflaged form of neo-imperialism, coined with terms “war on terror” or the “new world order”, the US has deliberately bullied countries through a string of military invasions, covert politico-economic interventions and strategically planned United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and European Union sanctions. All these are deliberate, and are not done with intentions to create a better world. They are planned to bully the world to submit to the might of the US and its partner countries.

The so-called 2010 World Cup bribery allegations are nothing new. They are part of the US’ calculated geopolitical neo-imperialist agenda. Even under President Barrack Obama, the US is still a bully. It is, after all, Aaron David Miller, an advisor to six secretaries of state who wrote; “Barack Obama has become George W. Bush on steroids”.

It is not surprising that, in fighting “terror”, the US has consistently targeted oil-rich countries like Iraq, Lybia and Afghanistan. America has targeted the Middle East and Africa to entrench its economic dominance through maneuvering control over natural resources like gas, gold and oil. To look at the current bribe scandal separately from the US neo-imperialist agenda is to make a distorted analysis.

It is for this reason that Africa must develop a solid wall against US imperialism. It is only a united Africa that can be able to fend off thieves like America from stealing its precious resources.

African leaders and Heads of State must reject US bribes, camouflaged as aid, or donations, which are used as weapons to control the political and economic landscapes of African countries.

Africa must collectively shout to the US and the Western bloc; Leave our beloved Africa alone! South Africa deserved to host the Soccer World Cup in 2010, and it did a splendid job, despite the cynicism of the US and its Afrophobic friends.