By Ekpe Inyang, Educationist, Environmentalist, Playwright and award-winning Poet
Crossroads of Dreams is an edifice of edification in which three committed poets – Agogho, Fonchenalla, and Mbutoh – in a subtle tone, deliberately avoid the common overt expression of anger as a poetic strategy to make their point strong, bold and clear against the dire situation in Cameroon, Africa and beyond. These poets have clearly distinguished themselves as crusaders of transformational leadership by taking us tactfully on a gentle poetic ride – albeit on a rough societal road – of situational analysis, highlighting the causes and consequences of the current mass exodus of youth from Africa known to be rich in wealth but without the expected riches.
The silent question here is, why does African natural wealth, that, indisputably, supports the development of foreign nations, remain largely untransformed into the needed riches to sustain African nations and encourage and instill renewed optimism for its youth to stay home and develop the continent instead of rushing out to cross the Sahara, as the cheapest option, and get drowned in the Mediterranean?
Crossroads of Dreams is skillfully divided into eight parts that serve as signposts along the road, with the aim of helping us answer that million-dollar question but also to suggest potential solutions to the perennial problems plaguing Africa. Our very first step in the poetic journey takes us to the stinking signpost of corruption and irresponsibility, characterized by kick-backs and embezzlement; tribalism and nepotism; marginalization and exploitation; hypocrisy and usurpation, lies-telling and incrimination. In addition to these, we are confronted with vengefulness, kidnappings, torturing, and brutal killings, with the concomitant increase in poverty, fear, despair, frustration, and hate in most of the citizens, the majority of whom are the youth estimated to constitute about seventy percent of the population of each African nation.
Evidently in our society, there is a tendency of choosing mediocrity over meritocracy, which translates into loss of self-esteem, development of self-hate, and rising involvement in criminal acts by the youth – drug abuse, scamming, robbery, prostitution, abortion, hate-speech, wickedness, manslaughter, and, more recently, destructive mass protests and demonstrations, to name a few. It is regrettable that the high level of energy, skills, creativity, inventiveness and innovativeness of the African youth that would have been harnessed and meaningfully exploited to ignite the transformational change of Africa are allowed, due to negligence, to degenerate into negative strategies and tools that are silently and systematically destroying the continent.
However, despite this gloomy picture, the anthology also resonates with the brightness of hope. The poets themselves, as youths, have evaded that trap in which many a youth is caught by rising above the irresistible temptations and taking on the role of responsible parents on a mission of mass sensitisation for the betterment of family and society. They have demonstrated this by their innovative style of exploiting African proverbs to produce scintillating and deep poetry that calls for critical reflections and analyses for informed decision-making and implementation of lasting solutions.
The conclusion one draws from this piece of art is that only the three pillars of Unity, Love, and Peace – galvanised with the inclusion of the youth in decision-making and regularly giving these “leaders of tomorrow” adequate space for voicing and necessary support for the development of their innovations – can redirect their energy towards the positive and guarantee a rebuilding of a shattered country or continent.
Agogho, Fonchenalla, and Mbutoh deserve to be applauded for jointly embarking on this intellectually challenging creative project – demonstrating such an incredible level of harmony in their poetic expressions – that has resulted in the production of a masterpiece with a universal appeal and enormous potential to create a positive impact on Cameroon, Africa and beyond.
