A Conspiracy Theory To Make Your Head Spin, And Your Heart To Race…by Mohammed Kudu Ibrahim

Jeff Bezos has just successfully returned from space to succeed Richard Branson as the two privately launched missions which were the exclusive preserve of the Superpowers. Elon Musk is set to join them in a matter of weeks, not months.

All this while, the Chinese have also been perfecting their art in outer space in record time. They now have a functional space station to rival Russia and America! The Arabs too are not left behind; just Google what the UAE is doing in space presently.

Now, where does all these facts leave the descendants of Hannibal and Mansa Musa (the richest individual to have ever lived by numerous historical accounts) – the black race I mean. Why have we not leaved up to their creed?

I’ve leaved long enough among Caucasians (white people) to know one thing about them: they prefer to live among themselves, rather than count people of colour among their neighbours.

It was the ideological basis for the Nazi Holocaust and apartheid we experienced in South Africa, not to talk of the renaissance of racist right wing politics that inspired the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement in Europe and North even as we hustle to strangulate ourselves in Africa.

Now, am certain that most of us must have watched and applauded Bezo’s flight into space on personal space ship alongside his brother; an elderly female passenger and an eccentric fellow who just happened to have paid a King’s ransom ($25 million) for the opportunity and thought it was cool.

Am not about to douse your enthusiasm but just remember this: the current space race is more than a mere vacation for the Superpowers that can afford it along with the billionaires their global hegemony created.

They also have countless space probes desperately searching for signs of life on numerous planets out there!

Now, if our education must count, where does that lead us? Beyond science, what could be the other logical explanation for their relentless space explorations?

What happens if they suddenly discover a planet that is much more habitable than our earth?

Now that they have proved that civilians can be transported into space, what stops them from dreaming of the unthinkable?

And, if they find our planet to be very much unlike what they desired; what powers do we have to stop them from relocating using their advanced technologies while buzz around on our Keke-Napep?

And you can ask for the “Push Factors” for exactly such a scenario and they are legion!

The alarming surge in climate warming and deplation of the ozone layer which all point in the direction of a climatic disaster at a point in the future if can’t figure out how to reverse the trend, soon enough.

Two; the surge in the demographic composition of most European states and North America which precipitated BREXIT and is the ideological underpinning of Trumphism, which in turn led to multiple efforts to restrict voting rights in almost half of American states and counting.

Thirdly, what if we cannot find an earthly cure for the COVID-19 pandemic and the other contagious diseases ravaging mankind presently?

Finally, if they are accustomed to abandoning neighborhoods as soon as the new entrants do not look like them, what makes anyone believe they cannot do the same on an ‘earthly’ dimension?

Well, you can sit back and applaud Bezos for his remarkable achievement, but let us also remember to keep our brains switched on.

This is not a ‘yoke’ o, like my friends from Akwa-Ibom would say.

If you have laughed to heart’s content, please accept my best wishes for the Eid celebrations.

MOHAMMED KUDU IBRAHIM
[email protected]