The African buffalo is a huge and powerful beast. It is also the subject of fascinating wildlife documentaries with deep lessons for human society. Weighing up to one tonne, an adult buffalo is about the size of a small truck and three to four times the weight of an adult lion. Armed with a pair of sharp, hooked horns, the buffalo is not only capable of goring a lion to death with one swing of the head, but it can also quite easily trample the king of the jungle. And since the buffalo naturally grazes together in large numbers, even apex predators have to keep a safe distance from the herd.
But quite often, on the plains of the Serengeti, lions are seen feasting on the carcasses of buffalos. Why? Although strong, well-armed and formidable in large numbers, buffalos lack the cunning and organisational acumen to protect themselves from lion attacks.
To take down a mighty buffalo, lions must hunt in pride—well-coordinated family groups of 10 to 15 adult males and females. Even so, they must approach cautiously and sensibly to avoid heavy casualties. Then, they must prompt the buffalos to start running. By so doing, the buffalos lose some cohesion and focus. In this state, the lions carefully isolate the weakest of the buffalo herd—either a calf or a sickly adult—which lags behind the fast-moving multitude.
When they pounce on the weakling, the other buffalos seldom stop to help one of their own. They keep moving, seemingly content to sacrifice their weakest member to save the rest. On occasions when they stop to help, they are often able to preserve the entire herd by scaring off the lions or even killing stubborn ones.
But somehow, the buffalo herds fail to scale up or replicate this strategy or make it a standard practice. They fail to capitalise on the glaring fact that if they stick together for one another, they are more than a match for the king of the jungle. And the lions will have no choice but to drop buffalo meat from their menu and look elsewhere for food.
So, for now, the lions keep feasting on the buffalo. And life goes on in the African plains.
As with buffalo and lions in the wild, so with the peoples and continents of our planet. Africa is like the buffalo—big, strong, highly endowed and compact. Also, like the buffalo, which feeds on grass, Africa poses no threat to other continents. Its peoples and nations are largely peaceable, content to go about their lives living off their lush green lands. But they are poorly organised and lacking in cunning for their protection and self-preservation.
Europe and (more recently) the USA are like lion pride. Naturally less endowed in land, minerals and climate, they nevertheless have the instincts, cunning and coordination of the apex predator. They see Africa and other continents as prey. In the last five centuries or so, they have been most successful in hunting on the African plains.
For a successful hunt, they must keep Africans “on the move” and distracted with ideologies, religion, multilateral talk shops, investment promises and false political alliances. Then, stealthily, they prey on Africa’s minerals, farm produce, human resources, trade and everything else they covet.
They target the young, the smartest and the most talented demographics on the continent. They disempower them at home by supporting rogue governments, depressing their economies and stoking ethnic and regional tensions. They lure them abroad as cheap migrant labour through visa lotteries and other such schemes. Sports talents, IT, healthcare professionals and academics are thus siphoned away.
African leaders and governments watch with scant interest while this is going on. They salivate at the prospect of “diaspora remittances”, being leftovers from the incomes of our often-overworked migrant workers. And Africa never really gets the full benefit of its virile manpower.
While they attack one demographic, country, or region, other African groups, countries, regions and their leaders carry on happily like the buffalo herd. They seldom spring to the defence of their beleaguered brethren, whom they are happy to sacrifice for their own “safety”.
What Africans do not realise is that what goes around comes around; that it is only a matter of time before each one of them is on the menu and dining table of the predator.
If only they knew the power they had as a solid block of 55 countries, most of them easily interconnected by land. If only they knew that by sticking together always, the predator would have no choice but to stay away and look elsewhere for food.
Until they learn this vital lesson and adapt sensibly, the great peoples of Africa, like the great African buffalo, will remain a choice steak on the buffet tables of the “lion pride” prowling the African savannah.
- Victor Anazonwu, an author, journalist and historian, writes from Lagos