“When we cried out that hunger was ke-ee-ling our children in the Sahel, they turned a deaf ear.

When we screamed for help as thieves in white kaftans emptied our treasuries and fled with our wealth, they remained deaf.

When we demanded just a fair share of the gold, uranium, and lithium being carted away to build foreign cities while our villages had no light, they were stone deaf.

But the moment we finally stood up, dusted ourselves off, and said “Enough is enough! Once beaten, twice shy — never again will we be used,”
suddenly all those deaf ears began to hear perfectly.

Suddenly the big birds (the drones and warplanes) started circling our skies.
Suddenly ECOWAS remembered that the Sahel is, after all, an “indispensable part” of Africa.

What exactly do you gain by dragging us back into the misery we have already escaped?

They called the Sahel small and insignificant, yet from this “small” land rose a heart too big to be enslaved again.

The day Africa finally sees that the one who calls himself “friend” is actually the enemy,
that day her true redemption will begin”