Africa’s constantly growing GDP is attracting many African and Caribbean nationals to consider retiring there. Feature photo courtesy Wikipedia,org
Caribbean nationals spread across the region from Jamaica in the north right down to Guyana in the south on the northern tip of South America have been curious about life in Africa. Essentially African by ethnicity Caribbean nationals have descended from slaves transported to the former West Indies in the 17th Century by colonizing nations such as Britain, Spain, Portugal and France.
Africa which comprises some fifty-two states also has a dark history of colonisation and enslavement from the 15th century right through to the 18th century. Slavery in Africa across the continent was practiced in several forms including court slaves, domestic slaves, military slaves and so on.
Though slavery is largely illegal the world over the harsh legacy of distrust between Africans and between African and Caribbean people still exist. Indeed, there are pockets of individual acts of people trafficking, smuggling and slavery it is no where near the scale of the Triangular Slave Trade that saw millions of Africans shipped to the Americas to work the sugar, bauxite and cotton plantations in the blazing sun.
Since abolition in 1834 Black people have migrated to all corners of the earth to find a safe haven for themselves and family. They enrolled into colleges and universities and excelled in all walks of life using the proverbial chip on their shoulder from the psychological and physical scars of slavery to drive them to invent amazing new products and conveniences, set sports records, lead political parties and lead in science and technology.
The advent of the industrial revolution in the 19th century created opportunities for Black people to own land and contribute meaningfully to the economic development of the United Kingdom and the United States. Africans and Caribbeans alike fortified themselves intellectually to compete for high paid jobs in industry, academia and public office. Many distinguishing themselves and returning to their native countries to serve in positions of authority, some even becoming heads of state. Such persons from the Caribbean include Maurice Bishop of Grenada, Errol Barrow of Barbados, Linden Forbes Burnham of Guyana. From Africa were Nana Akufo-Addo – Ghana, Muhammadu Buhari – Nigeria, Alassane Ouattara – Ivory Coast and Alpha Condé – Guinea to name a few.
In the Caribbean the fact that there were significant numbers of Africans taking up influential jobs at high schools, universities and oil refineries in Trinidad and Tobago was not unusual. For many years Africans lived and worked alongside Caribbean nationals in Grenada, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica sharing technical and academic knowledge for their mutual development.
In Africa, the movement of Caribbean nationals to Nigeria, The Gambia, Ghana and Kenya too was nothing to be too surprised at as Caribbean people keen on the pursuit of Rastafarianism and the belief in Africa as the promised land, returned in their numbers. Caribbean communities sprung up all across Africa bringing with them their rich cultural artifacts such as the reggae, calypso and soca music. The sweet delicacies such as jerk meats from Jamaica, fried fish and cocoo from Barbados, Oil Down from Grenada and Manish Water from Antigua and Barbuda. Together both Africans and Caribbeans faced the days’ challenges with a common objective premised on a common heritage.
As social media took root in the new millennium life between the continent of Africa and the Caribbean region improved as communication became much easier and more convenient. This convenience was hoped would transfer to air transportation as the current air links between the Caribbean and Africa make it mandatory that travellers go through the United Kingdom which provides a revenue opportunity for Europe. The thinking is to establish air transportation links directly between the Caribbean and Africa, effectively disintermediating the United Kingdom and saving both the Caribbean and Africa money and time. As the details of this grand plan have yet to be finalised, the current adverse travel route still persists.
Nonetheless Africans and Caribbean make full use of the improved telecommunication links and ultra-modern devices upon which this new era of communication takes place, iPhone, iPad, tablet and laptop. Small businesses including bloggers use these various platforms to connect with and support African and Caribbean entrepreneurs across multiple industries. Trade missions between Africa and the Caribbean have seen huge deals brokered and implemented such like one in 2013 which was done between a Nigerian transportation company and a Jamaican private sector organisation. This deal was witnessed and reported on by CaribDirect Multi-Media.
As many Caribbean nationals across the region and Diaspora contemplate life in their twilight years coupled with the consistent positive economic growth of African countries, more and more the idea of relocating to meet their relatives and friends in Africa for retirement is muted. Many Caribbean individuals of pre-retirement age secretly spend hours scouring the web for excursions and educational trips to Africa. These trips are intended to provide and insight into what possibilities exist on the continent for relocation and settling.
The recent covid-19 pandemic has in many ways hastened the desire to get on to excursions as the news of Africa’s relatively good response to the virus proves encouraging and enticing in addition to the already popular natural benefits such as endless sunshine, Friendly people and an abundance of wealth to almost guarantee a better standard of living that the United Kingdom.
Countries like Tanzania, Angola, South Africa, Ghana and Nigeria are at the forefront of economic development and are paving the way for African ‘diasporans’ and Caribbean aspirants to flood to the continent with their western skills and talent to plough the fertile minds of the impressionable youth. As the west struggle to hold on to their weak economies and work tirelessly to marginalise non-white populations, many of those populations are fixing to emigrate to Africa to create a new world of bright forward thinking conscientious individuals.
Leading this exodus from the west are expected to be Caribbean pre-retired and retired individuals tired and fed up of the negativity, strife and persecution of the west. These Caribbean folks are likely to have sizable savings and or investments that will serve them and their host country well.
D Fitz-Roberts is a multi-talented writer on socio-economic issues having worked in journalism across the Caribbean (Grenada, Guyana and BVI) in the 90s. He has worked in London with Black Britain Online, New Nation Newspaper and Caribbean Times. An academic with a passion for research on distributed ledger technologies in emerging economies he is keen to see the Caribbean embrace bitcoin and blockchain technologies to keep pace with the west. He writes periodically for mainstream publications and is the founder of CaribDirect.com. He is also the author of Caribbean children's book LifeSucks! available on Amazon.
