Independence, much like a high-stakes poker game, has put us on a knife-edge where we have gambled away our morality and sense of ownership for freedom. This has backfired, as the very resources we traded for now keep us in debt, controlled by the very dealers we sought to escape.

While it may appear that the hold of colonial nations has ceased, a close look at history and contemporary reality suggests that covertly, the oppressive regime independence sought to erase continues to outplay us. We struggle to break ties, ravaged by the hands of corrupt leaders.

When we look at some of the countries in the Great Lakes Region, including former Belgian colonies such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, which gained independence on June 30, 1960, and Rwanda, which gained independence on July 1, 1962, as well as Uganda, which gained independence from Britain on October 9, 1962, every generation since their independence has lived through war or genocide masking the underlying reason – the looting of natural resources.