THE AFRICAN PROBLEMS (PART 1)

Introduction
We Africans by all means have contributed significantly to the world's civilization in all areas of life and professions. Our exploits fill human history. We're a strong, hardworking and relentless. Martin Luther King Jnr, Chinua Achebe, Nelson Mandela, Michael Jackson, Desmond Tutu, Mohammed Ali, Wole Soyinka, Barack Obama, Usain Bolt and many more have made  enormous inputs that have changed our world in general. Yet, from the view of the world, it seems something is still wrong with us. And not only from the view of the world but even those among us whose eyes have been realistically opened can tell that our continent really needs to undergo genuine intellectual growth. Although most of us have lived in so much pretense that we with the attitude of the unconcerned (and often religiously) wave away any kind of discussion tending to address our problems. Hence, like a patient with a chronic disease who proudly covers up his wounds from treatments, we now have to suffer the consequences as our own wounds start to eat us up, set us behind the world and gradually destroy us.
Even though we do make certain claims of making advances but we have to admit to the fact that our progress is like crawling compared to a flying world.

In a series of posts, I'll discuss some of the habits, characters, mentalities and ideologies we have inherited and cultivated, which have developed into our culture and have became our flaws and now...are killing us. Also, I  will share my own views on how I think everyone of us can make our individual contributions to solve a problem at the end of each discussion.  But please note that by "The African Problems" I do not mean these so called problems are peculiar to us as Africans neither am I insinuating that Africans have no strength or that there's nothing good in the African culture. This will be a total misconception. Of course Africa has a lot of things to be proud of and the about-to-be-discussed problems do exist in other parts of the world at various degrees. However, for some reasons known to our Maker, such is the way of life that prevails among us. So having this understanding, let's proceed into our discussion. For today, we'll consider problem #1.

It seems we were destined to serve money right from the day we were born.

#1 Materialism
MONEY, Money, money... Money over everything. After all, money makes the world go round. So when it became the principal slave-master, Africa became its headquarters. Our forefathers sold themselves off for money and possessions. They never had enough, so they also sold their future - that is us - to the western world for ephemeral things. However, the story did not end there: Today, we've also taken up the mandate of selling ourselves off to gain material things. As if that's not enough, we've been selling our future too. It's a sad story though. Our leaders want global relevance. To get it they need fame. To get fame they need power. To get power they need money. So they get all they can, can all they get and sit on the can. Then this becomes the primary culture of each and everyone of us - a leader or a common subject. Money rules us, makes our decisions and determines our lives. We go to school, pick up a course, chose a career, start a business, get married and even raise kids just because we hope money would come out through them all. It seems we were destined to serve money right from the day we were born. It is true that God made man. Man made money. Money makes man mad. Now the whole world is running in monetary lunacy.

We have to allow more important things (that are unseen) to motivate us into creating visible wealth.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not saying money is not important to man. I'm just trying to make emphasis that we Africans should aim at things even better. We must begin to relay good foundations for the future generations yet to be born. Our future must be delivered from this slavery even from now. We need to stop running after what has been leading us to more destruction. We have to allow more important things (that are unseen) to motivate us into creating visible wealth. We must be driven by passion, compassion, service to humanity, patriotism, concern for the future generations and we must seek after the things that add more values to our communities. And of course we need money to initiate any life ameliorating project. Indeed owo ni keke ihinrere. However, we have to start changing some of our ideologies about money and possessions. We have to stop letting financial enticements dictate our decisions. Africans! Be freed from poverty! Let's fill our minds with other things than the love of money. That way, we'll build our nations and sell them no more.

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