Business Post Contributor
By Nneka Okumazie
There are lots of coastal communities across Africa, many of the locals’ fish, sometimes making their own boats.
This fishing practice and boat making – may date back to hundreds of years or more. There’d have also been many short transits via water between communities.
But what if some of the merchants or people saw the vast sea, and thought to explore it, or find a way to go across and see what lies far, further away?
What if they did not consider what risk it would be or thought continuously about how to make it possible – and maybe come back, or find a method to ensure that whatever is experienced can be passed on?
That lack of exploration as a largely homogenous community kept them for capture – in what others who came did and routed.
Though similarities of lifestyle across the whole were abundant, house types, clothes, food, tradition, religion, etc., there were some of the communities – larger than others of the same language and with richer nobles, who maybe also won tribal wars.
Those bigger ones would maybe have sought ways, or set up a project of exploration, to go and find, for the good of their people and as part of their civilization.
It is possible they were comfortable in what they had, and maybe just wanted stability, it is also possible they were afraid of the sea because of some prior accidents, it is also possible they depended on religious prognostications to give the go, or they did not care much for what exists outside their place and peoples.
But assuming they had consistently tried, and maybe had one, or more success, it probably would have meant a different history for black people, against the cruelty of the slavery of recent centuries.
There are possible explanations as to why this never happened, but this loss in cultural evolution – for the people persists to date.
How much of really new, really ambitious stuff is Africa doing now for its development and manufacturing independence?
How much growth expedition is Africa persistently trying, with global advances available now, so that the people can thrive?
What stands as exploration isn’t Africans elsewhere building the civilization of other nations.
It is also not copycats of economic models or fancy projects that look good on paper.
The black race needs much more than every activity now.
The suffering for many Africans is not worth it, yet some privileged Africans think the priority is status, profile, optics, jokes, certain worthless activism, etc.
Africa depends on Africa or maybe depends on others who take advantage if they’re gracious.
[Matthew 13:25, But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way.]
