Business Post Contributor
By Nneka Okumazie
The ways Africans understand the world is evident in how Africa is. The seriousness, or lack of it, of collective progress expresses much about what matters to Africans.
Africans are often cheering when some public figure says obvious problems, but Africa does not lack truth tellers or humble acting public figures. Truth, if it exists in Africa, is even used to gain an advantage, such that when some leader starts saying it, better to watch.
Africa is not developed because Africans often apply weak ideas to their problems. There are all kinds of private setups and public projects, but they are ineffective in taking their countries forward. Africa needs at least 50 ideas per problem, throwing so much against all that it will be difficult for it to fail.
Instead, there are often simple solutions or random suggestions on what would work against a complex problem. The weak ideas system also made Africa somewhat progress per adoption, such that most of the things that signify advances in their societies are brought from elsewhere.
Africa also has a wrong problem focus, where some blame religion. Religion hinders a country or people from progress, who themselves have nothing to offer. Those who try to embarrass religion also have nothing to offer, suggesting religion is a problem in their weak ideas model.
There are tribes in Africa who take some pride in themselves about things, but no tribe has a developed place. A tribe can be known to be industrious, achieving much with it, but may not be significant until they are able to compare themselves to the Japanese.
There is so much inter-tribal hate in Africa, but what does it sometimes matter what tribe an African is when most of the country is not developed. People often love the places they come from, but most villages in Africa are terribly, shamefully underdeveloped.
Many of the urban areas in Africa are like a carpenter dressed as a doctor, who from afar, can pass as one, but when probed, everything fizzles.
Africans have several things they can achieve to ensure acceptance among their people, but generation after generation pursue mostly the exact sets of things, becoming zero-sum.
Aside from development problems, fairness, sincerity, selflessness, trust and courage are scarce in Africa. It is difficult to find how far a person, without certain cores, can go.
Some people blame foreigners all the time, forgetting that in the physical world, the law of responsibility is a factor. In many African systems where corruption is not a threat or foreigners, the people there cannot pursue organic progress. Maybe there is also an improvement capability problem.
[Romans 13:12, The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.]
