Africana

PART I

"The (D) at the foot of each poem indicates who the poem is dedicated to"

1.  UNDERSTANDING AFRICA

Africa is the second largest continent on earth (Asia is the largest). It is bound by the Mediterranean Sea, the Atlantic Ocean, the Red sea, and the Indian Ocean and is divided almost equally by the Equator. Its area is 30,348,110sqkm. The average elevation is about 2,200ft (670m). The continent is blessed with many rivers including the Nile River in the North, the Niger River in the West, and the Congo River in Central Africa.

Our people (i.e. Africans) probably speak more languages than those of any other continent. Our soil is richly endowed with resources. Diamond and Gold mining are especially important in the South while Petroleum and natural gas are produced particularly in the West.

Africa is the birthplace of mankind. Archeological evidence has it that Africa has been inhabited by humans for some 4,000,000 years or even more. People of African origin are often called Blacks because of their dark skin. Nigeria having the largest population is regarded as the Giant of Africa.

2.  STRENGTHENING AFRICA

In 1964, the United Nations Survey of Economic Conditions in Africa admitted that Africa is well endowed with mineral and primary energy resources. With an estimated 9 percent of the world population the region accounts for approximately 28 percent of the total value of world mineral production and 6 percent of its crude petroleum output. In recent years its share of the later is increasing. Of sixteen important metallic and non-metallic minerals the share of Africa in ten varies from 22 to 95 percent of the world production

Before even the British came revealed J.E Casely-Hayford of Ghana, we were a developed people, having our own institutions; having our own ideas of government

These are all testimonies of the beauty of Africa, as a region and as a people. Our fathers were strong and smart enough to lay the foundation of our civilization. They constructed the pillars of our development. Hence, Africa started as a promising and fruitful continent; showing the ability to stand tall in the midst of the other six continents.

Yet today, Africa is underdeveloped in relation to Western Europe and a few other parts of the world. Could it be that the foundation lied by our ancestors has been broken? The truth is that we could not maintain our pace in the race for our development and civilization. So who is to be blamed? Who broke down the bridge of our development? Why has Africa continued to realize so little of its potentials?

Walter Rodney tried to provide an answer in his book, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. He maintained that the fact of the matter is that the most profound reasons for the economic backwardness of a given African nation are not to be found inside that nation. All we can find inside are the symptoms of underdevelopment and the secondary factors that make for poverty. Explaining his point he said, In the first place, the wealth created by African labour and from African resource was grabbed by the capitalist countries of Europe; and in the second place restrictions were placed upon African capacity to make maximum use of its economic potential. I do subscribe to Walter’s stand, yet I know he was addressing only one side of the equation. Although Europe has a lot of questions to answer about African underdevelopment, Africans themselves must not be completely exonerated from the blame.

We may choose to deny it but the truth is that over the years that we, Africans, has shown increasing willingness to divorce our identity, to abandon our own value system, to renounce our responsibility to develop ourselves, to hastily export our resources, both natural and human, to submit willingly to the lies told about us by the ‘whites’, and to pay little or no attention to our development, both as individuals and as a people.

Yet we are not a hopeless people. Africans can rebuild Africa. Nelson Mandela enthused, We must face the matter squarely…. The time has come for ‘a new birth’. We know that we have it in ourselves, as Africans, to change all this. We must assert our will to do so. We must say that there is no obstacle big enough to stop us from bringing about African renaissance

Strengthening our mother land, Africa, demands both an individual and collective approach. If we must prove Mandela right then we must embrace our own identity as Africans, we must accept and reform our African value system, taking out what is bad and promoting the good, we all must fulfill our roles and nurture our vast human and natural resources. We must take it upon ourselves to develop ourselves in other to meet the demand of the present century.

3.  PRESERVING THE AFRICAN

HERITAGE

Every enlightened society has always recognized the inter-relatedness of its present society with the past and future generations of that society. Such a society recognizes its task to preserve its material and non-material heritage from its founding fathers, for itself and most importantly, for the future generations. We Africans owe it to ourselves and to our predecessors to identify, purify, promote and propagate our core values as Africans.

A part of the Nigerian National Anthem reads:

To serve our Fatherland

With love and strength and faith

The labour of our heroes past

Shall never be in vain.

Hence there is a realization that part of our service to our Fatherland, Africa, is to ensure that the labour of our heroes past, in the innovation, protection and propagation of our culture shall never be in vain.

The second stanza of the old Nigeria National Anthem highlights the other aspect of the task:

Our flag shall be a symbol that

Truth and Justice reign, in peace or

Battle honour and this we count as

Gain to hand over to our children a

Banner without stain.

We Africans who are alive today are the link between our heroes past and our children unborn. We are the link between the culture of our heroes and that of our children.

‘A culture is a total way of life. It embraces what people ate and what they wore; the way they worked and the way they talked; the way in which they treated death and greeted the new born’ says Rodney.

We are blessed with our own unique way of doing things; we have our own languages, our own fashion, our own sense of society and democracy, our own way of education and socialization, our own food and herbs, our own idea of religion and service to the true God. We have our own kind of sports and entertainment. We have our own traditional institutions. Institutions that maintain law and order. Institutions for maintaining respect and applauding bravery.

African arts was already budding as early as 3000 BC. Even today, African arts and literature are accorded respect the world over for their richness. We have our own science and technology.

With all these endowments and riches, I would have loved to say that Africans are proud of their rich culture which fundamentally is part of our history as a people. I would have loved to boast that Africans still promote their own fashion and foods. But I would be a liar if I attempt to make such boosts.

The sad truth is: Africans are playing harlotry after foreign languages, foreign foods, foreign