The Sunday News
Successful Solutions, Kilton Moyo
I want to believe that one of our greatest challenges in Africa today is ignorance. Never mind poverty, corruption, sicknesses and others. I believe these feed on our ignorance as a continent. I know that many of us might be having different interpretations of what ignorance is but I want to use my simple understanding of it.
The ignorance I am talking about is what I would call a “lack of basic knowledge of how things work”. Despite the living fact that we have some of the most educated cadres in the world and some of the greatest minds, we find ourselves playing second fiddle to everyone else. The Bible says “my people perish for lack of knowledge.” We are educated but lack knowledge on how to make things work in Africa. We are educated but we lack knowledge of ruling ourselves, developing ourselves and living together as a people.
To me this is the kind of ignorance that is responsible for all our woes as a continent. We are the richest continent on earth in terms of natural resources. We are the richest in terms of diligent labour force. We have it all in this continent but we live in abject poverty. Our nations are destroyed. Our people are desperate. Poverty has become our life style. Poverty has become our culture.
Does anyone out there have any reason why we are poor in Africa when we have all we need? We have made the whole world rich but Africa. We have made the whole world a heaven on earth but Africa. We have made the whole world wealthy but ourselves. Who in the world is rich or wealthy and has not had their share in our resources and wealth as a continent? We have accepted the label and stigma from those we have made rich calling us a “3rd world country”. We have thus shrunk in everything to this status of being 3rd to nothing. My heart sinks.
What is it that we do not have in Africa? We have minerals, the best and the largest. We have wildlife, the biggest and the best.
Now we cannot even sell our ivory, our means of livelihood. We have energy, free sun and we are surrounded by great seas.
Look at the great forest in the Congo. We have oil fields. We have everything. God loaded Africa with resources. He loaded Africa with the wealth of the world. The whole world has come to Africa over centuries to mine and take wealth and build themselves up. See how great and beautiful their cities are. See how great and beautiful their roads and everything else are.
They have even called themselves the first world. A world that has minimum resources but has become first to those who have plenty resources.
I am glad that the Bible teaches me that the first shall be the last and the last first. Maybe that day is coming when Africa can wake up.
Where I stand now, I want to think and believe our greatest challenge is ignorance. We do not even know what we have. We do not even know how rich and wealthy we are. We have believed that we are third and cannot do anything on our own. We are stuck in this trap. We cannot exploit our own environment. It’s not about education anymore. We are too educated. It’s about knowledge. It’s about ignorance. We are just ignorant and it’s a culture thing.
The way forward is clear if we want to walk it. Let us all gain knowledge of our environment and things. Let us make use of what we have. How can we be beggars when we are the owners and producers? We need people to have at least a working knowledge of their surroundings. Do you know we have people with degrees who have never seen a piece of gold or diamond just to mention a few? Do you know we have geologists who do not know what is in their own environments?
All I am saying is that ignorance is costly. Ignorance has cost us as a people. It will continue to cost us until we rise up and demand ignorance must fall. It has cost us even in our daily living as individuals. We are paying so much for our ignorance.
Some people are getting rich exploiting our ignorance. To me our level of ignorance is not acceptable now. Poverty is bred in this ignorance. This status has to change in Africa. We can do it if we really want to. Maybe we are now enjoying the status because we have even accepted it as us. At least not me. I have come to a point where I hate ignorance. Maybe you have not seen its pain in human lives. I have seen it. It must fall. I see it in families, marriages, church, politics, business, sports and everywhere. It is just a snare. Africa must set herself free from ignorance.
A friend of mine in South Africa is doing a campaign called Africa Must Read. This is aimed at eliminating ignorance in the continent. Africa surely must be saved.
Kilton Moyo is the author of The Church at War and founder of Citizen Africa Foundation and can be contacted on +263 775337 207 or +263712384 841 or on email; [email protected].
