BY CHRIS ANIEDOBE
Young people, I was there. If you were, you would be thanking God for Christianity and Islam. Before they came, every African carried his penis like a deity. We worshipped sacred trees, dense forests, rivers, mountains, and even animals like crocodiles. Every object or natural phenomenon that seemed mysterious was worshipped rather than interrogated. Every household had a deity, not to mention the ones planted in front of their entrances.
So when I was young, I saw Africans drowning in deities. It was a dense landscape of gods. We slept with them in our rooms and carried them as ancestral dieties on our personal trays, and even wore them on our bodies. We were suffocating ourselves with gods.
With Christianity and Islam came light and freedom from a thousand deities. The difference is that instead of a thousand deities, we now have a thousand churches of the same God.
You could argue that the African is deeply spiritual. That's part of the story. But could it be that he lacks the desire for innovation and reinventing himself? That's also part of the story of why he has stagnated.
All Jesus ever taught was love one another. Those who find fault with this teaching and blame Christianity for the woes of African society are really just being anti Christ while trying to sound philosophical.
Let's blame whatever it is that made some Africans worship animals, trees and nature. In Nigeria, cows have more rights than humans and Africans are slaughtering fellow Africans because of cows rather than innovate and ranch their cattles. Or should one say, that their cows are treated like deities.
These issues are deeply organic and I would be the first to admit that Jesus would prefer productive Africans to lazy Africans who invest far too much energy on religious matters rather than innovation. Let's leave Jesus out of African man's laziness and go to work.
The first job we might need to do is kill looters and corrupt public officers found guilty of embezzlement. Believe me, Jesus wouldn't have problem with that if we do so fervently, fairly and honestly. Jesus desires an honest African society and is not standing in the way of eliminating or jailing public officers found guilty of corruption. In fact, he assures us that they would go to hell. Africans should send these people to hell and take back their lives and their resources. That's the China way.
Jesus is not standing in the way, corruption and laziness are the twin bane of African societies. Send looters to Jesus and he will surely send them to hell. Let's start from there.
And for those guilty of electoral malfeasance, the only electoral reform we ever needed is send them to jail.
Traditional African religions. Image via Wiki Commons
So when I was young, I saw Africans drowning in deities. It was a dense landscape of gods. We slept with them in our rooms and carried them as ancestral dieties on our personal trays, and even wore them on our bodies. We were suffocating ourselves with gods.
With Christianity and Islam came light and freedom from a thousand deities. The difference is that instead of a thousand deities, we now have a thousand churches of the same God.
You could argue that the African is deeply spiritual. That's part of the story. But could it be that he lacks the desire for innovation and reinventing himself? That's also part of the story of why he has stagnated.
All Jesus ever taught was love one another. Those who find fault with this teaching and blame Christianity for the woes of African society are really just being anti Christ while trying to sound philosophical.
Let's blame whatever it is that made some Africans worship animals, trees and nature. In Nigeria, cows have more rights than humans and Africans are slaughtering fellow Africans because of cows rather than innovate and ranch their cattles. Or should one say, that their cows are treated like deities.
These issues are deeply organic and I would be the first to admit that Jesus would prefer productive Africans to lazy Africans who invest far too much energy on religious matters rather than innovation. Let's leave Jesus out of African man's laziness and go to work.
The first job we might need to do is kill looters and corrupt public officers found guilty of embezzlement. Believe me, Jesus wouldn't have problem with that if we do so fervently, fairly and honestly. Jesus desires an honest African society and is not standing in the way of eliminating or jailing public officers found guilty of corruption. In fact, he assures us that they would go to hell. Africans should send these people to hell and take back their lives and their resources. That's the China way.
Jesus is not standing in the way, corruption and laziness are the twin bane of African societies. Send looters to Jesus and he will surely send them to hell. Let's start from there.
And for those guilty of electoral malfeasance, the only electoral reform we ever needed is send them to jail.
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