Africa should cleanse herself from greed
I LOVE reading the book of Proverbs in the Bible. It is so pregnant with instruction for life and I draw a lot of inspiration from it for my desire to see my motherland, Africa, turn and become the giant she is and exercise dominion as purposed by her Maker.
The future of Africa is no longer in the hands of other people or the so called first world but entirely in our hands as Africans. The quality of that future depends on the decisions we will make from this day forward. It is either we maintain the current status quo of begging, violence, inferiority complexes, barbarism and plunder or we decide to shake this “serpent” off and chart a new way.
Whatever we decide to do shall give us the future we want or that which God has predestined for Africa. It is either we remain simple loving simplicity, scorners delighting in scorning and fools hating knowledge (Proverbs 1:22) or we embrace wisdom and desire to change our circumstances. Our future is in our own making. America will not do it for us. China will not do it for us. Russia will not. Japan will not, beloved. It is us who can do for us what has to be done for us at times such as this. We have been too simple, scorners and foolish for a long time and now it is time to wake up. We have shed so much of our blood for vanity for too long. We have sold our own African lives on altars of evil for a long time. Now it is time to cleanse ourselves so we can play our role in the future of Africa and the world over. We need to understand that the future does not require this level of foolishness and mediocrity. I always ask myself how ready is Africa for the future and which future is Africa preparing for or dreaming about. I do not know about you but I am fed up and we cannot continue like this.
Africa, we need to cleanse ourselves. We do not need some prophets or rocket scientist to tell us we need to change our ways and our thinking. It is so obvious that we cannot partake in the shaping of the future of Africa and the world thinking the way we do and doing what we are doing just because we are Africans. Do you realise that we are so quick every time to hide behind this demonic slogan that after all we are Africans? This is how we do things here. To me this is a deception. Mediocrity is not our culture beloved. Dirt is not us. Thugery and violence are not the blood of the African. It is like to be African means foolishness, robbery, murder, theft, barbarism, hatred, bitterness, greed and many more. Why should we define ourselves with such wrong things? We are known as time wasters, non-planners, and all that. Is this really us? I think we are so unfair to ourselves. We need to realise we are not all this and raise ourselves up and out of this pit.
Joseph was thrown into the pit by his brothers who later on came and took him out and sold him. Africa was thrown into the pit by her colonial and cultural history but these will not come and pick you out. They meant to bury you. Now you will have to take yourself out. To me it is time we cleansed ourselves so we can take our position. The whole world does not take us seriously because of how we do things. We are so good in talking and so disastrous in doing things. Our words and our actions are not in agreement. We are a strange lot.
We need to cleanse ourselves from greed. This is our biggest enemy. This is our biggest oppressor. Africa is a greedy lot in all the sectors of our lives. Greed has become the new normal of our communities and we have accepted it as a culture. Africa is not poor because she is poor. Africa is poor because she is plundering herself because of greed. Never mind the foreign manipulators. It is us now and not them. Because we are greedy we have allowed them to continue in our midst manipulating us. Greed in Africa is in the veins of every leadership system. It is in the church as it is in politics. It is in education as it is in business. It defines the present family set up in Africa. We have greedy leaders, fathers, mothers, men of God, young people, businesspeople, lawyers, and everyone else. Greedy people are jealousy of each other. They never support each other. They compete and pull each other down. Being greedy is not different from exercising divination. Actually Proverbs 1:19 says “so are the ways of everyone who is greedy for gain; it takes away the life of its owners.” You do not have to hear from me that Africans are so greedy for gain. We all want to gain from anything no matter what. We would do anything it takes to gain. This is where corruption comes from. Greed is born out of lust, this huge craving for anything. We want power, influence, status, acceptance, and many other things and to gain these we promote corruption and thugery.
This kind of dealing robs us of our future beloved. It robs us of our wisdom and sound judgments. It robs us of our divine place in exercising dominion as a continent. It makes us into a laughing stock. It turns us into beggars and thoughtless people. It is our behavior beloved that is oppressing us as Africa. There is no gain in thievery and corruption. Because of greed, we have taken away our own lives. We have robbed our children of their future and inheritance. What a shame!
My prayer and appeal to my motherland is to come to a place where we can be sober and say no to such. May we come to a place where we can relate and walk together as brothers and dream alike for Africa. We have all it takes but courage. We just need to be agreed on the truth that we need a transformation, that can only happen by the renewing of our minds. It is only Africa who can cleanse herself from this. I think we need to choose now. What do we want, poverty and death or a future full of joy and sufficiency? If you dare dream of a better future, then change your ways. Africa shall be saved.
Kilton Moyo is the author of The Church at War and founder of Citizen Africa Foundation and can be contacted on +263775337 207 or + 263384841 or on email; citizenafricafoundation@gmail.com.