DEVELOPMENT in African worldview is not lateral or a movement from one place to another. To develop is to be rooted and grow like a tree.
A tree without roots does not grow.
A tree that can be moved from one place to another is not a tree, but a log.
It is only good for firewood.
Some use it for poles to build their houses and fence their homestead.
Some use it for chairs to sit on.
Those who see development as a movement from one place to another can also use it to make ships to go and rob other people’s lands.
They confuse development as progress and progress as freedom to escape from their own lands to go and rob other peoples’ lands.
A people who move from one place to another are not developed, have not developed and cannot develop.
They are called nomads.
Nomads do not stay in one place.
They move from one place to another in search of green pastures.
When they have squandered the pastures, they move to the next.
People who move from one place to another like nomads are squanderers.
They will never grow and have never grown or built any civilisations of their own.
They depend on what nature can provide and after they have squandered it move on to conquer other peoples’ fresh lands.
People who abandon their own lands cannot develop the lands they have abandoned.
People leave their own lands and go in search of new lands for pastures have never lived in peace with people whose lands they conquer.
Their trade is war.
Their industry, are weapons of destruction.
Those who see development as moving from one place to another in search of the green pastures of other lands and kill the owners of those lands and make them theirs, are called colonialists in our history classes.
They are called imperialists in the language of economics and politics.
The idea of development as movement from one place to another is an idea that colonialists have fashioned for themselves as their philosophy of conquest.
They have turned it into their religion.
Its name is evangelism.
Its motto is: “Go ye unto the world and conquer!”
They have turned it into songs in their churches.
The command is: “Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war; with the cross of Jesus as a weapon of mass destruction.”
Evangelism is the conquest of the souls of the people whose lands they have colonised.
The other names for development as freedom to go and conquer the world for green pastures are globalisation, democracy and international human rights.
Among the institutions they have put in place to accelerate globalisation as a philosophy of conquest and domination of the economies of the world are the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
The project of using funds from these institutions for purposes of dominating the economies of the lands they intend to globalise is called capitalism.
Among the agents used to carry out the project of capitalism in the countries whose resources or green pastures are under the control of globalisation are non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
These do not bring true development to Africa.
True development cannot be achieved by people who are funded by people whose philosophy of development is capitalism.
Capitalism does not bring development to Africa.
It brings neo-colonialism and dependency on the West.
Its purpose in Africa is to re-colonise Africa.
Development in African worldview cannot be achieved by people or received from people who abandon their own lands and are always on the move to conquer other peoples’ lands.
Development in African worldview is growth.
Growth can only be achieved by people who are rooted in the soils of their land.
Development in African worldview is to grow like a tree firmly rooted in one place in the rich soils of its land.
It grows higher as its roots thrust deeper into the soils of its own homeland.
The higher it grows the deeper its roots thrust deeper into the earth.
At the same time as the tree grows upwards and the roots grow deeper into the earth, the branches spread sideways bringing forth leaves, fruits and a beautiful shade for people to sit under and for birds to perch.
This is what Africans call kugarika.
Some call it kudekara.
The boastful call it mutambarakede.
This is our philosophy of development as Africans.
It cannot be achieved by people on the move.
It is achieved by people who are rooted in the soils of their land and control all the wealth beneath and above their land.
That is the true meaning of development, sovereignty and independence in African worldview. That is the true meaning of Africa for Africans.