Africa: Time to Return to Our Original African Values

Ray Morphy


One thing that is clear from the economic meltdown ravaging the entire world today is that the age of consumerism is almostover. And accompanying the death of consumerism is the collapse of the false and contrived socio-economic system called capitalism. Capitalism is false because it is abnormal to the natural behaviour of the majority of the human race. It is incontrovertible that capitalism and its adjunct consumerism are both inventions of the modern man of the Western hemisphere. It is a system that has no foundation in the natural interactions and inclinations for mankind.

For most of the human race, communalism is the practice of natural tendency and preference. It is a system wherein most resources are owned communally and are used by everyone according to his need. Status in such a society is not indicated by acquisitions and material symbols; rather, people are respected as a result of their contribution to the welfare of the whole group. There is no pressure, as it were, for people to exploit either the society or the environment. Each man is more or less his brother's keeper. It is the practice of communalism that has assisted humanity to survive this long. But with the coming of the Judaeo-Christian ideals of selfish concerns, egotistical acquisition and personal prosperity or salvation, emphasis moved from the group to the individual. Consequently, man lost his natural God-given inclination to good neighbourliness and kindness.


Here in Africa, man, from time immemorial, has lived in tune with the environment. The activities of our ancestors were largely in tandem with the nature of the earth and its sustenance. Our natural way of life neither hurt the earth nor depleted its resources. Our lifestyles and world view conditioned us to acquire only what we needed, unlike the Western model where men not only took what they did not need, they also killed any tribes or people who stood in their way, hence the genocidal wars of this world. Of course, we Africans had battles with neighbours, but they were mere skirmishes that were quickly settled. Nowhere in the history books is it stated that indigenous communities engaged in genocide, until African people began to adopt the decadent materialistic systems of the Western hordes. As a matter of fact, morally, our ancestors were in advance of the West. Today, it is clear that the Western acquisitive model is the woe of the world and would bring the earth to ruin unless mankind abandons that unworkable self- destructive social model wherein status is indicated by material symbols. Clearly, human development need not have such massive negative consequences on the ecosystem and humanity as is being felt around the world. Consider the threat of global warming and the economic and financial meltdown. Mankind has progressed through several epochs, but no other period has mustered a threat higher than the current one the white race constructed and foisted on the world.

Nevertheless, we in Nigeria must decide whether to continue to follow the failed Western model or return to the African communal model that is hallmarked by hospitality and a concern for one another. The communal model of life developed by our ancestors places score on human beings rather than on material things. That is why a truly rich man in the African sense is the man who has a large number of people in his family, which includes his children, wives and relatives. A man's strength in that system is defined by his ability to organise, farm and dance. It also includes his generosity during communal feasts and festivals. Men assisted one another in building houses, in farm work and burials.

Inbuilt was a welfare system in which the weak and the sick were cared for by their own relatives. Nobody was really poor because anyone could get food to eat and receive social support from his age grade, his clan or kindred.

How many Nigerians today realise that, in the true African communal setting that our forefathers left for us, there were no jails because there was no crime the way we see it today? Misdemeanours were kept in check by a strong taboo system to which everyone in the community subscribed, unlike in the adopted Western model where only the weak get punished for social infractions. Stealing, murder and looting were unheard of in these shores until the white man introduced his decadent humanity of materialism. Only the old can recall this.

In those days, buyers took what they needed and placed the appropriate sum indicated in the display tray. Try that now and even the neighbourhood kids would steal you blind. Our value system has gone down so abysmally because we blindly adopted the white man's crazy materialism.

We must find a way of regaining the much more sensible values of our forefathers that we have erroneously abandoned. Had we stayed with our own value systems, there is no way our society would have degenerated to this level where the self is the denominator of rulership.

No way would an authentic African see any sense in buying a car for N50 million when many in his family cannot afford school fees. It would have been sacrilegious for anyone to approve N100 million for a house renovation where many people live in cartons and zinc houses. In the African moral system, such a person would be prayed for and sacrifices ordered to cleanse the land. For me, there is no choice except for us to return to our roots, both in our moral conduct and religious practices. That way, our society would regain the respect for life rather than the current situation where people are willing to kill in order to be rich.