Democracy, Tribalism, Racism, Ethnicity and Underdevelopment in Africa -By Nneka Okumazie

Across Africa, what tribe or ethnic group are known for their sincerity, where everyone knows that people from this place rarely or hardly lie, and that quality has led to others, hiring them, doing business with them, or moving branches in droves to their location?

In Africa, what tribe is known for their collective effort, where instead of building individual houses, people would rather build so that all of them can have, or instead of buying private cars, there is a general effort for collective and accommodating mobility, or instead of having the best education for a few or similar services, everything is designed for collective benefit, progress, first and always?

There are often ethnic bias and tribal hate across countries in Africa, sometimes resulting in conflicts and other times responsible for inflexible decisions, but it is unlikely that any tribe in Africa is better than others.

There are tribes that seem to have certain advantages, but no tribe in Africa has used any advantage they have to the striking advancement of their people, for what leads to progress. Tribe or origin is important to people, but some have made it the only thing they have against others, rather than to look inward to seek what they can do to make progress. Their ways make advantages meaningless.

Most tribes in Africa have nothing to offer themselves as a people. They cannot get together to seek out short or long term plans on how they can achieve advancement or to ensure that their past problems do not continue into the future. What is clear and real to them becomes the denial they live in, while they face others, basing superiority simply to provenance.

Many Africans from all tribes are suffering in their own communities and in several places around the world. There are those who would drown at sea seeking to escape their homeland. There are all these problems that people of different tribes have that should be more important, seeking change, than to look for who seems better or worse, according to the lies the people there tell themselves.

There are those who do not only side with tribe but with religion against others. All religions in Africa, local or foreign, have not been able to shape the people towards development. Some hate a certain religion, some belong to one, some belong to none, some have multiple, some hide theirs, whatever the case, there is no development in Africa.

Religion in Africa precedes the colonial masters. Africa then could not use it to build values into the mission to develop. The parallel to present applies. Africans can keep their racism, clashes of ethnicity and tribalism alive, it is expected that when there is no going forward, it is what is around that people there will engage with, mostly the unimportant and useless, helping their enemies for free. [Joshua 5:13, And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand: and Joshua went unto him, and said unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries?]