Diagnosis of the Quintessential African

Children of our fathers, I highlight today, the words and thoughts of one of the stalwarts of British colonial rule; one Lord Lugard who is credited as the founder of modern day Nigeria. These thoughts are the crust of a speech he gave in 1926.

Undoubtedly, these thoughts and mindset are the yardstick on which our continent was partitioned and exploited and these are largely the guiding principles that have shaped and continue to shape our continent's relationship with the western world today.

It is quite easy to be emotional about such thoughts, which undoubtedly show our complecency and so called animal fighting instinct(paraphrased emphasis mine). But what do these thoughts tell us about what we need to do as a people across the continent, for ourselves today and generations to come. We need to rise above our so called short comings and overcome these sometimes impressionable steorotypes.

My question to you, my brothers and sisters is: Do we 'lack the power of organization? Are we conspicuously deficient in the management and control alike of men or business? Do we and our kin who rise to high office love the display of power, but fail to realize its responsibility? and Do we have the courage of a fighting animal -an instinct rather than a moral virtue......'?

We need answers and we need them fast, to ensure and pave the way for our redemption, development, sustainability and overall prosperity of our continent.

God bless Ghana. God bless Africa.

"In character and temperament" wrote Lord Lugard, "the typical African of this race-type is a happy, thriftless, excitable person. Lacking in self control, discipline, and foresight. Naturally courageous, and naturally courteous and polite, full of personal vanity, with little sense of veracity, fond of music and loving weapons as an oriental loves jewelry. His thoughts are concentrated on the events and feelings of the moment,and he suffers little from the apprehension for the future, or grief for the past. His mind is far nearer to the animal world than that of the European or Asiatic, and exhibits something of the animals placidity and want of desire to rise beyond the State he has reached. Through the ages the African appears to have evolved no organized religious creed, and though some tribes appear to believe in a deity, the religious sense seldom rises above pantheistic animalism and seems more often to take the form of a vague dread of the supernatural"

He lacks the power of organization, and is conspicuously deficient in the management and control alike of men or business. He loves the display of power, but fails to realize its responsibility ....he will work hard with a less incentive than most races. He has thecourage of the fighting animal -an instinct rather than a moral virtue...... In brief, the virtues and defects of this race-type are those of attractive children, whose confidence when it is won is given ungrudgingly as to an older and wiser superior and without envy.......Perhaps the two traits which have impressed me as those most characteristic of the African native are his lack of apprehension and his ability to visualize the future"

Pg 70 of The Dual Mandate by F. D. Lugard 1926