If you want to recognize the true character of a person, pay attention to the small things. The same applies to self-examination.
Based on this principle, when I want to keenly assess the true character of an African country and the quality of their development, I completely ignore all their major cities and every development therein. Instead, I focus almost exclusively on the conditions and developments of their rural areas and the quality of the people’s lives.
From this assessment, while most people romanticize Africa’s development and growth, to me barely anything is really happening. Most funds and attention is focused on cities to the detriment and underdevelopment of rural areas.
Africa’s true identity, cultural strength, diverse beauty, values, developmental potential, future growth, and foundation lies in the rural communities and the people. And currently what I see is mostly abandonement, underfunding, and the pretense of advancement in most cities through importing foreign things to show modernization.
Africa has lost its focus and is spending too much time and energy trying to mimic Western forms of development.
Big glamorous African cities that look like foreign cities are not proof of development and national character, but the condition and progress of the rural communities and the people.
It is time for Africa and its leaders to get back to basics.
~Dr. Ikenna A. Ezealah, Ph.D., MBA
Builder of the African Future
Nation Upbuilding 