Author: Dr. Ikenna A. Ezealah, JD, Ph.D., MBA

Dr. Ikenna A. Ezealah is a is a Builder of the African Future, a visionary, and leader. Dr. Ezealah is a unique multidisciplinary professional whose specialty lies in global governance, international trade, investment, and development law (ITID law) strategy focused on African nation-building and long-term economic transformation. Dr. Ezealah holds a Juris Doctorate (JD), a PhD in Higher Education Leadership, an MBA, a BBA. His academic and professional formation sits at the intersection of law, public policy, economic strategy, and institutional leadership, equipping him to operate across complex national and multilateral environments geared toward African nation-building.

The African Issue

Many overanalyze the issues facing Africa, make effects into causes, and try to treat symptoms without focusing on the root issue with the most far-reaching consequences.

The most fundamental issue facing Africa today is simply that leadership, power, and governance are in the wrong hands. Most who have shared office since the wave of post-independence coups, including “elected” officials today, simply lack the vision, ability, and capacity to lead the people in genuine nation-building.

Every initiative, program, policy, and national strategy by domestic and foreign institutions, will either always fail or be limited in the scope of its success unless governance and power returns to the hands of those endowed by Nature with the natural ability and vision to lead the African people.

When a home lacks parental leadership, children can never supplemental the void because they lack the ability and maturity that Nature assigned to parenthood which is needed to provide order, guidance, and support for the collective development. Despite best efforts by the children, the woeful gaps and disorder will become apparent in all domestic processes. The same with Africa today in all institutions. The wrong people are in office, and those with natural leadership ability have either left or in most cases are just quietly pursing a mundane life of personal success.

The other issue are coups led by people who see the issues and are filled with the genuine desire and energy for real change. But the problem is that in almost all cases, these coup leaders might have the enthusiasm and energy, but they lack the genuine vision and ability to lead comprehensive nation-building! The force required to change, is not the same as the vision and strategy to guide lasting change. Thus, despite the genuine will, most overthrowers will in time become the same as previous governments because they themselves lack what is required.

Those with ability and vision in Africa need to step forward and vigorously engage the process. Form coalitions domestically and in the diaspora, harness your collective resources and expertise, infiltrate institutions, and take possession of governance so that power and leadership can return to the right hands and can be properly applied for the welfare and further development of the African people! People with a lot of education sometimes overthink the simplest issues. Here also, advanced degrees will not earn you an opportunity for governance and leadership, but only vigorous action, strategic coalitions, and sustained noble struggle will win the day.

The opportunity for genuine leadership and governance in Africa, to promote the welfare and development of the African people, will never be given. It must be won by coordinated and organized severe exertion, perpetual vigilance, and unflagging assiduity.

Let those who are serious understand that such a noble struggle is naturally incompatible with the comfortable and predictable life that many wish. For to earn such a victory requires personal cost and sacrifice. But it is worth it, because the collective welfare and development of the African people who look to leadership full of hope for a brighter present and future depend on it!

Servants, helpers, and guardians of the welfare of the African people, discard your tentative volition, step forward, and brace yourself for action.

~Dr. Ikenna Ezealah

The Purpose of Real Education

In accordance with the Laws of Nature, genuine education should:

1) Reveal and help the human being experience the interconnected processes and principles of Nature.

These are collectively the Natural Laws that are an expression of the Divine Laws.

2) Lead to the recognition and activation of the inherent abilities of the soul, to creatively support and further the revealed systems of Nature.

Recognition and experience of Nature will lead to real recognition of the natural abilities of the human spirit, and thus how the human being can activate and use its abilities to support the Natural Laws and further it’s environment.

3) Indigenously develop and progressively transform its own domestic environment and culture.

The human being is subject to the Natural Law, and is thus indigenous to a culture and environment like plants and animals in Nature. Thus, the recognition and use of his natural abilities will indigenously enhance and progressively develop his cultural environment. Same with Nature.

4) Through this, help to facilitate the increased recognition of God’s Activity, and the role the human being is assigned therein.

All processes in Nature and the Universe are an expression of aspects of the Divine Will that issues from God. Thus, the recognition of Natural laws and the creative use of personal abilities will lead to the increased recognition of God’s Activity as the crowning point.

In summary, real education must awaken clarity and personal experience of the Natural Laws, deep self-recognition, the natural abilities of the spirit, the role of the human being in the great system, and thus the increasing recognition of God’s Activity.

The crowning of real education as is pleasing to the Almighty will awaken genuine love and knowledge of self, of Creation, and of the Great Creator’s Living Activity. A love that becomes a living service of actively using one’s natural creative abilities for the progressive transformation, beautification and upbuilding of one’s environment and culture.

May the ray of recognition engild the human beings who are endowed and called to build real education in Africa. So that, through this work, human beings in future might unfold their creative abilities in harmony with Nature and thus to the honor of God.

~Dr. Ikenna Q. Ezealah

The Relationship Between The Soul, Body, Mind, Thoughts, & Feelings  

Nation-building is not just a physical upbuilding, but a conceptual upbuilding marked by a deeper understanding of how the human being interacts with the world through the instruments of the body.

The essay here is only a cursory sketch of the topic and is not exhaustive. To briefly highlight the relationship between the soul, body, and mind, I will use a computer analogy.  

The Mind, Body, and Soul

Human brain = Hardware; Mind/Intellect = Software.  

Computers are comprised of hardware and software. Hardware is the wiring, physical components, and frame of the computer. But software is the finer program derived from the hardware. To see the software, you need energy. Electricity interacts with the hardware and specific codes to produce the software.  

The brain and mind are similar. The brain is the hardware, but the mind is the finer programming derived from the brain. The mind is the software we use to process and interact with the world through formed conceptual codes that becomes an interactive set of beliefs. But the energy that powers the computer is analogous to the energy from the soul that is needed to power the physical body and the brain, thus enabling the latter to flash the finer programming of the mind.  

If you observe two computers and see different applications being browsed, opened, and closed…you would conclude two different people are using the computers, for computers only process commands of the user. The body and brain are similar in that they serve in a forming and executive capacity, always as an expression of a preceding volition. Thus, for two brains to produce two different thoughts in the mind and interpretive feelings in response to the same event, there must be something else operating the mind, like in the case of the computer. And that “something else” is the human soul.  

Summary: There is the person, the computer, and the operating system. A person uses the computer to interact with the operating system. Through internet connection, the latter gives the person access to a world wide web of downloadable information. Similarly, the human soul uses the brain to interact with the material world through the mind. The mind, being the software of the brain, is able through the inner-net connection of the soul to access the world of thoughts and impressions from its wider environment. Therefore, the software in relation to the person is the mind in relation to the soul.  

Mindfulness, therefore, is not the effort of the mind to become aware of itself, but an effort of the soul to release itself from association with thoughts, in order again to perceive its unbounded nature as a soul whose inner stirrings produce the thoughts and feelings it is experiencing. Returning to this center, we are then able to “see” with new eyes and thereby react differently to the moment.  

Thoughts, Feelings, and Instincts in Relation to the Mind and Brain  

Then there are the natural instincts of the body, which are innate biological responses to the physical environment. Feelings are produced when the mind through thoughts assigns a definite meaning to instincts. Thus, feelings are always associated with a type of thought-belief. A feeling is never a primary response, but always secondary. Thought is primary and precedes feeling.  

Think of fear. An animal approaches, and adrenaline might rush in response to the stimulus of the approaching animal. You see and sense energy in the form of the animal coming close. The adrenaline only becomes fear when you assign the thought of impending danger, i.e., the assumption of inevitable harm that may result from the interaction between you and the animal. Thus, to feel fear, you must think and believe a misfortune will be the outcome. The thought-belief turns the adrenaline into the defined physiological state(feeling) of fear. However, someone else might have adrenaline but, in their love of animals, believe they will enjoy the animal. Here, their thought-belief turns the adrenaline into the feeling of excitement and joyful anticipation. In both instances, a definite thought interacts with an instinct to produce a defined feeling, i.e., anatomical experience.  

Next there is imagination. After a feeling is generated, the mind forms visual images that corresponds to the specific feeling, which gives birth to imagination. Imagination therefore is the result of the combined working of feeling and intellect.  

To organize this, we must consider the explanation above about the brain and intellect. Just like the physical brain produces the metaphysical counterpart of the intellect, so does the physiological feeling produce the metaphysical counterpart of “imagination” that is always characterized by that specific feeling. One of the many practical implications is that when we or society “feel strongly” about anything, it means we have become fixed to a specific thought-belief, outside of which we cannot see. Furthermore, when everything becomes “how we feel”, it usually means we are losing the capacity to perceive the thought-belief that is creating how we feel. Thus, it is only when we try to objectively examine, question, and transcend our fixed meanings and limited feelings that we can open ourselves to perceive the all-embracing nature of Truth.

The descriptions here, when elaborated and expanded, can form a necessary foundation for the transformation of some societal institutions and systems in the process of nation-building. Even a different form of education. But in times to come I intend to go deeper and demonstrate how this can be done.

~Dr. Ikenna Q. Ezealah

The Inner Burning

There comes a point in a man’s life when usual enjoyments in the West no longer satisfy him, for his soul burns for something more. He vacations in the most exotic places, eats at the fanciest restaurants, sees beautiful things, experiences foreign advancements and achievements abroad, enjoys a pleasant life with access to everything he needs…but he is still filled with a great unquenchable longing that none of these seem to satisfy.

Day and night this longing presses for something more. The great burning and longing for nation-building at home.

The desire to collaborate and build something original at home, using his own indigenous abilities, for the progress and development of his own people. He senses that no matter how much he enjoys overseas, he will always feel like an outsider because the structure and progress of the foreign environment will never feel like a personal original achievement from his own spirit and those of his people. He does not wish merely to be a neat spoke in a pre-designed wheel, but he wishes to creatively fashion his own indigenous wheel, design the spokes, and set the direction for its national motion! Thus, to nation-build!

Across the world, there are many Africans who feel this irrepressible burning and restlessness deep within, which does not permit them to be comfortable with the mundane but urges them onward in search of a higher cause to give their innate abilities.

The burning cannot be explained or understood with earthly words if you do not feel it. It would be as inexplicable to the outsider as members of Pharoah’s court who could not understand why Moses, despite access to all the abundance of Pharaoh’s Palace in Egypt, would feel the burning need to go into the wilderness in search of something different. Yet this is not a question of a saviour complex, but simply the sincere desire to partake (no matter how little) in the process of nation-building and helping to redirect the trajectory of the African future.

For those who feel the call, I say… may the burning intensify! Its searing is a northern star guiding us to the goal. May all who feel this burn be similarly attracted so that, through the union of similar sparks by committed actions, it will burst into a collective flame whose transformative fire will rebirth Africa like a phoenix resurrecting from its own ashes.

So may the burning intensify and unite fellow builders of the African future for the higher cause of nation-building. It is high-time for serious action.

~Dr. Ikenna Q. Ezealah

The Misdirected Energy

Energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transferred. 

The creative energy for nation-building that has been given to the current generation of Africans, fills our souls as a great impulse for collective action. 

However, most people are not focused on and committed to nation-building, but personal advantage, economic self-interests, and mundane comforts. 

Thus, the intensity of this creative energy is just transferred into other indulgences, and expresses itself there. 

Observe the intensity and almost fanatical interest in international league football, in the flamboyance of parties and much other social extravagances. The potent energy there.

Participating in these activities are not in themselves bad and the issue, rather the issue is the intensity of focus, interest, and importance given to them that reveal a misdirected energy.

A misappropriation of the creative force meant to prioritize nation-building, instead is used to prioritize lesser things to the exclusion of nation-building.

Majoring in the minor and hailing the golden calf of transience instead of focusing on the higher order. All indulgences should still operate within the collective action of nation-building. 

It is time to redirect the creative energy to its original use, so that when two or more Africans are gathered, reinforcing sparks always fly about nation-building. 

…Then afterwards other enjoyments can follow.

~Dr. Ikenna Q. Ezealah

The First Step for Africa: Leadership and Education

Education is the womb of the national mind. Leadership is the compass that orients the national mind toward an ever-higher goal of further development. 

Education here does not necessarily mean contemporary schools, but institutions and systems that consolidates, organizes, and generationally transfers indigenous knowledge, continues building on it, and enlightens about cultural identity. And leadership here can only occur within the framework of this indigenous knowledge and identity, and thereby steadily progresses it.

If you picture a chain or an ouroboros, then the beginning and the end (thus the first and last link that unites and completes the circle of continuity), is leadership and education. 

If you wish to liberate and rapidly advance a people, these are the two areas to target, for they are the primary pillars upon which societies are based and develop. Everything else is details. 

Historically when foreigners wish to subjugate a people, what they could not directly achieve through the military they achieved indirectly through education that infiltrated cultural knowledge, and also by toppling or controlling leadership. It is always the same pattern.

When a people are weak in these areas, no matter how much effort they expend elsewhere, they are lost. 

If you examine Africa today on these two pillars of leadership and education, a desolate picture presents itself. Since initial independence of many African countries (1) real leadership has been lacking after the demise of the early forefathers, and (2) the inherited education institutions were not indigenously adapted to the people, but just adopted and maintained. And many of these institutions have even retrogressed. African leaders have so little faith in the education systems they supervise that they send their children to foreign schools. What now?

The foundation for the right type of education in Africa needs to be laid anew. From the ground up.

Builders of the African future should first focus their energy on these two primary areas in order to achieve comprehensive and enduring results. All other sectors are consolidated within education, and the crowning of the right education for a society is the right leadership who leads onwards. Leadership here is meant not just in a person, but the pipeline and mentorship system that keeps the link in one generation fastened to the next, so the whole national chain of continuous leadership remains taut into the future.

If you cannot lead and educate your people the right way, all other efforts are in vain or at best will be limited in scope.

To build a brighter African future, the first step is leadership and education. Those who carry the natural gift of education should unite, as well as those endowed in the natural sense of leadership who are committed to service. Through working together, we will create a brighter African present and future of which we will be proud.

~Dr. Ikenna A. Ezealah, Ph.D., MBA
Builder of the African Future

Leadership and “Believing in Yourself”

Today I wish to address the following quote I heard about leadership, “If you are a leader, you should believe in yourself and get others to believe in you.” There are two parts to this statement I will examine. 

“If you are a leader, you should believe in yourself.”

In real leadership, believing in yourself is only secondary and never first place. Let me explain. There is a power that flows from on high. When a person who carries the qualities of leadership opens himself to it through his volition, then the power fills him, animates his qualities, and makes him feel confident. The animated qualities are then expressed in earthly works that are exemplary, having a leading and guiding effect, and thus sets the person apart. The enhancement from this inner process becomes the confidence the person feels and what his environment perceives.

However, most people do not use their intuition to sense the first part of this process, but only use their intellect to observe the secondary and earthly effects. Thus, they conclude that it was simply “believing in yourself”, that the person is the exclusive source and reason for all the leadership effects he is now experiencing. This idea is one-sided and incomplete, for his volition was only the lever that opened him up. However, it was the living power he received from on high that animated his qualities and was thus the real cause. Thus, believing in oneself should only be a byproduct of belief in the living power that flows from on high, otherwise it will become vanity that will hinder the unfolding of real leadership. 

“If you are a leader, you should… get others to believe in you.”

The statement is categorically false. A real leader never makes any attempt to get others to believe in him. His whole being, animated qualities, and expressed abilities will be felt and cause others to naturally believe in him as a leader. It is only those who do not carry the calling of real leadership and who, sensing the inner gap yet wishing to be esteemed as a leader, overcompensate by spending energy trying to get others to believe in them. When a real leader, no matter how modest his beginning, becomes active in the right way, then his manner of working will have a leading effect wherever he is and cause doors to open through people. Through continued diligence, he will eventually be led to that position where he can exercise his animated abilities over a broader collective.

A real leader fixes his gaze on the Laws of Nature and the Cause at hand, and will not divert energy trying to gather belief from others. The latter will naturally come the more focused and diligent the person is along the course of his inner calling. Just like a magnet attracts and organizes smaller metallic bits around it through its stronger magnetic nature, so also will a real leader who becomes active in the right way naturally attract and organize the confidence of others, so that others believing him develops as a consequence of his own nature.

Real leaders, fix your gaze upward and focus on the task at hand! Leave everything else alone, for it will come of its own accord.

~Dr. Ikenna Q. Ezealah

Applying The Natural Law To African Heads of State

We need leaders in Africa who are grounded in the Laws of Nature, and who use the principles therein to form all their policies and initiatives. I will give you an example of how the Natural Laws as applied to former heads of state can be used to support further African development.

In Nature, there is never waste. All lifeforms during decay are recycled back into the ecosystem to support new lifeforms. Think about fruits, plants, bodies of animals and insects. The nutrients from their decay are not wasted but recycled into the soil, and reused to strengthen new growths. A continual giving and taking. Such is the Creator’s Will!

Do we follow this Natural Law in Africa for former Heads of State? All the insights of former Heads of State, do we store and recycle them in a structured way so they are used to support new heads of state, governments, and other social forms? Hardly. Once a person is out of office, their insights are hardly used to support new initiatives. In Nature, even poison plants can enrich the soil during decay, so also even the worst heads of state can enrich current African development. But how? To support African development, following the Laws of Nature I would create the following:

Continental Presidential Advisory Council (CPAC).

The CPAC would be a council composed of all former African Heads of State. Their cumulative experiences and insights contain personalized understanding of nuances in their various countries and external influences. The CPAC would be organized and coordinated to provide advisory insights to the policy initiatives of Regional Associations, the AU, Governments, and all other bodies forming legislation and initiatives. The insights from previous experiences strategically used to enrich the soil of new ones. The CPAC would also have branches at the country level.

After a president leaves office, the Secretariat of the CPAC would conduct a comprehensive interview with the former head of state to meticulously document their experiences, challenges, successes, and failures. A thorough analysis for posterity. These analyses, when published, would be championed by the various Ministers of Education and used in academic institutions across the Continent for governance, policy, and leadership education. Comparative analysis would be conducted for the various countries to even see patterns in global geopolitical influences, so that no experience is wasted, but used to support new policies and initiatives for African development.

In Africa, we should seek and follow the Laws of Nature in everything if we wish to nation-build the right way. Everything we form and do must arise from a principle in Nature and be guided by it. In this way, we build a strong foundation to form lasting works that will bring value and continual upliftment to the people.

~Dr. Ikenna Q. Ezealah

To Builders of the African Future…

Builders of the African Future,

Do not be distracted by earning degrees, accolades, and prestige here in the West. All these things are merely tools that are meant to serve a higher purpose: Nation-building in Africa. A degree and a profession, no matter how hard-earned, is only a tool, and the value of a tool lies solely in its application to produce lasting value. When you purchase an elaborate tool kit and construction materials with a hammer chiseled from the finest steel, to take pride and classify their acquisition as the achievement is to miss the point.

The decisive question is: What are we using all these materials and tools to build? Destiny presses for an answer.

With all the collective expertise, degrees, and foreign achievements of Africans in the diaspora, I ask: what is the tangible evidence of a corresponding Nation-building back in Africa across all institutions? To be content using all our endowments for a private life abroad so long as we and our personal circle are satisfied, is to narrow the scope of our possibilities and responsibilities. We should set our gaze higher!

We cannot outsource African development to international organizations and governments, no matter how convenient it is. No. Africans must step forward and take the lead in all matters of African development. Must feel personal responsibility in setting the course of the African destiny. Thus, Nation-building is the call of our time.

Will it be easy? No. Will entrenched political interests create severe difficulties? Yes. Will there be failures and setbacks? Yes. But will it be worth it? Yes. Everything worthwhile requires personal sacrifice, and we must be willing to make it. To really make change in Africa, we cannot desire a comfortable life and we must become comfortable with the uncomfortable.

If the specially endowed Africans at home and abroad lack the will, courage, and interest to create a brighter future for the disadvantaged masses, then who will do it? Who is left to struggle for their welfare, to serve their needs, to further their development? Where are the true servants of the people?

To help the African people release their natural abilities, to be productive in indigenous institution and system building, and thereby always be hopeful and happy… is a beautiful goal.

Builders of the African future, refocus your gaze and remember the tools in your hands are not the achievement, but only the means to be applied for a higher purpose. At the crossroads of destiny, the call of our time resounds in one direction: transformative Nation-building in Africa.

May all those who are in earnest come together, pool their expertise and abilities together, work together, and nation-build together.

Onward & Upward!

~Dr. Ikenna Q. Ezealah