I have read the Bible inside out, all the while looking for a piece of information that seems elusive to be at first glance.
The church beside my house reeled about “The God of Israel” the thunderous claps as the Pastor recounted “The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”
I sighed. I opened my Bible again and began to search for it once more.
“Where is it?” I muttered.
I am an African. I live within the bosom of Mother Africa. These people right here in this small local church are my kin, yet they seem to have more fellowship with the Fathers of a nation thousands of kilometers away.
I have read the bible cover to cover as I mentioned above – The information I was searching for continued to evade. There is only one explanation; it is not there.
What is the business of an African man with the God of Abraham?
All over Africa, the people are held tightly within the bondage of Abrahamism. Christianity, leaning south and Islam in a Northward thrust.
The letters of Paul addressed the Galatians, the Colossians, Corinthians, and even the church of Asia minor.
Where was Africa in this elaborate address?
There is nowhere in the Bible where Igbo people are mentioned. The Yoruba’s are nowhere to be found. The Zulus? Not a single word. The Bantus? Who knows about them. How about the Tutsi’s? Your guess is as good as mine.
Why should a book that has no historical, spiritual, or ethnic kinship with any part of Africa have such a stronghold on the African conscience?
Why is the God of Abraham invoked in our streets and not the God(s) of our ancestors?
Why is the sacrifice of goats and sheep, their blood scattered all over the tabernacle in the old testament a good action?
Why is the sacrifice of goats and sheep in African religions looked upon with disdain by Africans in Africans?
Why is Abraham more kin to us than our forefathers?
The consequence of colonialism is that it resonates within the socio-cultural fiber of the conquered long after colonialism ceases on paper. There is an official declaration of an end to colonialism, but by proxy, we are still under the oppressive shackles of such invasive impositions. Through the course of years, Africa has been subjected to imposed external authorities, mining her not only of her natural resources but also the resonant conscience of her people – we are a people accustomed by an unfair dictate of colonialism to thread in the footsteps of supposed western betters.
It is not enough to free your body; if your mind isn’t free, you are under even more unsparing bondage.
An African man has no business with the history of Abraham. We have no kinship with the tribe of Jacob. We have an identity. We have our fathers, our God(s), and our unique moral conscience. We have a history that captures our story, our past and defines what we are.
We, at this time, are at great risk of losing everything that defines and makes us what and who we are.
The problem with copying what others do or believe is that no matter how piously good you are at it, you will never be anything more than a second fiddle, an unoriginal copycat adjusting to the examples set by a seemingly better.
This means, every African, living in Africa, in America or any part of the world. Any black man has a moral obligation to work towards the total emancipation of the African conscience from foreign impositions designed to keep us in line.
