By RICH ISAAC KETANI
Poverty, famine, crime, genocides and Aids are words which plague Mother Africa’s name.
Demons, which bring shame to Mother Africa.
That’s what they say, some think you are full of heathens with no sense of religion and a home to animals and animism, a land of savages.
That’s what they think, they say you cannot judge a book by its cover. They have coloured you dark, painted you dark.
Others say you are the continent of 5Ds — debt, diseases, drought, dependency and desertification.
They have painted you with a paint of poverty placed perception.
Dr J E K Aggrey said: “My people of Africa, we were created in the image of God, but men have made us think that we are chickens and still think we are, yet we are Eagles. Stretch forth your wings and fly, do not be content with the food of chickens.”
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Patrice Lumumba said: “The day will come when history will speak, Africa will write its own history, it will be a history of glory and dignity.”
Africa, you have already written your own history, you are the home of great leaders, ideas and minds.
Like Dr Aggrey father of African education, Dr Kwame Nkurumah, Dr Kenneth Kaunda, Julius Nyerere, Thabo Mbeki, Robert Mugabe, Walter Silsulu, pan-Africanist Nelson Mandela a symbol of Africa.
Dr Ellen Sirleaf Johnson first female president, Kofi Annan former United Nations secretary-general.
Dr Phillip Emegwali is said to be the father of the internet by CNN, going back to the time of Shaka Zulu the military genius, Mzilikazi the founder of the Ndebele Kingdom, Bishop Samuel Ajavi Crowther of Nigeria the first African Bishop of the Church of England. Tertullian, Origen, Clement and Augustine were some of the great minds and influencial leaders of the early church.
Biblical characters Simon of Cyrene who helped carry the cross of Christ, the treasure of Queen Candice of Ethiopia of Acts 8 who brought the gospel to Sudan, Robert Moffart, the first to translate the whole Bible into an African language.
The invention of mathematics is placed firmly in African prehistory.
The oldest known possible mathematical object is the Lebombo bone, which was discovered in the Lebombo Mountains of Eswatini and dated to approximately 35000BC.
Many treatments used today in modern medicine were first employed in Africa centuries ago.
The earliest known surgery was performed in Egypt around 2750BC. Medical procedures have been performed in ancient Africa before.
The industrial ‘revolution’ would have never happened had it not been for Africans smelting iron over 2 500 years ago.
Ancient Tanzanians had been producing carbon steel long before Britain industrialised metallurgy.
Some of the world’s greatest and oldest architectural masterpieces are in Africa.
The pyramids of Giza, the Step Pyramid, the city of Great Zimbabwe, the Nubian Pyramids — all of these iconic sites are proof of the highly advanced system of architecture and engineering that ancient Africans developed.
The Pharaonic civilisation of ancient Egypt is one of the world’s oldest and longest-lasting civilisations.
Do they know the first university in the world is Sankore University in Timbuktu, capital of Mali?
Founded in Timbuktu in the 13BC century, Sankoré is the oldest university in the world.
Timbuktu’s literary output was enormous, and included works covering the history of Africa and Southern Europe, religion, mathematics, medicine and law.
At its peak, long before Europeans built universities, the university at Timbuktu had an average attendance of around 25 000 students within a city of around 100 000 people.
It was the source of pride among African-Caribbean communities worldwide, as it was a great intellectual institution dating back to civilisations in Mali, Ghana and Songhay — particularly during the 12th to 16th centuries.
