Africans’ Reconciliation and Reconstruction: A Necessary Response to Emerging Neo-Enslavement and Its Threats to Human Dignity ()
1. Introduction: Is There Not a Cause?
We crave the indulgence of the reader to be allowed to use an interesting story in the Bible to bring proper focus on the topic of this position paper. It is the story of a character by name Goliath (which means exile). He was a Philistine giant of more than nine feet tall. As champion of the Philistines, Goliath immobilized an entire army of Israelites by challenging one of them to a duel with him. His intimidating physical stature, his feature, and his attitude made the Israelites forget they had an absolute Champion in the Lord their God. It took a bold shepherd boy to puncture the fallacy in the rebuke of his elder brother. With a sense of holy anger, David asked his elder brother: “Is there not a cause?” (1 Sam. 17:29, New King James Version). In other words, David was surprised that his elder brother Eliab was shouting him down and asking him to keep quiet even though God’s name was being blasphemed by a godless giant—so publicly and so blatantly! Shut up? No, not David. He looked beyond the issues raised by his brother, Eliab; he expressed indignation and readiness to fight without any reward. Hertzberg (1964) suggests that David finds it scandalous that an uncircumcised man, who worshipped dead gods should insult the people of God and by extension the living God Himself. If David were to be around in the world today, he would have asked us: Is there not a cause to rise up together and defend? In other words, is the fact that new forms of enslavement are emerging (call it neo-enslavement, or neo-colonialism, or whatever other names you choose) not a sufficient cause for which to stand up together and stem the tide of its multiplication? Criticism could not stop David, and while the army stood around helplessly watching, David went into action. With God to fight for him, he saw no reason to wait. To borrow the words of Tyndale House Publishers’ (2004) Life Application Study Bible, “When others looked at Goliath, they saw an opponent too powerful to defeat; when David looked at Goliath, he saw a target too big to miss!” Furthermore on the Goliath challenge, Lockyer (1958) notes that a ready-made suit was of no avail for David. He was wise to discern that he had to meet the giant with the weapon he was used to. Let us also note the religious character of the duel between Goliath and David: while the giant chose to curse David by his gods, David went out to meet Goliath “in the name of the LORD of Hosts”. Lastly, Goliath’s strengths were so obvious and looming (size, armour, and arrogance) that others missed his vulnerability. However, he had a glaring weakness that never occurred to him until David punctured his forehead with only one of his five smooth stones. Let us—Africans, remind ourselves that the battle against our foes is the LORD’S and He will give us victory if we fight it in the name of the LORD of Hosts. The biblical story of David and Goliath serves as a compelling metaphor for Africa’s struggle against powerful global forces. This applies to: African nations, often limited in economic and geopolitical influence, face multinational corporations (MNCs) and foreign powers that exert control over resources, markets, and policies. Companies like Shell in Nigeria or Glencore in the DRC dominate resource extraction, often at the expense of local populations (Okonta & Douglas, 2003). The legal and economic power wielded by these corporations’ mirrors Goliath’s strength, while African nations struggle to assert sovereignty over their economies. Just as David challenged an oppressive giant, grassroots movements in Africa have confronted authoritarian regimes and exploitative policies. The End SARS movement in Nigeria (Adebayo, 2020) and protests against third-term extensions in Uganda and Côte d’Ivoire illustrate how citizens mobilize against entrenched systems despite limited resources. These movements emphasize the power of strategic resistance, much like David’s use of a simple but effective slingshot.
2. The Slave Trade: No Need to Cry over Spilled Milk
We can follow up the somewhat rhetorical question by which we opened this paper with the rather stubborn fact that the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade (TAST, for short) is like milk that has been spilled on the ground—you cannot cry over such milk because it has become irrecoverable, it is lost! No matter what we do today, we shall not succeed in wiping out the records of the experience of TAST. The harm has been done and those of us who are bemoaning this stubborn fact, apportioning blame here and there, will achieve no good results. In fact, further attempts to apportion blame will lead to more hurt feelings—just like adding insults to injury. It is better to heed Ngugi’s (1987) advice. “Weep not, child.” It is on account of the above that we can take a cue from two of the things that God did about man’s predicament. Acts 17:30-31 (New King James Version) put it succinctly this way: “Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead”. Let us look at the first thing He did: He overlooked man’s ignorance. We wish to passionately plead with Africans on both sides of the divide (Atlantic Ocean) to deliberately resolve in their hearts and minds to overlook, as it were, the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade (TAST) and to regard it as an evil that was done in ignorance. This is necessary, firstly because the original participants in the orgy we call the TAST have long been dead and gone for so long now that it is already aeons ago. Who would one hold responsible as the culprit? It is better to let the grave repercursions of what could not be helped in the past be endured now. In other words, it is better to let bygones be bygones. We can achieve this very successfully if we don’t deliberately brood or go over the memories of it, and if we don’t rehearse or relive it as if we were the very dramatist personae in the theatre of that devilish trade. Secondly, we have a command from God who demands that we repent. The question then is: “how is it that we who did not physically participate in the TAST need to repent?” It is for the same simple reason that Jesus gave the scribes and Pharisees who wanted to exonerate themselves from all responsibility of their fathers’ shedding the blood of the prophets and righteous people of old sent to them (their fathers). In other words, since we are the children, grandchildren or great grandchildren of our forebears who sold their contemporaries into slavery, we too are guilty by default. Were we in their shoes, we would have done, in all probability, the same thing our ancestors did (Matt. 23:31). So we are all culpable, and for that reason we must repent and tender apologies to those we have offended (the descendants of those whom our ancestors offended when they sold them into slavery). We should note, at this juncture, that non-repentance has its consequences which every Christian is aware of: God’s judgment is going to be executed by Jesus Christ. The evidence of this is the fact that He (Jesus) was raised up in anticipation of His going to perform that role in future (Acts 17:31, New King James Version). Which of us can face or endure God’s anger and judgment? Hebrew 12:29 describes God as “a consuming fire”.
I Had No Shoes and Grumbled Until....
Helen Keller who was made both vision- and hearing-impaired at only 19 months of age, is credited with the following immortal quote: “I cried because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.” If one takes time to form a mental picture of such a situation for the grumbler or the ingrate, it may evoke some heart-searching on that person’s heart. The case of a person without feet is far worse than that of a person whose lack is shoes only, not feet. The following WhatsApp message went viral some years ago. We have it printed in this paper unedited, (except for a few grammatical corrections we have effected on it): “A king had a male servant who, in all circumstances, always said to him: ‘My king, do not be discouraged because everything God does is perfect, no mistakes.’ One day, they went hunting and a wild animal attacked the king. The servant managed to kill the animal but couldn’t prevent his majesty from losing a finger”. “Furious and without showing gratitude, the king said, ‘if God was good, I would not have been attacked and lost one finger!’ The servant replied, ‘despite all these things, I can only tell you that God is good, and everything He does is perfect, He is never wrong.’ Outraged by the response, the king ordered the arrest of his servant. While being taken to prison, he told the king again, ‘God is good and perfect’”. “Another day, the king left alone for another hunting exercise. He was captured by savages who use human beings for sacrifice. While the king was on the altar to be sacrificed, the savages found that he did not have one finger in place, so he was released as not being ‘complete’ to be offered to the gods. On his return to the palace, he ordered the release of his servant and said, ‘My friend, God was really good to me. I was almost killed, but for lack of a single finger I was let go. But I have a question: If God is so good why did He allow me to put you in prison?’ His servant replied, ‘My king, if I had not been put in prison, I would have gone with you, and would have been sacrificed, because I have no missing finger. Everything God does is perfect, He is never wrong.’” As human beings, we often complain about life and the negative things that happen to us, forgetting that God allows everything to happen for a purpose. We sincerely believe that all Africans on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean can still thank God for not allowing the TAST to wipe out our race entirely. We are the descendants of those that survived. As such, we are to show gratitude to God and arise together for reconciliation and reconstruction. Indeed, that our plight was not worse than it was during the time of that devil-invoked trade is cause enough to thank God for. When we come to the realization that it could have gone worse than it did, we would resolve to thank God for stemming its tide at the time He did. Probably, we have seen the drama on video depicting the case of a man who learned to thank God only after discovering that what he called his bad condition—not having food that was more nourishing than the common “εba” (from the gari) he was preparing—was far better than the condition found in the home of a poorer neighbour and her kids.
3. Emerging Neo-Enslavement in the Sub-Saharan Region: Nigeria in Focus
This term “Neo-enslavement” is not one in popular usage. We coined it as a variant of “Neo-colonialism”. It is a new form of enslavement and colonialism whose evil could be more grievous than that of slave trade. It manifests in myriads of ways and in many countries of the world, especially Africa. For instance, African countries remain heavily indebted to international financial institutions like the IMF and World Bank. The debt crisis of the 1980s led to Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs), forcing African nations to privatize industries and cut social spending, worsening poverty (Rodney, 1972). China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has been accused of ensnaring African nations in debt traps (Brautigam, 2009). Unlike historical colonialism, which required physical occupation, neo-colonialism enables remote resource extraction through financial systems. Offshore banking and tax havens facilitate capital flight, costing Africa an estimated $88.6 billion annually (UNCTAD, 2020). Digital surveillance and financial tracking further ensure compliance with global economic structures that favor Western and Chinese interests. Paradoxically, as the TAST was entrenched in Africa, so is the “Neo-enslavement” getting entrenched. This new phenomenon appears in many forms including: terrorists masquerading as herdsmen, religious persecution, church burning, kidnapping, suicide bombing, imposition of religious laws, armed insurgencies, wanton change of existing constitutions, and invasion of the African traditional culture with strange ideologies that are alien to Africa. The most annoying thing about it is that it is a two-edged sword in that, it is perpetrated by some Africans in Africa against their African kinsmen in Africa. Unfortunately, the very Whites who fuelled the original TAST are touting instruments of this “Neo-enslavement” before Africans! And as more of its nature have become uncovered, some people have now come to see it as being crueler than slave trade. One reason for this school of thought is that it is more dehumanizing than slave trade. Secondly, (and this sounds rather ludicrous!) it looks like there is a global plan to force Africans left behind in Africa to willy nilly either tow the line of its adherents and perpetrators, or else give one’s life for refusing to be forced to embrace it. Thirdly, what makes this emerging force more sinister is that its agenda is ill-motivated and hidden. Fourthly, it is being imposed surreptitiously and disguised as something good for everybody. Fifthly, and worst of all, it is tied to financial aid and economic partnership. Surprisingly, it is perpetrated in Nigeria, one of Africa’s largest economies with a relatively high literacy rate as a developing nation. Nigeria is also the most populous country in Africa whose population in 2016 was put at 182.3 million (Open Doors, 2016). The fact that about one out of every five persons of African origin living in Africa is a Nigerian makes the impact of the problem very deep. Its escalating rate of occurrence, its viciousness and its multidimensional nature are now becoming almost unbearable, filling the media with disturbing news everyday. Omilusi (2016) wonders whether the perpetrators of one form of it are roving terrorists or innocuous cattle grazers. In his study, he posed certain questions which are pertinently relevant for the understanding of this emerging monster of a phenomenon: Why the sudden upsurge of invasions and violent criminalities among these gangs of herdsmen? Are the aggressors… herdsmen or terrorists masquerading as herdsmen? Is there a clandestine agenda of the herdsmen? Who are those arming the herdsmen to unleash mayhem on innocent and defenseless Nigerians? Why are the police incapable of protecting the farmers from violent attacks by… herdsmen? Why is it that the… herdsmen alleged to be behind the inhuman killings and destruction of property always get away with their crimes without being brought to justice? (Omilusi, 2016: p. 48). Ochab (2016), in a research report titled “The persecution of Christians in Nigeria”, indicated that Christians in Nigeria have been systematically persecuted for many years. The kidnapping of 276 secondary school girls in Chibok, Borno State, Nigeria, on April 14, 2014 is cited as one of many. Open Doors (2016) also reports that ongoing persecution of Christians in Nigeria was rated 12th position out of the 50 countries in which Christians are most persecuted in the world. The Institute for Economics and Peace (2015) maintained that the situation continues to deteriorate; Nigeria was ranked 3rd on the 2015 global Terrorism Index which measures the impact of terrorism around the world. Ochab (2016) cites religious extremists and elites, politically violent groups state oppression, and a weak legal framework as some of the sources of the persecution of Christians. Open Doors (2015) has revealed that Africa is the most rapidly growing area of persecution in the world today. Furthermore, the percentage of unreported murders and attacks vary from country to country depending on a variety of factors, including the freedom of the press and sensitivities about reporting incidents. Nigeria, Cameroon and Central Africa Republic are cited as three of the African countries in which this goes on. According to Amaza (2016), cited in Omilusi (2016), the flow of arms in West Africa increased after the fall of Libyan dictator Muammar Gadhafi and the disintegration of the Libyan government. This worsened conflicts in the region from Boko Haram in Nigeria to Tuareg rebels and religiously militant groups in Mali and other parts of the Sahel. In addition, Senegal, Gambia, Guinea-Conakry, Central African Republic, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Cameroon, Chad, and other countries in Africa have been in the throes of armed conflicts resulting in untold hardships, internal displacements and losses of lives and properties. Writing on “Terrorism and insurgency in Northern Nigeria…” Ajibola (2015) found that religious extremism is a major motivation for their insurgency. Buchanan-Clarke and Knoope (2017) have indicated that Boko Haram has evolved into a new type of threat and is still managing to carry out attacks and kidnapping on an almost daily basis. It has managed to adapt to increased military pressure by making greater use of women and children as suicide bombers to attack soft targets, and has increasingly relied on the plunder of villages to sustain itself.
4. Why Africans Must Reconcile and Reconstruct Together Now
After the 1994 genocide, Rwanda’s Gacaca system blended traditional communal justice with modern legal principles. It allowed perpetrators to confess in exchange for reduced sentences, emphasizing restorative rather than punitive justice (Clark, 2010). Sierra Leone’s post-civil war TRC focused on documentation and reconciliation, while the Special Court prosecuted key perpetrators. The dual system balanced accountability with the need for national healing (Shaw, 2005). The new threat to the very existence of Africans as depicted above is a clarion call for unity and togetherness now. The shared experiences of colonialism, economic dependency, and global marginalization should form the foundation for unity (Mazrui, 2003). Strengthening the African Union (AU) and ECOWAS while maintaining respect for local governance structures fosters continental solidarity. The folk aphorism, “united we stand, divided we fall” may be well worn, but its truth is a gem which sparkles still. It is only when Africans on both sides of the great divide get better united and all feelings of ill-will towards one another get dissolved can a way for forgiveness be forged and a meaningful process of reconciliation ensue. No person is perfect; and to err, they say, is human, but to forgive is divine. Vengeance is said to be for God and we should let Him repay in His own way and time. It is likely that many of us had some taste of wisdom stories told to our hearing when we were young through the use of some folk fables such as the one called Aesop’s Fables. We can still learn wisdom through them today. One that is very relevant for our purpose on the issue at hand is titled The Farmer and the Fox. According to Jones (trans. 1994), a farmer was greatly annoyed by a fox which came prowling about his yard at night and caring off his fowls. So he set a trap for it and caught it; and in order to be revenged upon it, he tied a bunch of tow (a combustible rope) to its tail, set fire to the tow and let the fox go. As ill-luck would have it, however, the fox made straight for the man’s field where the corn was standing ripe and ready for harvesting. The field quickly caught fire and was all burnt up, leaving the farmer losing all his harvest. The moral lesson here is that revenge or unforgiveness is a two-edged sword. It is better by far to let God take vengeance on our sworn enemies who wish to give us no rest even on the land God has given us for our heritage. There are several other reasons why now is the time for Africans on both sides of the Atlantic to reconcile and reconstruct. They include the following, among others: We have the supreme reason in what the Holy Bible admonishes us to do: “Be angry and do not sin: do not let the sun go down on your wrath” (Eph.4: 26, New King James Version). If we are truly God’s redeemed people, we would not allow the matter of getting reconciled with one another get delayed any further; it should be a front-burner agenda matter. The cancerous cell of “Africa-kill-Africa” and Africans’ dehumanizing of Africans is fast multiplying itself and may soon become unstoppable unless its tide is stemmed now. Now is the right time for all of Africa (inside and outside the continent) to rise together as a mighty force to bring a stop to wickedness, brutality and corruption that are fast shrouding and swallowing up our beloved continent. We have no other continent we can call our own. This land of black beauty is our heritage from God; so we must keep it with holy jealousy. Our various enemy forces will see our separatedness as a weak spot through which to execute their cruel agenda. So we must rise together, get reconciled as we give and accept apologies from one another, and join forces together to reconstruct whatever damages our mutual heritage has suffered. Already, Africans who are left in Africa have (for too long) been weakened by the brute force and the evil genius of Africa’s enemies who have seized from us our freedoms (of association and of speech). We are too weak to face them alone. Africans in the diaspora should rise to join forces with Africans on the continent to loosen and remove our enemies’ merciless stranglehold on us. The most appropriate time for Africans in the diaspora to heed this “signal of stress” (SOS) is now, not tomorrow; tomorrow would be rather too late! By the way, there is a sense in which “there is never tomorrow”, as the saying goes.
5. Implications for Both Counselling and Religion
During the era of the slave trade, millions of Africans became involuntary immigrants to the New World. This position paper has some implications for both counselling and religion: The paper provides an in-depth knowledge of the slave trade and its ripple effects on Africans. Counsellors and the clergy who read this article will be in a good position to assist clients who are having issues with segregation, discrimination and such behaviours (especially African-Americans), in solving their problems. This goal will be achieved by counsellors and ministers equipping their clients with appropriate coping skills for navigating their way through the confusing maze of life’s vicissitudes that confront them in their hostile environments. Counsellors and ministers of African descent, whether they offer their services on the continent of Africa itself or do so in the diaspora, can better understand the emotions that clients present to them as a result of stories they hear of their African root. This will give them good background data for use in helping such clients. Lastly, counsellors and ministers, after reading this article, should see the need to emphasize to clients and congregation members (who seek their help in acquiring the ability to forgive others) the therapeutic nature of forgiveness which has been annotated copiously in this paper. Other classical examples of those who set bitterness aside and forgave their avowed enemies include Joseph who forgave his brothers even when he became the first foreigner to be a head of state in ancient Egypt. Also, Nelson Mandela forgave the Whites who maltreated and imprisoned him for 27 years. When he became the first Black president in South Africa, his unparalleled level of forgiveness in modern era brought about his elevation to a record high worldwide.
6. Recommendations: The Way Forward
Finally, the following recommendations arise from the issues raised in this position paper: For some of the Africans in the diaspora, the time to see inland Africans as responsible and, therefore, culpable for their relocation to other parts of the world should be over now. If they could find an efficient way to trace their roots, as Haley (1976) did and wrote Roots, Africans in the diaspora might find to their surprise that probably they have interacted unknowingly with Africans still in the continent who are their remote, albeit, biological family members! In that case, we should together and joyfully exclaim, “We are brothers” as Joseph of old revealed to his erstwhile jealous brothers who had sold him to Midian slave merchants some years earlier. We should determine that from now on (and until the Kingdom of God comes for us to live together forever) there is never going to be war or mistrust of one another again. Diaspora-led investment funds like Diaspora Capital Group and initiatives like AfriLabs provide financing for African startups (Anyanwu, 2021). African professionals in the diaspora contribute by mentoring young Africans and collaborating with universities. Organizations like The Africa-America Institute facilitate knowledge-sharing between African professionals abroad and those on the continent. Africans in the diaspora should use their better positions (wealth, greater freedom, economic advantage, skills, exposure, connections, etc.) to inform the world of how new waves of enslavement processes are emerging in Africa today. Their brothers they left behind are suffering in silence, they are being brutalized, maimed, sidelined, maligned, deprived, impoverished, dehumanized and killed on a scale that has never been heard of in the history of mankind. They should not watch on passively until their kith and kin in Africa are annihilated—because that seems to be the hidden agenda of our enemies. Africans in the diaspora are to transform themselves into our mouthpieces to the world—the United Nations (UN), the International Criminal Court (ICC), the Voice of America (VOA), the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the Cable Network News (CNN), Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) and other news media. Also, they should reach out to, and tell the Presidents of their adopted countries, ministers, senators, representatives, people of influence, etc. of new waves of colonialism—“neo enslavement”—that are emerging in Africa. They (Africans in the diaspora) are enjoined to inform such agencies and peoples in non-African countries about the type of inhuman treatments their brothers and sisters in Africa are being subjected to. Africans in the diaspora are to make a plea to foreign powers to come to the rescue of inland Africans and help in charting the path of total and true emancipation for those on whom neo-enslavement is avalanching with the force of a volcano. It should be noted that, seeking justice through the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes while focusing on internal capacity building in other areas prevents dependency. The AU’s push for African-led mediation in Sudan and Ethiopia serves as an example (Gadzala, 2017). Also, strengthening financial institutions like AFREXIMBANK and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) would reduce reliance on Western financial systems (Signé, 2020). Former Heads-of-State in Africa who ruled appreciably well and who are in the “Elder-Statesmen” echelon may need to see themselves as indeed retired but not tired. They can form an “Alliance of Former Heads-of-State” who may have to meet from time to time in order to use the hindsights of their past experiences to facilitate the process of the enthronement of righteous reign by the current leaders who succeeded them in various countries of Africa, especially where religion has clandestinely become transformed into a weapon of oppression. There is no better way to serve one’s continent than in such patriotic and philanthropic ways. Many of the former heads-of-state may be in a position to sponsor such missions with uncanny wisdom and might in order to achieve the success envisaged. The next recommendation will be introduced with a question, and we presume that its answer would be obvious and will form the content of our recommendation. The question is, “At the last Assizes, when each soul shall stand before the judgement seat of Christ (2Cor. 5:10, New King James Version), will Africans (both the ones living in the continent and those in the diaspora) be judged by standards that are different from those of the rest of mankind?” That a resounding “no” is the answer is unarguable. However, there is a sense in which it is reasonable to conclude that if an African is sentenced to eternity in hell (using the same yardstick by which the rest of the world is judged), he/she goes there to face the second of two tragedies! The first “tragedy” is for being an African in a world that has treated him/her with untold cruelty and dehumamzation everywhere he/she has lived on earth (in Africa or in the diaspora). The African had no choice in that wicked drama of history. Earlier in this paper, we likened it to spilled milk for which there is no need to cry. The second tragedy is the real hell proper. This second tragedy is different from the first one mainly due to the fact that its own milk is not spilled yet, and every living African can still make his/her own right decision to avoid its spillage before it becomes too late to do so. Hence, a very critical task faces us as Africans, viz: to pay unprecedented attention to the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ for the purpose of getting the greatest possible number of Africans to know and accept Him (Jesus Christ) as our final Advocate and Saviour, before we face Him as the final Judge. We should not relent in this assignment, for it is in performing it that the greatest and surest hope for Africa lies. By this recommendation, all stakeholders in the “African Project” should do all that is possible to carry the Great Commission mandate to its fullest extent and with the fullest effort and speed in order to ensure that Africans do not suffer a double-tragedy syndrome. None of us should rest on our oars in order to achieve this noble goal, for in doing it lies the consolation of Africa. Lastly, the role of prayer must be a prominent one in matters like this especially when this one is becoming so intractable and stubborn. On this point, one must note that intervention is needed, not just in the physical and social dimensions of the challenges, but in the spiritual dimension as well. Could not there have been some covenantal agreements sealed by rituals and voodoos among participants in the TAST in the past, which powers must now be broken? Is it not possible that the curse that Noah put on his son Ham from whom the black race originated (Gen. 9: pp. 20-28; 10: pp. 6-20, New King James Version) is still having its hold on Africans? On the basis of these two possibilities, coupled with the truth in what Jesus Christ said: “This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting” (Mk. 9: p. 29, New King James Version), the need for African Christians to engage ourselves in serious praying and fasting to get off the vicious stranglehold of the emerging neo-enslavement becomes obvious. It is only through prayer and fasting that we can draw upon the power of the infinite God. Our plight in Africa has gone past human comprehension. Jesus Himself started with prayer and ended with prayer; Africans must emulate their only true Emancipator. It should be noted that principles like forgiveness, justice, and community healing exist across African Traditional Religions (Mbiti, 1969). Focusing on these values ensures reconciliation efforts resonate beyond Christianity. African cultures had spiritual traditions that emphasized reconciliation. The Ubuntu philosophy in Southern Africa, which promotes collective humanity and restorative justice, aligns with reconciliation efforts (Tutu, 1999).
7. Conclusion
The reconciliation and reconstruction effort must be practical, inclusive, and strategically balanced. By learning from successful reconciliation models, leveraging diasporic support, and engaging international bodies while fostering self-reliance, Africa can move toward sustainable unity and development. We began this paper by posing the rather rhetorical question, “Is there not a cause?” We hope that by now that question has been answered somewhat by anyone who has followed the line of arguments so far. Now, we wish to end the paper by putting the ball in our own court by saying thus: what Africans do for Africans in these times of need is in the hands of Africans.