The African Child

By Asuzu Agwunobi

The African Child author tells it as it happened from the harrowing childhood experience to the ups and downs of his adulthood in the African capital cities and the rural typical village. The interesting mix of hard work and faith in Gods Providence makes for an exhilarating reading that challenges African policy makers. The authors critical assessment of the Nigerian crisis in the mid sixties soon after Independence as he places blame on both sides of the conflict depicts the writers sense of impartiality to be encouraged by political leaders particularly in Africa.

This book examines thoughtfully the various stages in human development and finds no excuse in the down trodden level of the black man from his native land in Africa to his imposed second home anywhere, particularly in the United States. In the closing chapters the book exposes the hardship, the loss of human dignity and personal exploitation of all black people from the days of the slave trade till today. The book challenges the conscience of world leaders and calls for Reparation for slavery and colonialism. Besides, the author seeks to inculcate the spirit of self respect in all African people maintaining that self respect is the smoothening oil for human dignity while chastising all races of mankind to judge a person not by the color of his skin but by the content of his character, as Dr. Martin Luther King. Jr. admonished.

This is a must read for all civil rights activists, college young students and world leaders and politicians.

Asuzu Agwunobi

• Language: English
• Publisher: LifeRich Publishing
• Release date: Jul 28, 2016
• ISBN: 9781489708632

Asuzu Agwunobi

Asuzu Agwunobi was an accomplished man before he moved to America. He has travelled widely across the globe. In his travels he made careful studies of people across the world. His book on the African Child is in testament of that and the saying that Charity begins at home.

Book preview

Chapter 1

CREATION- AN OVERVIEW

The only seemingly authentic account yet of Creation is that which springs out from the Holy Bible, in Genesis, Chapter 1: 5 This account unquestionably relates to creation as seen from the Jewish angle of the world as then was. It is a racial account or folklore relating to a racial group that never took account of other existing bodies of human beings. Again what is known at the time was a small portion of mankind made up of little dots of Europe, North Africa and South western Asia. The biblical stories in the Book of Genesis clearly justify this conclusion, and the geographical locations of the situations in the bible accounts also confirm it.

The biblical account has gained credence over the years by virtue of its antiquity, straight forwardness and a grand measure of authoritativeness, giving no room at all for doubt.

Further in its account the bible stories give explanations for the differences in languages between people by expounding the creativity generated by investigative curiosity of the early man. The notion that God the creator resides in heaven above engendered the obvious desire of the early man to reach heaven and see God. The story of the Tower of Babel is an intrinsically talented device to answer any question that may arise from the diversity of tongues if the story of creation itself would ever be believed. This generous anticipation of the future accounts for the idea that the bible story is Divine, capable of knowing the future. However, a close look at the more than 2000 languages spoken today all over the world clearly marks out a strong lingual affinity between the Caucasian languages and the Semitic languages of afro/Asiatic and Arabic family including Hebrew, Aramaic and Amharic, in which the old testament was written than with the Bantu group of languages spoken by people of Africa. It is therefore submitted that the multiplicity of languages spoken today can be satisfactorily explained by the story of the Tower of Babel to address the origin of all the languages spoken in the world today. When that explanation comes it will show that human creation might have been in some sort of stages as we go further probing the mystery of creation.

The bible account of creation raises more questions than answers. One such question is how the black man came to be. I do not accept the simple generalization that God created man on the sixth day, and created him in His own image and likeness. As I look around me I see the image of God radiating from every other human being except the black man. I see a wonderfully natural lock of hair, a naturally cohering bunch so wavy and beautiful you almost begin to feel the presence of the creator. Then I stop to gaze. I reflect on the bible account and I say to myself here comes the one created in the image of and likeness of God. How did the black man intrude into this paradise of beauty? The bible did not have an answer. In my contemplation I found an answer that what the bible talked about is the soul and spirit of the human being, not his outside clothing which is temporal for his time on earth.

Otherwise, the distinctiveness of the black man from the rest of humanity is so extravagant to call for any investigation. He is dark skinned. He is thick skinned. He is broad faced. He is flat footed with heavy buttocks. His eyes are well seated with a trunk like nose in between always looking into the skies as if wanting to find his own creator.

The black man enjoys a robust structure of enviable physic possibly designed by his own creator for the hard task he is enjoined to shoulder for the rest of mankind.

In this context the black man includes the Negroes, Hottentots, the Australian aborigines, the Africans. They occupy areas south of the Sahara desert and from the horn of Africa down to the coast of South Africa. More than 90% of the black man lives in the Continent of Africa. As I grew up and look at the African continent and consider the equatorial divide of the black man from the rest, the question again pops up The creation of the black man was it an accident or a design

This question takes me back to a more fundamental issue about the creation of man. Was it an accident or a design? I hereby accept the bible story that creation was a design, not an accident by an all powerful Being. It was not also accidental how the races are arranged on the face of the earth. The natural vicissitudes of the African continent south of the Sahara can only be withstood by no other race than the black man. He did not therefore accidentally emerge there. But the argument that the black man came to be what he is because of the place where he finds himself does not stand up to reality. If it is true then why has he not been transformed over the four and a half centuries of transportation to the colder regions of the earth and have his pigmentation altered significantly. Rather he has made no change in his modus, nature and nurture. In retrospect the black man has lost most of his valuable traits without gaining from his exposition to a different clime.

Some people do argue and believe that it is the extensive sunshine under which the black man lives that has left him black, or tanned to be more euphemistic. They argue that the white man so exposed gets tanned because he has already been born white and could never turn black even if he were in hail. This again is not true.

I argue that even if you transport a whole village of black people to the arctic region and allow them to live there from generation to generation their sixth generation will never be born white. Prove me wrong, if you can. Another issue arises when you go to parts of Asia like India or Pakistan, you will find black skinned people but again much distinguishable from the real black man. Though Asians are not white their brown color sets them apart from whites and blacks and I used the blacks among them for purposes of illustration.

THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION

It is strongly mooted that scientific scholars unable to properly label the origin of the black man began the theory of evolution. Evolution simply defined means a biological process by which a living organism through a series of changes acquires the morphological and physiological characters which differentiates it from its original nature.

Lamarck{1744- 1824) a French naturalist proposed the theory that changes in environment do cause changes in structure of animals and plants which can be transmitted to their off springs. This has not been proved correct by facts well known to everybody. However, after the death of Lamarck, another naturalist Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882) resurrected the theory in a new form. Darwin advocated the theory of natural selection by which he held the view that the origin and perpetuation of new species of animals and plants was a survival of the fittest which ensured the survival of those forms of animals and plants best adjusted to the conditions under which they live, and the extinction of those poorly adapted. I am drawn to accept the ingenuity in Darwin’s explanation of this theory but skeptic about a finality of theory based on it alone.

In order to find the origin of the black man, I believe, white natural scientists and anthropologists began a wave of findings linking man to apes and monkeys that have each time left more questions than answers. They have had a comfortable outlay of similarities between the ape and man. But they have failed to tell us at what stage in development the anthropoid ape lost its tail. Nor do they tell us when the so called evolution ceased. Even if they do inseminate the apes and monkeys with their own seamen why have they not produced a human being by an ape or monkey without a tail. The white western world wildly believes in evolution but have failed for centuries to surprise us with the exclamation: You see I told you so.

In recent times, excavators have found in East Africa, the skull of the earliest man. This is a big find. The objectives were not stated but can easily be assumed. They must be looking for a close connection between the earliest man and the anthropoid ape, and it must be found in Africa.

The missing link in Darwin’s theory of evolution must be the black man. He might not have been created on the sixth day because he must have predated the white man. It is quite curious that white scientists have not doubted the biblical account of creation except that of man. If God created black man as he did others why then is there such a great difference between the races?

Another theory emerges from the bible story, this time the issue of coexistence between the white and black men. This refers to the story of the two sons of Isaac, Esau and Jacob. Esau was dark skinned and well beloved by his father Isaac. He was hairy. He was a hunter too. Jacob was liked more by his mother and had little hair on his body. As Isaac grew old in age and lost his eye sight, his wife switched the children so Isaac poured out his last blessings on Jacob instead of his first born Esau resulting in Esau wandering away from the family heading southward moving until he passed further than the Abyssinian highlands and took possession of the Ethiopian countries instituting kingship regimes similar to what obtained in the Mediterranean lands of old. It is likely that this movement of Esau and his descendants was not interrupted as they matched down and splitting some to the southern end of Africa and some to the western coast.

This reconstruction recognizes the fact that at this time a great civilization was already flourishing in Egypt, the country of the Nile. This is so because the children of Jacob went to Egypt to buy grains and later had to take their father to settle in Egypt until the time of Moses.

RECONCIALITION

It can now be said that the movement which began from around Persia ended in Africa south of the Sahara during which long period of time the people lost complete touch with their origin and developed a complete different characteristics of their own in language, culture and outlook.

However, the claim and acceptance of a small community in Ethiopia that they belong to the lost tribe of the twelve tribes of Jacob/Israel brought a perplexing turn to this grand reconstruction to fit into the realities we embrace. Rather than dim the search light, this evidence goes to prove the existence of an ancient track way which was exploited in those olden days. The Jewish state of Israel accepted them, flew them to Israel and rehabilitated them. They were mainly black with curly hair and narrow faces. This lost tribe of Jacob must have lived apart from their brothers since Moses led the Jews out of Egypt.

On the other hand the descendants of Esau the first born child of Isaac migrated through the same track line and subdivided as they sojourned, mixing with all and sundry. According to the Darwinian theory of the survival of the fittest and environmental corruption, this earlier settlers had lost everything they came out with. If we accept this theory and I do accept it, it is a meeting point between natural scientists and the bible account but which totally rejects the absurd and fundamentally wrong earlier anthropoid scientists who sought to link man to apes and monkeys.

The black man wants to know if he is created equally with other races. If not, at what point was he created before or after others have been created. He wants to know too why his color is repellant to other human beings white, brown, red. Or even yellow? Where the theory of Esau is sold for the black man to hang on, it may presuppose that the black man wandering across freely chose the environmentally hurtful part of the earth to dwell. Again this may be rationalized on the principle of the law of easy resistance. This is a natural rule that matter tends to accept a force which tends to zero or less resistance, for example, water courses follow parts of easy resistance flowing downwards. If you want to re channel the course of water you must chart a lower level for it to run.

By following this rule, we find that the black man has always situated himself in geographical areas where he does not have to struggle much to eat, the basic necessity of life; he is blessed with natural warmth all year round; he needs less clothing materials; fruits grow on their own and mature on their own, ripen and fall on their own year in year out.

This is re enforced by the biblical saying in the Book of Ecclesiastes, that for everything under the sun there is a season. A time to be born, a time to die; a time to plant, a time to pluck up that which is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, a time to build up; ……………. A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace. See Ecclesiastes 3, 1-8

THE BIRTH OF THE AFRICAN CHILD

It was under these circumstances on such a fateful market day that my mother went to Nkwo market as she was apt to go and on her way back she put down her market basket by the side to deliver her fourth child and the third male baby. There was no help by the road side. My mother took her scant shirt out to wrap the child but there was no water to herself up or the fresh blood from the child. There was no hospital in the country then and no maternity clinic anywhere. There were few traditional birth ladies but you must send for them. None was available. So my mother did everything on her own. After about three hours or so she was ready to go home. Meanwhile message has reached home that my mother has had her baby and her female age mates were arranging to come meet her on the way dancing along the route to the market. Because it was a popular market day many people were at home and the women who came to receive the new born were many too. As they arrived and saw my mother had tightened all things and wrapped the baby with her dress they danced around and took the baby from her. My mother had no separate bed for her baby but had him laid on a hard broad wooden timber with a piece of cloth spread over it. The women who accompanied us home continued to shout loudly that a new baby has been born and he is a boy. More people gathered. Nobody bought my mother any wine on my birth day except one old woman who ran back to her house and brought a bottle of palm wine and gave my mother. At the end of their dancing the hilarious women closed it by shouting again O WOWO WO, O WEI . O WOWO, O WEI . OMURU GINI O? OMURU NWOKE OO YA, HIRI KWE,OO; YA BIRI KWE OO. OO meaning what did she get? She bore a male child. Let him live. Let him stay alive.

In the morning news went out to my grandmother to come and take care of the child. The elderly lady did not waste time to rush down and my mother heaved a sigh of relieve. Then narrated everything to her mother who had been preserving the fish to use to cook for her daughter when she delivers her fourth child. She came also with spices of different types used to cook yam for the woman who has gone through a child birth.

When my grandmother arrived she sought and collected my umbilical cord which she needed to use in consultation with the native oracle to find out who has reincarnated the child. This process would be completed within a week after delivery not to conflict with the ceremony of circumcision which takes place on the eighth day after delivery. On her fifth day staying with my mother my grandmother and another elderly woman in the kindred went to visit a native doctor about the incarnation because my circumcision comes upon the following Nkwo market and the expert had been invited to get ready.

My grandmother and her escort came back within two hours to announce that the man who returned to live through me was an uncle who always sought peace in the family. He was called Nwajoku and head of the sub unit of my kindred. He died about two years before I was born. Immediately women and elders began to call me by different names reflecting all circumstances of my birth. Some called me ONYEZEIKPE meaning the judge, others ASUZU meaning the fearless man, yet some chose to call me ONUNADO meaning the mouth that causes trouble but one old woman who ran home to get my mother palm wine till she died called me OKRUONWEYA meaning he who raised himself .

I really enjoyed the last name because it showed how my mother did everything of my birth by herself and I literally helped her by not crying or creating any problem for her during birth. That was the great bond between two of us till my mother died. Again in reflection it is a name which symbolized my nurture and life. I raised myself with the Providence of God at each stage in my life.

CHAPTER 2

ENDOWMENT

The gift of nature is an endowment. It is a furnishing which any animal uses to navigate through life. As endowment comes from within a person or any creature, it cannot be a subject of denial. Usually a discussion on endowment necessarily relates to creation. Psychologists do not tell us of any condition for endowment of nature’s gift to a person. Although efforts are made to show that certain endowments require proper attention to develop to their fullest potentials.

Years ago, and may be, still now many people agree that a strong correlation exists between nature and nurture. Those who accept this view go a long way to build excuses for the racial backwardness of the black man. They also refuse to reckon with history except to dismiss any case as an exception to the general rule. But history is replete with generous cases of individuals greatly endowed but poorly nurtured and from among who world history continued to turn. The cases are super abundant that it is a misnomer to call them exceptions from the general rule. These instances in different ages and locations become the general rule rather than the exceptions. To buttress the point we look at the case of him TO whom all things are attributable, Jesus Christ. Was he not born in a manger AND COVERED WITH SWADDLING CLOTHES? Were there not great mansions and palaces in Israel at the time? What trade did he learn, was it not carpentry from his foster father, a poor cut and nail carpenter? Did he not arouse envy among his own who openly questioned where did this man learn all this wisdom Had nurture been an important factor in the development of a person’s endowment, one would have expected that the Christ of God would be born in a palace.

We can also consider the cases of historic lives of such as Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare and great boxers like Mohammed Ali or Mike Tyson. These great names in history moved from grass to grace to attain their hidden endowment to the fullest. I refrain from commenting on the management of their life after glory.

Apart from the extraordinarily endowed, humanity has a sprinkle of one gift or the other. Some are great hunters who never missed a sport, others are great climbers and reach the top of the mountain without a rope whereas others are antelope footed running faster than lightning. There are human computers and others are created like parrots able to repeat every sound they hear without knowing the meaning.

There is no amount of sugar, fat or vitamins that can change, alter or add to these gifts of endowment. Christ himself did tell us that every hair on your head has been counted Who can tell the number of hairs on his head.

Since all these natural gifts cannot change under differing environments, it goes without question that a person can rise above his environment to specially and specifically execute his life role. The great inventions of the world today were not environmentally controlled. They were the products of individuals endowed with one gift or the other. From the commonest office pin to the most complicated space craft only one racial group takes the credit.

Why is the