All the greatest things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word. Freedom, Justice; Duty; Mercy; Sacrifice; Hope. We who have come together here today, Representing almost all the ethnic groups and national life and nearly all the creeds and churches of whatever our traditions are of the African world. This small audience filling a famous hall - we also can express our purpose in a single word; "Africa".

At School we learned from Maps hung on the walls, that there is a continent called Africa. I remember quite well, being taught this as a child, and after living this 24yrs of my life, I still believe it is true.

However, professional geographers now tell us that the continent of Africa is really only on the tropics of the Himalayan Land-mass. I must tell you that I fell that this word be an arid and uninspiring conclusion and, for myself, I distinctly prefer what I was taught when I was an adolescent young boy.

The real demarcation between Africa and the black man is no chain of mountains, no natural frontier, but a system of belief and ideas, which we call African civilization (The preservation of our ancient culture) in the rich pattern of this culture, there are many strands; the Yoruba belief in Ifa; the Christian message of compassion and redemption, the Egyptian love of philosophical truth, beauty and goodness; the Ethiopian genius for law. Africa is a spiritual conception. But if men cease to hold that conception in their minds; cease to feel its worth in their hearts, it will die - this is what the is set to prevent, that Africa Heritage should not die.

These are not my words, but they are my faith; and we are here to proclaim our resolve that the spiritual conception of Africa shall not die. We declare, on the contrary, that it shall live and shine and cast its redeeming illumination upon the world of confusion and woe. Honestly apart from the theme of this Essay, challenging the secondary school students towards academic excellence; above is what has instinctually brought us together here, to this very moment and that is what is going to keep us all together - however sharply or even deeply we may be divided on many other matters-until our goal is reached and our hopes are realized.

In our task of reviving the glories and happiness of ancient Africa, her culture and her prosperity, it can certainly be said that we started at the bottom of her fortunes. There is the fairest most fertile area of the globe; the influence and the power of Africa have for countries shaped and dominated the course of history. The sons and daughters of Africa have gone forth and carried their messages to every part of the world. Religion, Law, Arts Science and Industry; through the world all bear in so many lands under every sky and every clime the stamp of African origin and faces of African influence.

What is Africa now in this present time? It is rubble heaps, a channel house, a breeding ground of pestilence and hate. Ancient nationalistic feuds and modern ideological factions distract and infuriate the unhappy, hungry population. Evil teachers urge the paying off old scores with mathematical precision and false-guided points of uninspiring retribution at the path to prosperity. In the real sense of the matter, mathematics will always lead Africa to higher truth, and with mathematics being encourage by and wide, it will serve as a catalyst in the redirection of all minds to the actual tenets of hope-actuated dreams, Africa can attain higher truth. In this regard, is there then to be no respite? Has Africa's mission come to an end? Has she noting to give the world but the contagion of the Black Death? Are her peoples to go on Harry and fomenting one another by war and vengeance until all that invest human life with dignity and comfort has been obliterated?

Are the states of Africa to continue forever to squander the first of their toil upon the erection of new barriers of moral decadences and the widespread of amorality? Are we Africans to become incapable with all our tropical and colonial dependencies, with all our long-created trading connection with all that modern production and transportation can do, of even everything famine and inflation from the mass of our people? Are we all, through our poverty and our quarrel, forever to be a burden and a danger to the rest of the world? Do we imagine that we can be carried forward indefinitely upon the shoulders broad though they may be - of these young youths like myself and of my age bracket? The time has come when these questions must be answered. This is the hour of choice and surely the choice is plain. If the people of Africa resolve to come together and work together for natural advantage to exchange blessing instead of curse, they still have it in their power to sweep away the horrors and miseries which surrounds them (us) and to allow the stream of freedom, happiness and abundance to begin again their healing flow.

This is the Supreme opportunity, and if it be cast away, no one can predict that it will ever return or what the resulting catastrophe will be. In my experience of the enterprise, it is often a mistake to try to settle everything at once far, on the skyline, we can see the peak of the delectable mountains, the fountain of solution switching close. But we cannot tell what lies between us and them. We know where we want to go but we cannot foresee all the stages of the journeys or plan our marches as this "SOWETO" day celebration and the incident, which has been occurring typifying those brutalities worse than "SOWETO" captioned "OUR OWN SOWETO". We are not acting in the field of forces, but in the domain of option. We cannot give orders, we can only persuade for change in our national and social mind-set. We must go forward step by step.

It is for us at this stage to attempt to define or prescribe the structure of the Nigeria construction. We ourselves are content to present the idea of Africa, in which our country will play a decisive part as a moral, cultural and spiritual conception to which all can rally without detergence about structure. In the ordinary day-to-day affairs of life, men and women expect rewards for successful exertion and this is often right and reasonable. But those who serve cause as majestic and high as one needs no rewards; nor are our aims limited by the span of human life. If success must come upon our every existence as Africans and if it must be soon, we shall be proclaimed by the march of future event and the judgment of happier ages, we shall have done our duty and done our best.

In order to make a change in this era of Humanity, we must follow concomitantly the African Trinity of " Reason, courage and Grace". As posit by one of the Founding Fathers of the of Africa.

A time, where Africans should strike to the trinity, which the NBM hold dear. In our daily lives this should serve as a guiding principles towards living. It should be applied in words and in deeds at all times.

As a true African, one should at all times have a positive and genuine reason to do whatever he wants to do and make sure that whatever he does in words and deeds does not bring shame to him / her firstly as a true African, secondly that it does not bring shame to Africa and the Black man, no matter where they are. Thirdly that the deeds does not bring shame to our common Humanity. Once you are sure of a good reason behind whatever you want to do then comes the "COURAGE" to go ahead and carry out your positive deeds.

Finally when the good results of what you have courageously done comes to the know of all and sundry and it is acceptable, you can now begin to walk through "GRACE" with your head held up high as a result of the glory of what you have done. This was the trinity of the Neo-Black Movement of Africa; REASON, COURAGE and GRACE, which was, posit by Mr. Benny Ojishua in its 'Philosophy and Principles of NBM's Trinity'. This Ideological principle of the NBM was built upon this unshakable concept.


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