AFRICA NEEDS FUTURISTIC STORYTELLERS AND CONTENT CREATORS

 AFRICA NEEDS FUTURISTIC STORYTELLERS AND CONTENT CREATORS

Written By Kenneth Nwakanma

Long before the white man invented flying machines, several of their creative authors had written fictions about flying machines. 

Long before their engineers built spacecrafts and launched into space, the white creative writer had already written novels about space travels. 

Long before they invented intercontinental ships that can travel around the world, a white man called Jules Verne, in 1889 already written a novel called "Round the Word in Eighty Days"

Long before Elon Musk thought of establishing habitations in other planets, I have read novels of interplanetary adventures written by inspired white novelists and storytellers.

Check out Jonathan Swift of Gulliver's Travel, E.V. Odle, who wrote a novel about Cyborgs in 1923 or Arthur C. Clarke, 1968, who in his work Space Odyssey, wrote about Ipad,  and many more. 

Long before America took over the world as the bastion of innovation and entrepreneurship, men like Horatio Alger had written short stories of little boys who were born poor and yet rose to create massive wealth through hardwork, faith, determination,  creativity and.... luck.

What is my point?

An advancing society is known by what her creatives and inspired people showcase. writers and creatives are the prophets who speak of what will be in a society long before they happen. 

African nations will only advance in science, technology, inventions and advancement when her creatives begin to show the outstanding possibilities of the African man through fictional works. 

Whether it is novels or movies, the African has gloried in a past that holds no hope for the future. I stopped watching Nigerian movies many years ago, when it was only about juju, unfaithfulness, blood money and epic movies of villagers fighting with ancients weapons and shouting too much. 

Here we have Things Fall Apart, Kongi Harvest, Yellow Hibiscus and so on. I was really blessed by all these novels and stories.  Yet they all spoke of our past not our future. 

The books are even powerful. What of our home videos? With titles such as Kingdom of Ichaba and such rubbish! 

Do you know why Black Panther sold like wildfire? Because it is the story of the future man in Africa. The world is waiting for Africa to emerge. The time is ripe. 

When we are ready to focus on telling the stories of our future than our past, we will see the rise of innovators, inventors, leaders, engineers and entrepreneurs who would make a glorious African Kingdom possible. 

We need futuristic authors, storytellers and movie makers, not contemporary and historical ones. 

We need those who will paint the pictures of faith in the hearts of the common African. 

We need those who believe in the possibility of Africa ruling the future. 

Almost everyone else is an expert in telling of our inglorious past and sad present. 

Until then... 

Postscript:

I congratulate Dr. Okonjo Iweala for her appointment as the DG of World Trade Organization.  She is indeed the icon of the possibilities inherent in the African Mind. Yet if Africa doesn't change her COLLECTIVE MINDSET and ATTITUDE, the  brilliant woman will finish her term and African nations will still be poorer afterwards. 

A tree doesn't make a forest. 

Kenneth Nwakanma © 2021