within

Growing up as a Nigerian Child I heard a lot of stories told to me, stories seen as myths by elders. These stories were about the amazing and phenomenal “Amadioha” (a god known prominently in the South-Eastern part of Nigeria by the Igbo’s) and “Sango” (a god known prominently to the Yoruba of the Western part of Nigerian). These two gods were prominent and known to be “gods of thunder”. We heard these stories and it gave us a certain perspective about who they are and what they do. We never saw them as heroes talk less of appreciating what they do. But years down the line Marvel Studios and comics decided to create a “Science-Fiction” movie called THOR, this character was painted to be a god of thunder like “Amadioha” and “Sango” but unlike our African Super Heroes, Thor is more celebrated and known for his gifts and abilities which are never viewed as evil or Barbaric. Note: we know “Amadioha” and “Sango” to be gods of thunder but nobody ever told us of any atrocities or evil crimes committed by them. But we just somehow have a perspective of them being evil probably because of our thoughts towards our old religious practice and way of life. The reason for this little exposure and story is to bring us to the fact that some of the things we look outside to find as individuals and as a people is within us if only we had looked more closely, isn’t it an amazing fact that the Benin Empire already understood and applied the technology concept behind Street lights before the white man came, we have the ability to create and innovate even in time of crisis and under unpleasant conditions as in the case of the Nigerian Civil war and we as kids made out of bottle cocks and threads what we call “Zita” which was later repackaged and sold to us with a model they made with rubber by the Chinese, we already created toy cars and other amazing toys using local materials such as harvested maize stem, metallic strings etc. As kids, we already applied certain principles that were formally taught to us in school without reading any textbooks or materials. Africans are gifted in both natural resources and intellects, we have the ability to do the impossible when we believe and look within. We have to as individuals and as a people start looking within and not without cause that’s where our change begins.