Africa needs to quicken its growth through re-defining its priorities

Africans need to re-define their priorities to quicken up the socio-economic growth of the continent.

This is because if the continent continues to allow Western dictates to determine its socio-economic as well as political pursuits, Africa's progress would be lacking in substance.

Mr Akyaaba Addai-Sebo, founder of the Black History Month, commemorated every October, disclosed this in an interview with the Ghana News Agency.

He said Africans needed to take a good look at their history one more time, and re-fashion their institutions and systems, especially their educational system, to suit the continent's developmental needs.

Mr Addai Sebo noted that once Africa continued to use the blueprint of the West for the continent's development, the potential for Africa to make its mark on the global scene would never be fully realised.

He explained that for the continent to become truly emancipated and free from external controls and influences, which were detrimental to its growth, Africa had to re-define its priorities by thoroughly examining the continent's past, determining its present situation, and deciding what the way forward should be.

"We have an identity crisis and something should be done. We want to be like Europeans, there is the need for something to be done," the Black History Month founder observed.

Established in 1987, Black History Month which comes off in October is an occasion set aside to celebrate the contributions of Black people of African descent towards the development of Europe.