MEN WILL TRAVEL AND KNOWLEDGE WILL INCREASE

By Rolland Nwanua

Egypt was, and is still acknowledged as the home of knowledge. It was the birth place of art and science; the paradise of the merchants from all over the world. The westerners traveled to Egypt and acquired knowledge with great pain. The Greeks especially, knew the power of knowledge and they sought after it at all cost.

Name the great men of knowledge that the world knows and I’ll narrate their connection with Egypt and other great kingdoms of ancient. But such men – Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Democritus, Pythagoras etc. – did not remain in the foreign land. They returned at once to apply their acquired knowledge and develop their own people.

“Greece owes everything they have to Egypt.” This is a statement made by a Greek historian, Herodotus “Father of History.”

“What you call western education today is African education taken to the west and modified.” –From the book, (Africa: mother of western civilization).

It is wise to go and acquire knowledge and skill where they abound; it is wiser to use these knowledge and skill for the development of one’s own people. “Men will travel and knowledge will increase.” Job 12:28. It is evident in every department of nature that we take from where there is abundance to add to where there is scarcity. If we continue increasing human resources where it’s in abundance already, we will be expanding the gap between Africa and the west.

If the westerner who traveled to Egypt and other great kingdoms stayed behind to savour the richness of those kingdoms, the west will probably remain underdeveloped and there will be nothing like western civilization.

Today, we judge our fathers for the educational degradation that caused our exodus to the west; tomorrow, our children will judge us for settling in foreign land; they will judge us for our inability to right the wrong of our fathers; they will ask us why we left things scattered when it’s within our power to lay them straight.

I speak to you my fellow Africans in diaspora; learn all that makes Europe and America great; know what they know and, come back home let us achieve, through them, what they achieved through us.

Dedicated to Modupe Debbie Ariyo, Olanike Adebayo, Mykell Abu and everybody that left the shores of Africa on a quest for mental/intellectual development. You promise to return soon. We await your glorious home coming.