Religion has been the major source of Information that fashioned human societies across the world over the last two thousand years before formal structured education was centralized in public school systems over the last two hundred years. There was a universal understanding that it took time, study and experience to become and be recognized as an expert in most fields. The natural trends showed that twelve years was a complete cycle of mastering a particular level or specialism of knowledge. In ancient knowledge systems it was tied to the twelve year orbital cycle of Jupiter/Obatala that emit essences of higher education, philosophy, law etc.
It used to take 12 years to become a Catholic priest or Babalawo, the initial practicioners of Abrahamic or Indigenous African civilizational knowledge. Even now with contemporary knowledge training, it takes six years of primary school, and six years of secondary school, after which we then advance to a professional/tertiary cycle of knowledge that entails four years of university for a Bachelors Degree, two years for Masters and about six years for a postgraduate degree. In our traditional African settings, a Babalawo is a Doctor/PhD having gone through the complete twelve year cycle of knowledge but due to colonial denigration, he is labeled a witch doctor.
Unfortunately, in contemporary societies, there is a tendency to jump the natural stages of learning. The twelve year cycle allocates a calendar year to each of the twelves stages and essences of a lifecycle of anything. The first being self discovery and application (Ogun the pathfinder), the second being self appreciation (Osun), third being immediate communication and interrelationships (Esu), the fourth being origins (Yemoja), the fifth being creativity and reproduction of wisdom (Orunmila), the sixth being employing the knowledge (Esu).
While the first six levels are based on micro/personal parameters, the next six levels are based on macro/collective. The seventh level is based on partnerships (Osun), the eighth based on shared resources (Oya), ninth based on collective philosophy and laws (Obatala), the ten is based on societal acknowledgement and foundations (Obaluaye), the eleventh based on judicious use of Information and its social application (Shango) while the twelveth is based on social karma (Olokun). When you jump any of the organic levels, your experience and knowledge will be incomplete.
Personally, as an Africanist, I find Catholic priests more knowledgeable than Pentecostals when engaging them with deep issues that are sometimes contradictory within Christian dogma. While Catholic priests can address provocative questioning through philosophy and history, the Pentecostals get emotional and illogical. The reason being that Catholic priests take a minimum of seven years to graduate, which must include studying philosophy and other courses at university level before going to theological school, while most Pentecostal pastors become qualifed in less than a year. Once they get a fine suit and premises, they are in business, sometimes secretly empowered with traditional or occultic means.
The same get rich quick mentality is also infecting our contemporary Babalawos where within four years of cramming a few Odus, they get online to get customers. Without the moral values and obligations of true Babalawos, like Western doctors signed to the Hippocratic oath, the half baked spiritualists employ sharp tricks from outside sources like Indians Sakamaje or outright demonic entities. Unfortunately, they tend to be the most financially successful, and attract a greater number of customers. The same applies to the other Abrahamic sect, Islam where superficially trained Mallams misled the youth with a misunderstanding of historic and philosophical foundations, thereby becoming breeding grounds for religious fundamentalism for disguised political and economic agendas.
This quick fix mentality is not restricted to religions but even in secular professional endeavors. We have mechanics and other craftsmen that fail to spend the required study and experience, before dispappearing into cities to set up shop and mess up customers cars and other services. This leads to a huge drain on the society as you often end up having to do jobs severally, wasting time, money, parts and sometimes life.
Some analysts tied the beginning of dumbing down of knowledge and experience to modernism, mass production and quest for profit. Tracing it back to when Catholicism, that had served as the education source of Europeans for nearly 1500yrs, was broken up over the sharing of profits of African exploitation.
The June 7th 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas in which Pope Alexander VI allocated West Africa to the Portuguese and South America to the Spanish, resulted in protests from the English and French that were pacified with the arrangement of marrying a Princess born by the marriage of Spanish and Portuguese monarchs to qualify for a share. With Princess Catherine of Aragon unable to bear a son to Henry VIII of England for over 20yrs to enable the English share in the profits of slavery, Henry divorced her against Catholic laws, as the English set to get a share by force of what the French king called Adams Will. So the British and other Europeans broke away from the unifying Catholicism for political economic reasons, just as the USA were to break away from the English Protestantism to form Baptist and other American churches. The economically inspired breakups continued until it left the stables of nationalism to individualism and free Enterprise churches, the likes of Pentecostalism.
In the secular education system, universities mushroomed across the world especially in USA, whereby profit motives or race to fulfill skills demand in fast developing nations, eventually led to the slipping of standards. In some noble professions like law and medicine, a first degree was required before admission but as time went, not only were the entry requirements lowered, the time of study was reduced. With the growth in demand, many polytechnics and technical schools were converted to full fledged universities. Initially the value of American university certificate were suspect in the global marketplace, then we had the Indians and now Nigerians. With globalization, we have many quack doctors and specialists claiming to have been certified from unknown schools in foreign lands.
Africa was to suffer the worst effect due to European coloniality and Westernization. Unlike the Europeans that created sects within the same civilizational religious sphere, our scholars and professional leadership totally discarded our traditional systems for Abrahamic – European or Arabic. Instead of building on existing African educational systems – spiritual and secular – we adopted external civilizational systems whose syllabus and accreditation depended on foreign sources. Africans ended up with a psuedo educational system and psuedo elites that were incapable of uplifting Africans technologically, economically nor politically.
It was not only the secular education that became misdirected but the get rich quick syndrome infected our traditional systems, especially with the global decoloniality that increased the demand of our traditional systems and Babalawos. Starting with our monarchy, the head of our traditional belief systems, being infiltrated by Neocolonialist Abrahamists that only wanted the trappings of power and wealth, but not the civilizational obligations and responsibility. Then we had a new class of modern day Babalawos, who instead of moral values and societal development, were more concerned with prosperity theology and money rituals, like the Pentecostals departed from Catholic values for prosperity theology..
Our political system fared the worst as people with questionable sources of wealth and pedigree easily stepped onto the political stage by buying political support. With little or no experience and knowledge often gained by working up the political ladder, new age politicians rose based on the size of their wallets. They were politicians but not statesmen since they had no sense of public service and patriotism. They were nothing more than influence peddlers and political equity investors. Therefore the quality of governance fell and continues to fall.
Some social history analysts attribute the global dumbing down of knowledge and experience to the social decay of the Western civilization after several centuries, African societies have not been able to rise to their potentials before adopting Westernization social decay syndromes. There is a high likelihood that the sharp practices of Pentecostal Babalawos would turn people away from African epistemes or demand for scientific spiritualism to counter 419.
Amends have to be made from the top of the traditional organizational structure that has been subjugated by Westernization and coloniality. This is one of the reasons that I have advocated civilizational democracy that is guaranteed and guided by long term stakeholders versed in our civilizational values and aspirations. Rather than short-termist, ‘get rich and power overnight’ politicians in charge of our collective aspirations, we need those with long term stakes in the advancement of the African civilization.
