God Bless Africa Movement (GBAM) has expressed deep concerns over the gradual extinction of African culture, especially African languages, and therefore advised Africans to revive their culture before the continent is re-colonized by the western world.
Speaking at a recent media briefing at De Orange Place Event Centre & Lounge, Agege, Lagos, on its forthcoming annual congress scheduled to hold on November 2, 2021 in Johannesburg, South Africa, the organisation explained its vision to heal the African continent and promote peace, unity, prosperity, cultures and values within and among Africans.
The Intercontinental President of the pan African movement, Bishop Dr. Amos Gbenro said the mission of the movement is to empower African nations to get involved in socio-economic initiatives. “God Bless Africa Movement is out to solve humanity problem, address African challenges and provide tangible solutions to those challenges. It is also out to address African leadership problem,” he explained.
The South Africa-based GBAM president rolled out the 14-point agenda of the movement for the healing and promotion of the African continent. The agenda include: women empowerment programme, youth empowerment programme, entrepreneurship development, men empowerment programme, human trafficking and sexual awareness, promoting peace and prosperity across the African continent, uniting African nations, promoting African culture and diversity, educational empowerment, addressing gender based violence, campaign against child abuse, social development, war against corruption and national relief.
Dr. Gbenro bemoaned the gradual extinction of African culture and urged Africans to revive their declining cultural heritage by proudly imbibing the African way of life anywhere in the world, particularly Africans in the Diaspora. “In our mission statement, we wrote promoting African culture. If we don’t promote African culture we will lose it. We will lose our identity. If we want to sustain our culture, we must promote it. Anywhere we go people must see the African culture in our lifestyle. We should let the African culture be our identity. The beauty of Africa is her culture. We can promote African culture by making use of the products we produce in Africa, by proudly speaking our African languages anywhere in the world and by dressing in the African attires and costumes etc,” the movement president expressed.
Dr. Moses Orogojimo, an executive member of God Bless Africa Movement (Nigeria) also supports the call for the revival of African culture. However, he canvassed a proper alliance between culture and religion. “The issue of culture and religion is a tactical one that we need to address properly. Jesus came to the world but his Jewish culture never went into extinction. In some countries religion never took culture away from their people. Our problem in Africa is our inability to distinguish spiritual matters from natural living. We are dying of religious ignorance as a result of the error our forebears ignorantly committed when they accepted the gospel from the white missionaries and then condemned the African culture to embrace the white culture. God Bless African Movement aims to correct this error by striking a balance between the African culture and the orthodox religions. Jesus came to offer salvation. Whoever wants salvation comes to him. Culture is natural to the people. We must live a free life in our religious practice. We always focus on religion tenets instead of the reality of the Christian or the Islamic faith.” Dr. Orogojimo noted.
Dr. Olajide Oshodi, the National Media Director of God Bless Africa Movement (Nigeria) emphasized the importance of the organization to the economic empowerment of Africans, particularly African women, youths and the less privileged. In his comment, Dr. Oshodi encouraged all Africans both at home and in the Diaspora to embrace and support GBAM healing mission to Africa through education, development and empowerment programmes for the African people across boards.
“God Bless Africa Movement is an organization accepted in all African nations. Many spiritual and secular leaders are connected through the wonderful vision of this organization. GBAM is launched in Nigeria and it is ready to make great efforts at implementing all our projects. GBAM is committed to assisting humanity, especially in the areas of empowering women, the youths, the physically challenged and other needy in the Nigerian community and other African communities,” he said
Dr. Oshodi, who as National Media Director of God Bless African Movement (Nigeria) tremendously worked with the Intercontinental President of the movement for the successful launching of the movement in Nigeria, added that the nascent pan African movement is posed to usher the African continent to her rightful place of pride and honor side by side with other continents in the world.
#GBAM Intercontinental Office: 47, Marula Crescent, Winchester Hills Johannesburg, South Africa. Contact: +2773271187 Nigeria contact: +2348061423260