Mental Decolonization: A Pathway to Sustainable Development in Africa

With most African countries gaining independence by the 1960s, there were widespread expectations that Africans were now mature enough to chat their course. However, the later play out of events saw those dreams fade away like a mirage. Instead of moving ahead, most African countries are plagued by massive under development. Africans were their problem. The constant dependence on the colonial masters and the mentality of seeing everything foreign as superior hindered the necessity of looking inward to device her own developmental strategy, hence the need for mental decolonisation. Decolonisation is the act of undoing or freeing oneself from the bondage of colonialism. Mental decolonisation, therefore, is the changing of our orientation toward the impact of colonialism. This paper seeks to examine how changing the way we reason/think as Africans can open the gate for sustainable development in Africa. This work, therefore, argues that decolonisation in its entirety will yield the expected result only when there is a deliberate decision to decolonise Africa mentally. It is firmly believed that doing this will pave the way for sustainable development. In this work, we shall adopt the expository, analytic and evaluative methods.