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ON THE HEAVY BURDEN OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF AFRICA

Nicholas Onyemechi Alumona, PhD 
Department of Religious Studies and Philosophy,

Delta State University,
Abraka,
Nigeria.

alumonano@delsu.edu.ng

Abstract

Developing Africa has continued to be an issue that requires attention of development scholars, 
both indigenous and western.  Western scholars and development experts have accused 
indigenous African development scholars of being very ethnocentric as they uncritically localize 
issues of development, thus making development of Africa a heavy burden. These indigenous 
Africans are referred to as culture particularists while the western scholars in their acclaimed 
refined approach to development are called the culture Universalists.  It is the finding of this 
paper that both divides are laced with some forms of ethnocentrism and such orientations 
constitute the heavy burden of developing Africa; the former is not dynamic enough to 
accommodate values from other cultures while the latter assumes so much culture superiority to 
the extent that the values of the so-called developing cultures are insignificant in the development 
agenda. Adopting the methods of hermeneutics and analysis, this work argues that development 
agenda would be ineffective if African peculiarities are jettisoned in the name of one imagined 
and imposed global village. It concluded that lifting the burden of developing Africa lies in 
advancing development policies, programmes and strategies that are rooted in the pristine and 
positive values of African cultures while accommodating the progressive ones from the West, not 
the reverse situation currently operational in development programmes and policies in Africa.

Key Words: African development, Africa's development, heavy burden, ethnocentrism, 
syncretism, globalism 

Introduction

The need to develop Africa has continued to generate ideas from scholars and policy 
makers alike.  Different approaches, policies and programmes have been suggested; many of 
which are being implemented yet Africa is still at the lower rung of the world development ladder. 
This paper is a both an examination and a contribution towards addressing the development 
question of Africa. The development approaches adopted are grouped into particularists and 
Universalists.  While the particularists who believe in African development see nothing wrong 
with an approach of development that is traditional to a people with certain peculiarities, the 
Universalists who are advocates of Africa's development support generality in addressing 
development problems confronting the entire human race, regardless of our different origins, 
cultures and orientations. 

This work is interested in both African development and Africa's development. It is 
therefore a major goal of this work to critically appraise both kinds of development as they affect 
Africa. Selected policies of development meant to address development problems in Africa are 
highlighted in our mission to show that they (both kinds of development) are not antithetical to 
each other in their goals on achieving development.

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In view of the highlights above, this work aims to establish that ideas of a people cannot be 
wished away simply on the altar of the acclaimed superiority of some other extraneous cultural 
orientations and values. Development does not even accommodate such cultural ontological 
destruction from any culture irrespective of the advancement made by such modernized culture. 
This therefore leads to showing that cultural syncretism is a way out but such approach needs a 
critical harmony of cultures rooted in the positive values of a people while discountenancing 
anachronistic ones.

African Development and Africa's Development: Conceptual Distinctions

	   Conceptually, African development is that type of development owned by Africans 
themselves and which is dependent on traditional African values, assumptions and concepts that 
constitute the interpretations and understanding of their experiences. It shows that “Africans 
have a world-view that is uniquely their own which is then contrasted with the scientific world-
view seen as characteristically Western …” (Oladipo, 2000, pp. 33-34). Any attempt to introduce 
the minutest western logic of development into this brand of development, perhaps on the 
grounds of cultural dynamism, is completely rejected because such activity raises questions on 
the status and ownership of such kind of development. In terms of policy and theoretical 
frameworks that explain African development, we can see the idea of Pan- Africanism, Senghor's 
negritude, Nyerere'sUjamaa, Kaunda's African humanism, Nkrumah's Consciencism and 
Ubuntu. Detailed discussions on these African projects clearly show that all these are attempts at 
founding Africa on African traditional principles and values with a view to advancing 
development that can best be christened African (Makumba, 2007; Mawere & Mubaya, 2016). 
Ogundowole emphasizing how indigenous they are to Africa, describes them as the 
“fundamental theoretical principle of selfreliancism” (2011, p. 43). Other attempts by African 
leaders and government, especially at post-independence showed how much Africans wanted to 
own their development. This was demonstrated with the enactment of economic bodies to 
enhance development in Africa on the basis of traditional African values. Such bodies include the 
Economic Community for West African States, Lagos Plan of Action, Organization of African 
Unity (now African Union) and the New Partnership for Africa's Development among others. 
Whether these African values guided African leaders in the implementations of the goals of these 
bodies is a subject debate outside the purview of this work. The reason for mentioning them here 
is because of the priority accorded traditional African values and the subsequent promotion of 
African identity.                                                                                     

Africa's development is that type of development, mainly economistic, which is also 
significant to Africa and Africans. It is initiated and implemented by individuals (Heads of State 
and Government) and institutions on the basis of norms, principles and strategies which are 
assumed to be universal. This type of development is therefore not necessarily owned by Africans 
in terms of the peculiarities of their situations and orientations but it encapsulates approaches 
designed based on global principles and applied on African situations with the conviction that 
humanity has the same ontological reality and the peculiarities of problems are only apparent and 
not real. In terms of philosophy, Uduigwomen clearly states that “the Universalist or professional 
school…is of the view that philosophy [of development] is the same everywhere, using the same 
methodology” (1995, p. 3). There is therefore no congenial cultural way to development; it is 
simply a universal phenomenon that all cultures should conform to by subscribing to “a 
philosophy that seeks to consider things in the significance of their singularity and not in the 
exclusiveness of their otherness” (Asouzu, 2004, p. 39). The assumption that underlies this 

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Universalist perspective of development was captured elsewhere by Alumona (2022) thus:

 Development takes place in any part of the world irrespective of the 
differences in social situations or circumstances. In other words, there are 
universal standards of development that any society or people should 
subscribe to whether there are variations in the understanding of certain 
values or not. This is what is termed homogenization of values in the 
arguments of development between the global North and the global South 
(p. 173).

	 This sense of universalism of certain policies, programmes and strategies of development 
in Africa gives birth to our idea of Africa's development as distinct from African development. 
Some of those policies and strategies would suffice in our explanations. At post-independence, 
when African leaders were poised to reclaim Africa, they had the conviction that economic 
growth through industrialization according to colonial templates was the solution to the 
development woes in Africa. On the strength of that conviction and in conjunction with their 
colonial benefactors, they began the first post-independence development plans in the African 
continent. We have quite a number of them but for want of space, we chose to highlight Nigeria 
Development Plan of 1962-1968, Kenya's First Development Plan of 1966-1970 and Tanzania's 
First Plan of 1964-1969 (see Ake, 1996). 

The Nigerian Development Plan of 1962-68 had priority in Agricultural production of 
cash crops for local consumption and exportation to advance countries of the world. The plan also 
entailed provision of infrastructure and investment in education. However, to achieve all these, 
the country was to substantially depend on foreign assistance on needed resources, technology 
transfer and external expertise on planning and execution; and about 50% of the financing of all 
the proposed activities coming in as foreign aids and loans. The Kenyan First Development Plan 
of 1996-70 was also drafted with concentration on the production sector, the provision of 
infrastructure and social services (Heyer, 1966). To be able to finance all these sectors, 56% of 
Kenya's capital should be from foreign aids and private investment. However, to increase 
domestic saving and finance, domestic assets held by public institutions must give way to foreign 
assets that are owned by private individuals who are non-Africans. In the case of Tanzania, 
attention was to be paid to Agriculture (which is the mainstay of Tanzanian's economy), 
industrialization and education. Later, rural development had special attention after the 'Arusha 
Declaration' of 1967. The shift in attention from industrialization to Agriculture and rural 
development was welcome by the Europeans who felt that there was going to be huge returns on 
the investment made in training manpower from primary to post-secondary school education on 
agricultural productions. More loans were obtained than grants and so, servicing and repayment 
of such loans were for the interests of the foreign 'masters'. Again, the primary agricultural 
products were to be exported abroad since Africans lacked the industries for their processing and 
production into final consumable goods. To succeed in capital expenditure in the implementation 
of the plan, 78% of the expenditure for development comes from external sources by way of loan, 
aids and grants.                

In terms of policy thrust, the  (SAPs) emerged in the Structural Adjustment Programmes
early 1980s from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank to address the 
economic woes which sub-Sahara African (SSA) countries inflicted upon themselves. A 
breakdown of the economic crises confronting the SSA countries include: overvaluation of local 
currencies of countries, restrictions on imports and exports/overprotection of infant/domestic 
industries, excess government spending, investment or budgeting on social services such as 

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subsidies leading to external debt burden, government involvement in price regulations and 
excess consumption and less production of goods and services. The multilateral 
institutions—convinced that they had the exclusive magic wand for solving the institutions' 
imposed problems on Africa—reeled out the path to economic recovery and development that 
Africa must necessarily follow which include: industrial incentive reforms, 
deregulation/divestiture/privatization, foreign exchange price flexibility (devaluation of local 
currency against the dollar abolition of tariffs and taxes/duties) and international cooperation ( ) 
(Rono, 2002).

In the 2000s, development programmes as usually determined by the United Nations 
began with the introduction of the  (MDGs). Principally, there are Millennium Development Goals
eight goals which further split into eighteen targets to be implemented across the globe, especially 
in developing countries of the world. The Millennium Development Targets were therefore 
subsumed under the . This is a global development plan which Millennium Development Goals
the entire African continent and all Third world countries must necessarily be part of if they have 
to attain development. The  (SDGs) as a development Sustainable Development Goals
programme is the successor of the MDGs. It is largely seen as a strategy of development that will 
accomplish achievements in certain areas the  failed. And the Millennium Development Goals
expected achievements are supposed to be recorded within fifteen years, from 2015 to 2030. 

So far, it would not be a Herculean task distinguishing between African development and 
Africa's development. While the former houses policies that promote home grown strategies and 
approaches to solving development problems in Africa and can therefore be characterized as 
particularistic, the latter advances external and foreign approaches and strategies as panacea to 
development problems in Africa and as such termed Universalists' solutions. 

 Identifying the Heavy Burden of African Development Approaches

One major accusation of the burden of African development is that the proponents are 
often illogical and irrational in their arguments, especially as those arguments are related to vital 
forces in certain African ontological beliefs. This is very visible in the Pan-African orientations 
like Negritude, ,  and others which are the bases for those Pan-African approaches Ujamaa Ubuntu
to development. For instance, in environment related development challenges, the African belief 
of ecological monism where man is one with nature acknowledges the non-existence of subject-
object dichotomy and takes nature as part of a comprehensive existence with man, other beings in 
the ecosystem; all of which are inevitably linked with the operations of vital forces. Tempels' 
seminal work on vital forces of the Bantu people has become the precursor for most discourses on 
such invisible phenomenon being an active personal principle in the affairs of man. T.U. Nwala, 
building on the foundation of Tempels' African ontology, wrote of the potency of spirits' 
occupation of every object in existence among the Igbo people of Nigeria. Kwame Gyekye wrote 
of his Akan people of Ghana, explaining the four different categories of beings; three of which are 
defined by spirits while only one is seen as the world of natural and physical objects (Ogbenika, 
2011). Such esotericism in African development is what has been adjudged as illogical and 
irrational and which constitutes a heavy burden of African development. Africans have been 
accused of talking about immanent personalities without which certain pristine African and 
ethical values would lack potency and efficacy. Ogbenika exposed this heavy burden of African 
development thus: “since the idea of spirits in African philosophy is tied to a particular 
environment milieu or a particular situation, it cannot…be seen as rational” (Ogbenika, 2011, 
p.10).                

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Another heavy burden of African development is the exclusivist thinking that the 
development of Africa can effectively be conducted only by Africans who have holistic 
knowledge of African cultures, their attendant values and how they can be linked to development. 
Scholars who attempt to redefine African cultures and development because of their Western 
training are viewed as influenced by foreign and alien mindsets and models of development, and 
cannot in anyway advance the authentic African development. This is because they do not know 
the cultural particulars in Africa and as such become strangers to the way of life of the African. 
The thinking on development here is that every development programme is cultural and so 
African development must situate itself in African cultures. This is in tandem with Anyanwu's 
explanation of culture to mean “the totality of knowledge, behaviour, ideas and objects that 
constitute the common heritage of a people” (Anyanwu, 1983, p. 24). African development is 
therefore based on the totality of African mode of knowing, behavioural response to the 
following: environment, fellow humans, other beings, and issues that stimulate the mind; the idea 
of reality (which is unitary) and the person-nature of objects around every human being. This 
orientation is further seen as a burden of African development because “it frowns at any attempt 
to examine any aspect or element of [African] culture with the model of Western philosophy and 
its logic of development” (Azenabor, 2010, p. 92). Cultural protectionism exhibited by African 
scholars in the quest to promulgate African development is hence viewed as an anathema to the 
realization of their goals.

Anachronism is also a very heavy burden of African development. Most of the values 
promoted in African development discourses are adjudged as no longer relevant to addressing 
modern day problems. The functionality of those traditional ideas and institutions in the present 
day challenges in all facets of human existence is now called to question. The ideas of culture 
evolution and cultural dynamism account for the explanation of such concept as traditional to be 
old while the modern is new and both concepts are mutually exclusive. The classical Rostowian 
example of the five stages of growth, beginning from the first stage he calls traditional societies 
where productivity was limited, social structure was hierarchical and family and clan were major 
determinants of social organizations (Rostow, 1990) fundamentally explains how outdated 
Africans can be described in terms of embracing new trends in development. For instance, it is 
extremely ridiculous seeing Africans stick to their so-called value of covenant when nations are 
talking about and acting on bilateral and multilateral trade agreements that attract foreign 
investors and foreign direct investments to their countries. So the heavy burden of African 
development in this respect is the weird adhesiveness of Africans to obsolete values that are 
overtly and surreptitiously antithetical to both human and material transformation.             

The last heavy burden of African development ensues from the lack of engaging all the 
actors and factors that define complementarity (Asouzu, 2007) in development. Actors here are 
human agents with their own contributions on the issue of African development while factors are 
ideas, programmes, policies and strategies. Somewhere above, we talked about African scholars 
who hold that they are the only competent persons capable of insightfully contributing to issues 
advancing the development of Africa. This means that some actors have been excluded from 
making their own contributions to development issues affecting the continent simply on the basis 
of their place of origin. The factors include ideas, strategies, policies and programmes which 
define African development. The Pan-African ideas advanced by African political philosophers 
and thinkers were largely based on what they defined as African traditional values and could at 
best address limited development issues.                          

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The Heavy Burden of Africa's Development Approaches Explained

One major characteristic of Africa's development agenda examined in this essay is that 
Africa's development strategies, programmes and policies are universal. It is the opinion of the 
Universalists that there is a basic ontological unity in all humans across cultures and as a result, all 
human beings irrespective of cultures have the same development problems and challenges. 
Problems may be distinct in appearance but the reality is that they are not; all development 
problems are one with different perspectives. In order to address world development problems 
effectively, all continents of the world must adopt same development solutions led by the First 
World economies. The priority is for the First World to ensure that the Third world understands 
that underdevelopment is a stage in the development process which has been overcome by the 
First World themselves. So, they are in a position to guide the Third world on the journey of 
development (Rapley, 1996). Development therefore flows from the First World, albeit slowly, to 
the rest of the world. It is conceived as “racing from the West and will 'trickle down' to the masses 
of the underdeveloped people. It was in this thought-frame that the Charter of the United Nations 
Organization was signed” (Njoku, 2006, p. 229). The heavy burden of development from this 
perspective is the assumption of ontological monism of values across cultures of the world.

Another problem associated with Africa's development, in the light of our discussion, is 
making development solely scientific. In this sense, development is economistic, technologically 
and industrialization driven and must be value-free. Attempts to spiritualize development of 
Africa and introduce esotericism into it are deliberately walking the wrong path towards Africa's 
development. Such spiritualization is unscientific and irrational, and unacceptable. The rational 
is the scientific and the scientific is the rational. As rational indices of development, they are 
verifiable, demonstrable, observable, specific, exoteric and objective. In the programmes and 
policies promulgated to aid African countries in raising their GDPs, the First world countries 
through their institutional agents saw the inevitability of technology in order to catch up with the 
developed countries of the world.  Alumona (2017) exposes the opinion of the advanced 
countries that “the developing countries of the world, Africa inclusive, lack scientific and 
technological knowledge, skills and techniques needed for their own development” (p. 51). The 
heavy burden here is the exclusive restriction of development to . scientificity

Market forces and competition are also another set of defining characteristics of the 
programmes of Africa's development which we also view as burdens of Africa's development. 
The classical views of Adam Smith and David Ricardo are very germane to this approach of 
development from the West to Africa. The emphasis is on the forces of demand and supply which 
obliterate any form government interference. The free market economy which started as the 
foundation for the modernization theory of development became the ideal for capitalist neo-
liberalism and has been canvassed as the only route to developing the Third World countries. 
Ekanola captured this when he avows that “proponents argue that capitalism is the most effective 
option in the quest for genuine socio-economic development…” (2006, p. 138). Of market forces 
economy, he says: “prominent among these principles are the following: liberalization of 
national economies to reduce or abolish regulatory trade barriers, capital controls and foreign 
exchange restrictions” (p. 139).  In the Universalists' view, as individuals are allowed freely into 
the market, they would be in competition with one another in order to provide goods and services 
that are meant to ensure the total well-being of the consumers. Two heavy burdens of 
development from this perspective of development suffice; first is the oversimplification of 
development to the point that it can be determined by the forces of demand and supply while the 
second, is the assumption that economic development can lead to the total well-being of both the 
individual and the State. 

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 Lifting the Burdens: A More Holistic Approach to Develop Africa 

From our expositions above, it is clear that the criticisms levelled against certain invisible 
entities in African ontology that are deemed helpful in African development are on the basis of the 
scientific image of rationality. Newton-Smith captures this when he avows that:

The image that the scientific community likes to project of itself, and indeed 
the image that most of us accept of that community, is that of rationality par 
excellence. The scientific community sees itself as the very paradigm of 
institutionalized rationality. It is taken to be in possession of something, the 
scientific method, which generates a 'logic of discovery' (1981, p. 1).  

It is this acclaimed Universalist image that Alumona had earlier identified as the 
“'metaphysic spirit', the 'hub spirit' which drives narrow conception” (2011, p. 141).  This essay 
does not support the fact that any unjustifiable item could be brought in while trying to chart the 
course for African development through some homegrown policies but it is also averse to 
narrowing the matrices of being and intentionally foreclosing the potentialities of other cultures' 
capabilities of making inputs on issues of development. When Africans are discountenanced for 
applying these non-empirical elements, the Universalists should have asked what brands of 
rationality were applied by Africans. Ogbenika (2011) would see it as weak form of rationality 
while Nickerson (2008) would call it practical rationality. In the dual forms of classifications 
explained by these scholars, neither is superior to the other; both are only geared towards the 
realization of the same end through different means that ought to complement each other.

The apparent mutually exclusive relationship between the proponents of African 
development strategies and those of the Africa's development ones, with their respective 
orientations of particularism and universalism, is another identified heavy burden of 
development in Africa. In itself, cultural particularism is not an ethnocentric negativity since 
there are always what a people are known for which fill the gap when the question of identity is 
raised. What is discouraged is the promotion of peculiarities to the extent of culminating in 
culture isolationism. The necessity of cultural particulars cannot be over-emphasized in the 
planning of development. Ikeke and Alumona alluded to this culture indispensability when they 
posit that “no development can fully succeed if it does not take into consideration the cultural 
beliefs of the people. No development can succeed if the people do not own or believe in it. One 
thing that will make people to easily own the process of development is attentiveness to their 
genuine cultural beliefs and practices” (2016, p. 81). 

These cultural beliefs and practices must, however, make provision for cultural 
interactionism and interculturalism. This is the confluence point of cultures without a 'superior-
to-thou' attitude from any one culture in order to genuinely embrace people-oriented 
development.  This justifiably runs contrary to cultural universalism which does not recognize 
culture peculiarities. Such culture universalism is an intended ethnocentric attitude against some 
peculiarities of values in the development of Africa and an unnecessary showing of cultural 
superiority. Many aspects of the touted universal values are also peculiar to the West but are 
exported to the so-called Third world countries as applicable to all human beings in disguised 
Eurocentric imperialist manners, especially in the form of globalization. 

What we continue to advocate for is a genuine mindset towards the development of Africa 
where the so-called universal values do not assume perfection at the detriment of the potentials of 
the particular values. Again, cultural interaction can play a key role in lifting this burden.   

Another heavy burden of development already highlighted is the alleged attitude of 

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Africans bandying obsolete values as appropriate for the development of Africa. Such 
anachronistic values cannot fit into the contemporary development space where science, 
technology and other practical market indices determine world economy and development. 
KwasiWiredu had earlier seen these as one of the three major development problems of any 
society that jettisons rationality. For him, African development problem in this respect is because 
Africans fail “to perceive anachronistic things for what they are and to discard or modify them as 
the case may require” (Wiredu, 1980, p. 1). Wiredu's disjunctive submission of obliteration or 
modification of obsolete traditional values in Africa provided a considerable way of handling 
such values that are deemed irrelevant in our present development situations. While there is no 
problem with modification, except for the  of such activity, there is every reason to question how
the advocacy for complete annihilation of so-called outdated African traditional values. 
Historicists as philosophers of history are prominent critics of the destructive, rather than 
deconstructive, approach to African traditional values. 

Okoro presents Maurice Mandelbaum's view of historicism as an attempt at explaining 
that historical change is defined by the historicity of values, an expression that signifies that 
cultural values are always indigenous to a particular age (Okoro, 2011).  Most often, the 
standards applied in the annihilation of a people's traditional values are alien. This in turn 
undermines the people's entire way of life and negatively affects their mode of knowing, 
language, ontological relationships and their identity as a whole. While not admitting all kinds of 
values that are traditional to the African peoples in the quest for a critical endogenous 
development, values should be respected in such a way that even at the possibility of 
modification, we can know how they have evolved in order to also know how and what to further 
modify, or again what has been modified in the past. This way, we promote cultural revivalism in 
the midst of engaging other cultures of the world.

Finally, a very clear burden of Africa's development is the claim that development could 
only be enjoyed by countries in Africa if they allow the forces of demand and supply to determine 
their terms of trade. This means liberalization of the economies of African countries wherein 
there is no government interference with the progress of the market. It is suggested that the 
totality of Africa's well-being depends solely on the market forces with their TINA (there is no 
alternative) acronym. On this holistic well-being, the scholars of economic liberalism promoted 
the assumption that free market forces, following from Adams Smith's postulations, would 
guarantee effective and just production and distribution of not just the economic requirements 
needed for development but also the social, political and epistemological ones.

This classical glorification of market forces in reality seems to be a deceptive one when 
compared to the economic and development realities in world economy, Africa inclusive. The 
principle of competition which is the kernel of market forces carries the implication of inequality 
and unhealthiness in Smith's market forces theory of development. Certainly, the economic, 
social, political and epistemic advancement of the First world countries place them far above 
those of the African continent. In actual sense, there is no competition because they are not all 
taking off from the same departure point. “Those who own the means of production see their 
incomes and wealth increase more rapidly than those who do not” (Holcombe, 2021, p. 9). The 
market forces approach to development leaves out principles such as communalism, solidarity, 
reciprocity and covenant which are familiarly attached to Africans. And this non-consideration of 
other cultures and possible alternatives is the reason the free market economy approach to 
development confidently and proudly assumes there is no other alternative to development. But 
development scholars are not unaware of what De Rambures calls socialist market economy and 

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which he describes as the China model of development. It is a mixture of reformed government or 
State on the one hand and private market economy on the other hand. What is visibly unique about 
the model is that the Confucius' virtues of honesty, generosity and a sense of duty - which are all 
reflections of their own culture - are significant aspects of development story (De Rambures, 
2015). So, there is at least an alternative to the western liberal model of development. Such 
advocacy for critical hybridization of cultural values for development is not in short supply in 
Africa. That is in line with the position of this paper on critical complementarity of African 
cultural values with those of the west which should save Africa from being victims of the burden 
of monopolized development model from the west. 

Conclusion

Development has paradoxically remained a desire and a burden in the African continent. 
It is a desire because there is need for improvement in both the material and spiritual aspects of 
lives of Africans. It is, however, also a burden because many of the approaches to satisfying such 
desires have been viewed as ethnocentric as Africans and scholars of Africa's development are 
basically involved in cultural protectionism. But we have argued that cultural protectionism is not 
a negative phenomenon as long as it does not foreclose interculturalism and reception of values 
from other cultures leading to critical modification of values. On the flip side, we have also 
argued that universalism no matter how well intentioned is negative if it aims at cultural 
destruction, rather than encouraging complementarity.   

Scholars and approaches have been classed into particularists/African development and 
Universalists/Africa's development. Each of the divides has been presented in the light of their 
intended ethnocentric advocacies which constitute the burden of development in Africa. The 
perceptions of both divides are antithetical to each other and mutually exclusive. This ought not 
to be the case because the ontology of values does not abhor cross-cultural interactions.  To lift 
this burden of development, we therefore conclude that there must be critical complementarity of 
values from the different cultures of the west and Africa rooted in African traditional values. In 
the traditional concept of  (heavy load), an individual needs a complementary effort from Ibuaru
another to assist in lifting such a load. In such scenario, it is not really the helper that determines 
the nature of assistance because the owner of the load is more acquainted with the way the load is 
packaged than the helper. The helper would need to inquire from the owner to know the areas in 
which help is needed and even if he observes something the owner is oblivious of, he can at best 
make convincing suggestions rather than imposing his own strategies on his potential 
beneficiary. It is on this basis that we recommend complementary strategies, instead of imposing 
ones, to the development of Africa. 

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