Reclaiming the Wings: Why Africa Must Return to Its Spiritual Core
By OLUWANBEPELUMI A. Pelumi-Folarin
We must now proceed further from our previous reflections: “Yoruba Spirituality: The Salt of Yoruba Culture” and “What Happens When Yoruba Culture Loses Its Spiritual Core?” —into the lived reality confronting us as a people today.
Our spirituality is not an accessory to identity. It is our fundamental core. It does not leave anyone. It cannot be erased by time, invasion, or foreign doctrine. What we call “abandonment” is in truth a deliberate act of suppression, an attempt to bury the very source of our relevance. And in burying it, we bury our civilizational power.
Consider the image of an eagle whose two wings have been cut off. A creature whose history is written in the skies—soaring above mountains, storms, and boundaries—is suddenly reduced to the ground. Its fellowship becomes terrestrial birds. Its daily life is now defined by crawling rather than flying. It still remembers the heights, but it can no longer reach them.
This is our present condition.
We now speak proudly of how we were conquered, enslaved, and colonized by foreign powers. We recount these events as if they define us. But conquest did not begin with chains and ships. It began when we lost—when we were made to abandon—our spiritual essence, which is our true identity. What happened then continues now, not through guns and flags alone, but through the replacement of our ancestral consciousness with imported metaphysical systems.
Spiritual disarmament preceded political subjugation.
According to the illustration above, our spirituality is meant to function as the wings of the eagle—lifting us beyond limitation, grounding our societies in cosmic order, and giving moral structure, intellectual autonomy, and civilizational direction. But because this essential part of us has been clipped, our nations and our continent have been reduced to a burial ground of dreams. We are present in the world, yet absent from power. Visible in population, yet invisible in authority. Rich in heritage, yet poor in self-definition.
We are not underdeveloped. We are spiritually displaced.
Today, Africa borrows systems of governance, education, morality, and meaning that were not born from its soil, its cosmology, or its ancestral philosophy. Our institutions are built on frameworks that do not arise from our metaphysical understanding of life. The result is structural dependency, intellectual imitation, and identity confusion. A people cannot build a future using the consciousness of another civilization.
And this must be stated without apology: the continued dominance of foreign religious systems in African educational and social institutions has played a central role in this displacement. When a people are taught to distrust their ancestral worldview from childhood, they are trained to see themselves as metaphysically inferior. Their history becomes something to escape from rather than something to build upon.
If Africa is to rise, this must change.
Register for World Yoruba Cultural and Spiritual Heritage Conference Here
Beyond cultural celebration and historical lamentation, there must be an intentional return to ancestral wisdom—not as nostalgia, but as a foundation. We must begin to rebuild African institutions on African philosophical and spiritual principles: our systems of education, leadership, justice, healing, economy, and community must once again arise from our own cosmologies.
This is not about hostility. It is about sovereignty of consciousness.
Without mincing words: African liberation will remain incomplete as long as our minds are governed by external metaphysical authorities. A people cannot reclaim their destiny while outsourcing the interpretation of existence itself. We cannot fly while carrying the worldview of those who once conquered us.
Africa must wake up.
We must reclaim what sets us apart—not merely in language, attire, and art, but in ontology, ethics, and cosmic understanding. We must return to the philosophies that once produced ordered societies, sacred leadership, moral coherence, and spiritual authority. We must re-center ancestral knowledge as the bedrock of our renaissance.
This is not a rejection of the modern world. It is a refusal to be erased within it.
The eagle was not created to walk forever.
A civilization was not born to imitate eternally.
A people cannot rise on borrowed wings.
Africa will not ascend through imitation.
Africa will rise through remembrance.
Through restoration.
Through the fearless reclaiming of its spiritual center.
Africa Will Rise.
Click here to Register for World Yoruba Cultur
ABOUT US
Welcome to AFROFILM HERALD TIMES LIMITED, a premier media and entertainment company committed to celebrating and promoting the richness of African culture through storytelling. Our mission is to amplify African voices, preserve our heritage, and share authentic narratives with the world.
At AFROFILM HERALD TIMES LIMITED, we specialize in filmmaking, documentary production, content creation, and online entertainment journalism. Through visually compelling films, thought-provoking documentaries, and engaging digital content, we capture the essence of Africa’s past, present, and future.
Our passion lies in showcasing Africa’s diverse traditions, histories, and contemporary experiences in ways that inspire, educate, and entertain. With a deep appreciation for our roots and a forward-thinking approach, we strive to be a leading force in African media, bringing compelling stories to both local and global audiences.
We welcome and appreciate voluntary donations to support our administrative upkeep and continue our mission of cultural storytelling. To contribute, please reach out to us via +234 807 4441 391 (Available on WhatsApp).
Join us in our journey to redefine African storytelling and preserve our cultural legacy through the power of media and entertainment.
