The current life expectancy rate in Africa is about 64 and may even be less in some African countries, while the rest of the world has theirs above 80.

Do you know that we do not really care about our health, but only engage in rhetoric whenever we publicly discuss this subject?

So let us ask ourselves why other continents or countries are having higher life expectancy rates? For example, many countries in Asia, Europe and others have most of their citizens living above 80 years. Why is it that the case is different in Africa? Perhaps, we should hold national debates on this matter.

This issue is more important than many of us think. The rate at which our youths are getting sick and dying has reached an epic proportion and we must all be worried.

Apart from the fact that we are sometimes plagued with drought, famine, wars and have poor welfare and health-care systems, we also do not eat well. We import too many chemicals into our countries. We eat foods which contain too many chemicals.

Our borders are open to all kinds of things and we are fed any nonsense as the Holy Grail. Even as cavemen, we ate and drank better. Our forefathers lived longer and faced little health problems.

Why are we not eating and promoting our local foods? Why are we not eating and promoting virgin coconut oil? Why are we not eating more natural vegetables and fruits? Why are we using chemicals to spray our crops and grasses? Why are we importing old vehicles which the white man will never use again?

The smoke that emits from many of these old cars is detrimental to our health. We pray too much as a people, but that will never make us live long healthy lives. You have to dig deep to uncover everything of value; for example-- oil, gold, diamond etc... so must we dig for knowledge. We celebrate in beer bars what we prayed for in churches and then cry in churches for what we got in beer bars. We must cut down on our drinking habits.

We must be careful how we eat animal products and foods which contain chemicals. It is a commercial world and we as Africans must be extremely mindful of the things we allow into our countries.

We do not research much. We are always relying on the knowledge of the white man--- somebody who will never allow you to be ahead of him. Most of our medical doctors are lazy. They limit their knowledge only to what they learnt in the medical school, hence creating more health problems for us.

Except Africa, every other continent is conscious of what they eat and what gets into their countries. But it seems we are too focused on making more money than living a healthy life. We sell just anything to our own people, we do not care about the health consequences, which invariably will affect the progress of our countries.

Why do we vaccinate our babies by putting strange chemicals in their bodies? What is its use? The explanation usually given is lame. What if we refuse such vaccinations on our babies and find better ways of protecting them with our local herbs and diets.

We are dying young because we do not care about our health. We eat anything at any time. I believe strongly that we are still lagging behind because of the foods we eat. You can only be smart and think better when you eat well. Both our leaders and us do not care much.

These are the reasons why we are always suffering. Oh Africa, there must be a real change if we will ever move forward. We are losing our intellectuals and many of our productive citizens, as a result of the kinds of things we allow into our countries. We can do better. We must always educate ourselves and children about healthy living, not just talking about it, but practising it.

Our governments must also try to improve our economies and health-care systems, so as to take away the burdens we go through everyday as a people. If we live long healthy lives, our countries will get better in terms of development.