‘African Time’ is un-African

The idea of African time has become very ubiquitous among Africans to the extent that Africans themselves have come to accept it as a way of life. This phenomenon has become so destructive to Africans in their various life’s activities; ranging from work places, social gatherings, religious activities to even keeping appointments with government functionaries. Time wasting and mismanagement has therefore been viewed as an African phenomenon that acts as a serious impediment to Africa’s development. Adopting the philosophical methods of analysis and hermeneutics, this work argued that the concept of African time does not have African origin and that such an idea is a foreign imposition on Africans and it is a furtherance of colonialism in Africa and on Africans. This is because Africans in traditional metaphysical worldview are very religious and would always keep to time since they are conscious of the consequences of late coming in their appointments with the supra-sensible beings in African ontology. We therefore concluded that we must reinvent Africa’s originality on punctuality while conscientiously dropping the colonially imposed African time. That way, Africans would reenact their real identity and tackle any development challenges associated with time wasting. Keywords: African time, worldview, African ontology, punctuality, African identity