Michel Ngue-Awane

Michel Ngue-Awane is a British-Burkinabé author, local authority and NHS commissioning, procurement and Contract Management expert. He is the author of 'Above Colonial Subconscious Africa Moves'

Michel was born in 1975 in city of Ouagadougou from parents of Cameroon origin. From 1999 to 2001 he was the Youth Advisor for the United Nations Environment Programme and organised the Global Youth Campaign on sustainable consumption. As UNEP youth advisor, he also contributed to 'Pachamama Missao Terra 2' a children book published by Peace Child International 5 in Collaboration with the United Nations Environment Programme.

In 2009, he self- published a book titled, Practice Guide to Social Housing, which was used as course book for his housing training programmes in the United Kingdom. This book was well received by housing professionals and hundreds of people without prior experience in Social Housing used it as study guide to get jobs in Local Governments and Housing Associations. The book was rated very good by both professionals and all trainees and many still use it today as professional guide for their work.

Between 2006 and 2008, Michel was an advisory Committee member for the Mayor of London Refugees and Migrant Advisory Panel, shaping the Mayor of London policies on Migrants' integration and a subgroup Member for the Home Office Refugee Forum, advising the Home Office on employment and housing strategies for Refugees and Migrants in the United Kingdom.

In 2010, Michel was one of the 10 contenders for the first Local Government Challenge. Michel has won various awards for his community work in UK including the UNLTD and the Millennium Award with a lifetime fellowship. In 2014 he was nominated as one of the best businessman within the Cameroonian community in UK and in 2015 he was also nominated as the best Cameroonian author of the year. Michel is a businessman and has created his own brand of Chilli Sauce called PEP Chilli Sauce which is sold in shops across the United Kingdom and France.12 13 Michel is a fluent French and English speaker but writes his books in English.

His theory of the colonial subconscious

Michel Ngue-Awane argues that although African countries won the physical battle against the colonial powers’ occupation, they are still struggling to liberate their minds. A history of subtle and systematic indoctrination of their subconscious, through programmes put in place to control them, left its shadow, with African people unable to take action to change their status quo. A history of tells has fooled Africans to believe their situation could change simply by the wave of a magic wand.

‘The Colonial Subconscious’ -a theory that many of the current struggles faced by Africans people are exacerbated unconsciously by themselves, due to their lack of actions to change systems that were put in place to control them. By keeping and working with these systems, they perpetuate their self-annihilation, living as dependants individuals under siege- and encourages readers to reflect on their own lives and sense of self. By identifying these repressed ideologies the individual can confront the negative shackles and enter a positive stage of self-actualisation. This releases the subconscious and invites in new experiences and opportunities leaving the individual able to take firm, positive action and full control over their destiny. Only after individuals in Africa have improved and honoured themselves, can they collectively rise above all prejudices and stereotypes ensuring the freedom, peace and prosperity for future generations.

Views on education

Michel Ngue-Awane thinks that education plays a key role in the fabric of the society and argues that individuals will never discover their true purpose in life if they fail to understand their inner self. Education should therefore help individuals to know who they truly are so that they can pursuit their own agenda in life, but when they fail to understand this, they end up studying and living other people’s life.

He conclude that Africa cannot change or develop if their respective governments don’t change their current education system. The current education system in every African country is not relevant to their situation, context and needs, therefore not suitable for Africans. Africans according to Michel Ngue-Awane will remain servants, living on borrowed-self as long as they continue with the colonial education system. True education should be geared toward identifying one’s potentials and needs and developing programmes that will help to meet those needs. He believe that Africa can lead the world if Africans discover their true identity and follow it.

View on poverty

For Michel Ngue-Awane, poverty is a mental state and yet again, he suggests that a poor person in reality doesn't want to be poor, however, he has programmed his subconscious mind to accept poverty as a situation that cannot be overcome. Until he break this mental barrier, he will never defeat poverty. He thinks that most African people are poor because they are still mentally and psychologically bound, having been trained to accept poverty as normal, see and consider themselves as poor people. This situation is exacerbated and maintained by aid programmes. Accepting and living on aid is yet another mechanism to perpetuate poverty.

In reality human nature rejects poverty and lack and long for things that makes life easier and comfortable however, poor people’s subconscious mind accepts it. They attribute the causes of poverty to someone else but themselves. Unconsciously poor people- particularly African people- have decided to remain poor, but they don't know this and no one dare to tell them the truth, instead, they are pushed deeper into this condition through all sorts of so called "poverty alleviating programmes". They are constantly distracted to find the causes of poverty elsewhere instead of looking inwardly to discover their source of wealth. People who have discovered this principle are in fact free and wealthy.

Without understanding the causes of poverty which are inherent to each individual, Africa will never become rich and free.

View on Democracy and Development

A country cannot claim to be developed when it is unable to feed its population. In Africa, there is almost everything African people need to meet their needs. Rivers and streams abound but Africans still depend on the mercy of rain for their subsistence farming. Without a clear road map for their development, Africa will never move an inch.

For Michel Ngue-Awane, the development is where citizens can have a share in the nation’s wealth and where they can easily meet their needs for food, shelter, health, production and reproduction without a lot of difficulties. True development is when citizens can easily have the means to buy or access experiences they desire. For example with money, they can buy the experiences of good food, good holiday, good hospital treatment, decent accommodation etc.

These experiences do not necessarily require an elected government or regular change in governments to be expressed. In fact some changes can hinder these experiences and limit people’s possibilities to thrive. What people really want is the type of governments that encourage creativity, investment, freedom of undertakings, freedom of entrepreneurship, and freedom of ambitions whether it is an elected government or not. Africa should therefore adopt the type of government that is suitable for the nation, not import concepts that make no difference to citizens’ lives.

Our mind-set determines our conditions and this is why Michel argues that we can change governments every year, but without a change of mind-set, Africa will remain poor and under-developed.

He conclude that a government is as rich as its people because it makes money from citizens and if the citizens are poor, the country will be poor.

View on world resources

Resources abound in the world and many are those not yet discovered, when their needs arise, we will discover and use them. Those who argue that the world will run out of resources are wrong. As long as human beings remain on earth, they will always find new ways to meet their needs.

History tells us that when one resource is used up, we will discover the next one to meet the needs of its time, and when it is finished new ones will be found and so on. The world is rich; yesterday we used coal, which was as precious as gold. Today it is the sun we turn into electricity and our black gold has become a liability, unclean energy; tomorrow new methods and resources will be discovered and used as our needs for those resources arise.

Quotes from his book

“The Neolithic man did not live or rely on international aid.”

“We need to help people to acquire the ability to think positively, to think of possibilities and to self-value. We need to train them to think in terms of what they want to be and of possibilities”

“We create our conditions by our thoughts process and we can only change them through our thoughts process.”

“Impossibility is a self-imposed limitation”

“A government is as rich as its people because it makes money from citizens and if citizens are poor, the country will be poor”.

“Resources abound in the world and many are those not yet discovered, when their needs arise, we will discover them”.