Impact of Religion in Africa's Growth

The world is fast developing and in the past two decades, the world have witnessed most countries especially Middle Eastern and Asian countries grow enormously; while most African countries instead keep declining in growth, or stay on the same spot.
Africa with all its abundance of resources, a big market and also virgin land for investments and startups, still finds itself stagnant in regards to growth, governance and most countries in the continent are heavily indebted.
These trend is so disturbing and many have tried to give an explanation as to the reason why Africa can't grow and meetup with the every increasing demands of the world as compared to other developing nations around the world. Some school of thought think it is bad governance and undemocratic practices that contributes to this, but if we look at the most recent emerging economies in this decade (like UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, etc) they are not democracies and have a monarchial style of governance.
There are other reasons being given to this but I personally feel religion is a major impact that retards growth in Africa. I am an African and live in the reality of religion (especially Christianity) in our societies in Africa. When the early explorers from Europe arrived in Africa, they realized the people were a very spiritual people and inorder to colonize most of Africa, religion was first introduced and later annexation/colonization.
During colonial era, it was religion that kept being put at the forefront of education, culture, governance and administration. This has played a major role in the way Africans regard everything in their daily activities. With this kind of mentality, risks, losses and gains in every domain of life is constantly being regarded as either a blessing, curse or abomination sometimes.
Furthermore, with the introduction of the pentecostal movement, it has greatly impacted the daily life of Africans. We see times being spent in church activities greater than that spent on economic or daily activities and this greatly impacts the economy and growth. Some churches even require members to attend services with the week, during the day; time meant to be engaged in economic and other revenue generating activities.
Finally, we also see Churches misinterpreting biblical scriptures for economic gain from their members and sometimes even define the way of living for their members. This over burden members who will strive to meetup with church obligation and others alienate themselves from good opportunities for economic growth because the party seeking business cooperation is not a member of his/her church. This is why we tend to see most church leaders extremely wealthy, whereas their church members are barely managing to keep up.
This is so disturbing because I traveled to Europe and the picture I saw with the way they approached religion was quite a vast contrast to that of Africans. What is common with Europeans and other emerging nations is they don't stay so focused on religion/spirituality, but rather face the daily challenges in life based on reason and risks. Emphasis are always laid to positive activities geared towards growth rather than time-consuming church activities. The mindset is very differently and the level of tolerance and acceptance different.
I believe if Africans can snap out of the mental slavery long enshrined in them by the first explorers/colonizers, we shall create more time to think of growth, success and make great use of our huge potentials. Not saying we should dump Christianity since it is the sense of reason in the world, but demanding we try to program our time to have religion as a compliment in our lives, rather than the center around all our activities.

This article is just my thoughts and my opinion, if you have something else to contribute, do comment so we share ideas. Also do not forget to like, upvote the article, and if you love my works, follow me.

Thanks and happy weekend