The sense of community and humane living are highly cherished values of traditional African life. This statement remains true in spite of the apparent disarray in the experience of modern politics and brutal internecine wars in many parts of the Continent. For traditional Africans, the community is basically sacred, rather than secular, and surrounded by several religious forms and symbols.

A visitor to Africa is soon struck by the frequent use of the first person plural 'we', 'ours' in everyday speech. In modern African urban cities, primary community loyalties of one's extended family and village, continue to exert their hold over people who live away from the communities of their home-towns.

People generally return to their villages from their residence in the cities from time to time to join members of their village community to celebrate important traditional rituals and cultural events like initiation, title-taking or festival. From their residence in urban cities, they send substantial financial contributions to their rural home communities to support various development projects like provision of electricity and pipe-borne water, building of educational institutions and scholarship awards, funds to send young men and women on further studies in foreign countries or in one's own country.