Reflections on a Common Purpose in Expanding the Frontiers of Global African Scholarship

The enormous contributions of global African scholars to the academic fields of arts, social sciences, and humanities cannot be understated. This accomplishment has not received adequate recognition in a world dominated by Western scholarship. This domination is not unexpected because the production, distribution, and consumption of knowledge are historically charged, both politically and economically. It is not accidental that the domineering “international” publishers and journals in the global academy are based in the West. Knowledge production in the field of African studies has been affected by this reality. Hence, there is an urgent need to transcend current methodological and pedagogical approaches. Because knowledge is the bulwark of the survival of any group of people, global African scholars in the field of African studies have the mandate of heeding the warnings of the Senegalese historian Cheikh Anta Diop. Diop has argued that for African scholarship to attain the distinct recognition it deserves, scholars have the duty of uncovering the commonness and interconnectedness of global African peoples’ historical experiences. While it is correct that geography plays a great role in the production of historical knowledge, the direction of African studies can be aimed at creating a platform for a homogenized pan-African mandate. This paper charged that in achieving the mission of adequate knowledge production by African scholars for the use of global Africans and of the world, the African academy must necessarily be liberated from the dominance of Western scholarship. There will be a reliance on primary and secondary sources in making a case for an encompassing pan-African emancipatory scholarship

Ubuntu: Revisiting an Endangered African Philosophy in Quest of a Pan-Africanist Revolutionary Ideology

In the final analysis, Kwame Nkrumah advanced that pan-Africanism must be about the unity of African masses under socialist governments. However, the concept of pan-Africanism in recent times has been misconstrued in the most treacherous manner. On one hand, the concept has been reduced to a “dansiki-wearing” competition by a layer of cultural nationalists; and on the other hand, it has been reduced to a “Black capitalism” bourgeois agenda. In spite of the apparent failures of capitalism, bourgeois economists like Nigeria’s Tony Elumelu, have been peddling a purported refined capitalist system under the ambiance of “Africapitalism”, as a stimulant for economic growth and development in Africa. Under the pretense of a “pan-African” agenda, bourgeois economists have been touting this neoliberal agenda across the continent and beyond, for self-serving purposes. The danger this portends is the detachment of pan-Africanism from its socialist agenda. Indeed, existing works on African personality have showed the nexus between a pre-colonial communal relationship and socialism. The Sotho epistemology, Ubuntu, is undoubtedly a product of this ancient communal relationship. Ubuntu expresses the humanistic tendencies that are fast going into extinction in today’s individualistic society. Ultimately, the withering of Ubuntu is not unconnected to the dominance of capitalism. The economic system through alienation has not just distorted the relationship among humans, but also between humans and nature. This study thus argues that Ubuntu as a value system is a material product of pre-feudal African society; and that because of this trajectory, Ubuntu must be reassessed as a potential social force for resistance that can pave the way for the emergence of a scientific socialist African society. Ubuntu is not scientific socialism and vice-versa, but the value system if properly understood can lay the foundation towards the birth of the former

A Marxian Analysis on The Bond Between Capitalism and the Oppression of Nigerian Women Since Colonial Times

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, there have been several attempts to diminish the significance of Marxism in academia. It is clear that, despite the large body of work on the dialectics of the subjugation and challenges of women today, only an inconsequential fraction of research examines the contribution of the capitalist mode of production towards this reality. This study examines the systematic oppression and exploitation of Nigerian women since the introduction of capitalism into the Nigerian context. The study contends that several sexist policies enacted by the British colonialist government facilitated the capitalist exploitation of the Nigerian masses and that the global exploitation of women is inseparable from capitalism

A Marxian Analysis on The Bond Between Capitalism and the Oppression of Nigerian Women Since Colonial Times

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, there have been several attempts to diminish the significance of Marxism in academia. It is clear that, despite the large body of work on the dialectics of the subjugation and challenges of women today, only an inconsequential fraction of research examines the contribution of the capitalist mode of production towards this reality. This study examines the systematic oppression and exploitation of Nigerian women since the introduction of capitalism into the Nigerian context. The study contends that several sexist policies enacted by the British colonialist government facilitated the capitalist exploitation of the Nigerian masses and that the global exploitation of women is inseparable from capitalism