Copyrighted material – 9781137495167 CONTENTS List of Illustrations vii Preface ix Introduction 1 One An Emerging Biography 17 Part I Africa in the Configurations of Knowledge Two African-Centered Conceptualization 43 Three Pluralism and Religious Tolerance 59 Four Postulates on the African State 77 Five Axioms of African Migrations and Movements 85 Part II The Yoruba in the Configurations of Knowledge Six A Mouth Sweeter than Salt : A Fractal Analysis 99 Seven Yoruba Gurus and the Idea of Ubuntugogy 121 Eight Pragmatic Linguistic Analysis of Isola 137 Part III The Value of Knowledge: Policies and Politics Nine The Power of African Cultures : A Diegetic Analysis 155 Ten African Peace Paradigms 185 Eleven Pan-African Notions 203 Twelve Using E-clustering to Learn and Teach about Toyin Falola 217 Conclusion: An Interpretative Overview 235 Copyrighted material – 9781137495167 Copyrighted material – 9781137495167 vi Contents Appendix: Notation Conventions 241 List of Works by Toyin Falola 243 Notes 249 Bibliography 277 Index 293 Copyrighted material – 9781137495167 Copyrighted material – 9781137495167 TOYIN FALOLA AND AFRICAN EPISTEMOLOGIES Copyright © Abdul Karim Bangura, 2015. All rights reserved. First published in 2015 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN: 978–1–137–49516–7 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bangura, Abdul Karim, 1953– author. Toyin Falola and African epistemologies / Abdul Karim Bangura. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–1–137–49516–7 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Falola, Toyin—Criticism and interpretation. 2. Falola, Toyin—Infl uence. 3. Knowledge, Theory of—Africa. 4. Philosophy, Yoruba. 5. Africa—Study and teaching. I. Title. DT19.7.F35B36 2015 960.0722—dc23 2014032960 A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Knowledge Works (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: February 2015 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Copyrighted material – 9781137495167 Copyrighted material – 9781137495167 Introduction This book examines the contributions of Toyin Falola to the field of African Studies since 1960, providing readers with the opportunity to review his work and introducing theoretical and methodological approaches for assessing his scholarship. Toyin Falola has attracted con- siderable academic attention as a leading African historian of this gen- eration. Wide-ranging analyses of his career and contributions have been attempted in books and essays, most notably in five festschriften—two edited by Adebayo Oyebade, The Transformation of Nigeria: Essays in Honor of Toyin Falola (2002) and The Foundations of Nigeria: Essays in Honor of Toyin Falola (2003) ; one edited by Akin Ogundiran, Pre-Colonial Nigeria: Essays in Honor of Toyin Falola (2005) ; one edited by Niyi Afolabi, Toyin Falola: The Man, The Mask, The Muse (2010); and the most recent one edited by Akin Alao and Rotimi Taiwo, Perspectives on African Studies: Essays in Honour of Toyin Falola (2011). Thus, a pertinent question emerges: Is another book on Toyin Falola and his works needed? The obvious answer is that, as long as he continues to produce scholarship, there will be a need to keep writing about his work. The aforementioned books, though important in their own capaci- ties, leave many topics to be addressed. In the first three and the most recent festschriften, introductory essays attempt to survey and evaluate the significance of his work, but that is not always the purpose of the rest of the essays in those collections. The exception is the volume edited by Afolabi, where the primary objective is to explore his work and its sig- nificance, and the book attains a deserved eminence. The perspectives are many, in part because of the contribution of more than 20 different voices. But there is a need to go beyond these five books for several reasons. First, they have not fully captured the essence of Falola’s works in terms of philosophy and methodology. Second, since they were completed, Falola has produced additional writings, which need to be analyzed and connected with previous works. Third, a single-authored book provides coherence and greater analytical rigor. This book, therefore, seeks to add to these works by providing both new biographical and academic infor- mation on Falola as well as a systematic and updated analysis of his work as a contribution to the Black Intellectual Renaissance. Copyrighted material – 9781137495167 Copyrighted material – 9781137495167 2 Toyin Falola and African Epistemologies Image 0.1 Portrait by Dr. Aderonke Adesanya, 2007. A Review of Works on Toyin Falola The five festschriften mentioned above and The Long Arm of Africa: The Prodigious Career of Toyin Falola (2010), edited by Vik Bahl and Bisola Falola, have all presented various ideas on Falola’s scholarship and the way his ideas have inspired a host of new work. 1 In The Transformation of Nigeria: Essays in Honor of Toyin Falola (2002), the editor, Adebayo Oyebade, divides the volume “into four broad parts designed to explore the salient elements in the transformation of Nigeria, all of which are areas covered by the scholarship of Toyin Falola.” 2 The chapters in the first part “deal with education, law, and various issues of political development.” In the second part, the chapters examine key economic and societal issues. The chapters in the third part investigate “discourses on gender and ethnicity.” In the final part, the chapters interrogate the themes of language, culture, and art. Together, asserts Oyebade, the chapters represent “a scholarly interpretation of the thematic issues that have defined Nigeria in the last hundred years.” Oyebade offers The Transformation of Nigeria “as the first tribute to rec- ognize and honor the immense contribution of Toyin Falola to the Copyrighted material – 9781137495167 Copyrighted material – 9781137495167 Introduction 3 development of historical scholarship on Africa in general and Nigeria in particular.” 3 According to Oyebade, “Falola belongs to the second generation of scholars whose unique contribution to academic history is to expand the horizon of the discipline through teaching . and research in new histori- cal terraine.” Oyebade notes that “Falola quickly established himself as a leading [scholar] in the new historical school [and] his remarkable profes- sional career [is] testimony to his immense contribution to the new African historiography.” Oyebade points out that “although Falola has written on a wide variety of African themes, his most significant contributions has been to Nigerian historical studies.” This is because, according to Oyebade, Falola “has a passion for Nigeria [coupled] with an ambition to cover all of the leading issues and find answers to the problems of under- development.” Oyebade notes that Falola “has written seminal work on Ibadan, the city of his birth, in addition to contributing many significant studies on the Yoruba.” Oyebade adds that Falola’s writings “not only cut across historical periods, ranging from precolonial to contemporary times,” but also investigate “a broad range of issues: politics, economy, religion, culture, and historiography.” 4 Oyebade dedicates the second festschrift, The Foundations of Nigeria: Essays in Honor of Toyin Falola (2003), to Falola for his academic study of Nigeria in the era of British colonial rule. The themes covered in the volume “underline the foundations of modern Nigeria, notably national- ism, constitutionalism, politics, economy, culture, gender, ethnicity, and religion.” 5 In the second chapter of the book, Oyebade provides a critical analysis of Falola’s writings on the colonial economy in Nigeria. He argues that two major historiographical themes reinforce those writings. The first theme establishes that, for any analytical tool of inquiry and explanation to be fruitful, it must be anchored in valid connections among the economic, social, political, and religious characteristics of the state. The second theme is that modernization theory’s account of colonialism is untenable, since it denies the primacy of imperial economic interest in the colonial project. Oyebade concludes that, because of the sheer volume and originality of Falola’s work on colonial economy, it not only has an enduring legacy on the discipline of political economics as a whole but also advances the epis- temology about colonial economic history in particular. 6 Akinwumi Ogundiran, editor of the third festschrift, Precolonial Nigeria: Essays in Honor of Toyin Falola (2005), notes that this volume recognizes Falola’s work “on the historiography of precolonial Nigeria—the sub- ject on which he originally built his scholarly reputation.” Ogundiran explains that the book is “a return to where it all began for Falola”:7 that is, the political-economic perspective and socioeconomic dimensions of his work on precolonial Nigerian history, especially nineteenth-century Yorubaland, which also inform the analytical