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CONTENTS

List of Illustrations vii Preface ix

Introduction 1 One An Emerging Biography 17

Part I 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

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Appendix: Notation Conventions 241 List of Works by Toyin Falola 243 Notes 249 Bibliography 277 Index 293

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TOYIN FALOLA AND AFRICAN EPISTEMOLOGIES Copyright © Abdul Karim Bangura, 2015. All rights reserved. First published in 2015 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the —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 , 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

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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 : 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-: 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.

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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

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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 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 , 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 approaches and thematic focus of the book. By focusing on these aspects, argues Ogundiran, the book “builds upon the visions and interests that have influenced Falola’s

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4 Toyin Falola and African Epistemologies corpus” and opens up new avenues to investigate precolonial Nigerian historiography. 8 Toyin Falola: The Man, the Mask, the Muse (2010) is presented by its editor, Niyi Afolabi, as “a biographical-critical assessment of . . . Falola’s life, works, and thoughts as a historian and scholar of Africa and the African .” The text is divided into five sections. Afolabi writes:

The first section echoes distinguished invocations, which sum up the enigma that Toyin Falola represents as a “poet,” “volcanic force,” “diasporic muse,” “master teacher,” and a “Neo-Renaissance man,” among other accolades. The second serves as scholarly configurations of what the contributors define as “Falolaism.” The third interrogates the contributions of Falola to Yoruba historiography and the studies. The fourth is a more focused study of Falola’s per- spectives on African historiography and development, while the final section theorizes on Falola’s creative energies. In sum, the book rep- resents a celebration of the of knowledge, the miracle of success, and the sacrifices it entails. 9

Edited by Vik Bahl and Bisola Falola, The Long Arm of Africa: The Prodigious Career of Toyin Falola (2010) is a tribute to Falola for being, as the editors poignantly put it, “the most prolific scholar that Africa has ever produced.”10 The volume is “an illustrated catalog of [Falola’s] more than one hundred books” as well as a detailed annotation of “his book chapters, journal articles, encyclopedia entries, and book reviews; conferences and lectures; wide-ranging professional service; and the honors and awards he has received.” 11 In it, Bahl and Bisola Falola assert that many of Falola’s books comprise “major interventions within their specific topic areas, [which include] political economy, culture, histo- riography, development, and urbanization.” 12 They also note that “he has been at the forefront of the reclaiming and consolidation of African Studies on behalf of African interests” and has been an equally powerful contributor to the “nurturing of younger scholars by facilitating their professional viability and growth.”13 Bahl and Bisola Falola describe his memoir and two coauthored collections of poetry as creatively diverse and versatile, particularly for a writer whose primary vocation is that of a historian. 14 A study of Falola’s work is relevant to appreciating earlier works on Nigerian history in particular and African history in general. If African Studies is to be recognized as a science, it must show the same linea- ments as recognized sciences. In General Linguistics , Francis P. Dinneen asks and answers the following questions: “How do geniuses arrive at unheard of ideas? How do they discover novelty in the familiar? The medieval aphorism for both contributions to knowledge was that we are all pygmies standing on the shoulders of giants. Originality can consist

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Introduction 5 of the clarity with which familiar but unconnected facts are marshaled into a simpler, intellectually satisfying unity.” 15 This is one of the hall- marks of Falola’s work. He distinguishes what parts of African history do say from what they do not and “what their sum teaches us about how to study [the subject]. This may not have discovered of a new truth,” but it is the perspective that informs Falola’s evaluation of African history: “why it falls short and how to remedy its weaknesses.”16 He “develop[s] a distrust for atomism and reductionism; phenomena, he [thinks], must be explained at their own level.” 17 Indeed, Falola’s works in African and African diaspora studies tender an opportunity for the knowledge seeker to find space for the marvelous. They provide the favorable cir- cumstances to discover the insight, the hope, and wisdom that learning affords.

Black Intellectual Renaissance

Toyin Falola has created an intellectual renaissance of his own, but in so doing he has become the leader of what may be regarded as the contem- porary moment in black intellectual traditions. Thus, he can be studied as an individual scholar, but can also be located in context. If Wilmot Blyden is located in the context of nineteenth-century modernism, W. E. B. Dubois in that of and anticolonial domina- tion, and K. O. Dike in that of decolonization, Toyin Falola can be located in the context of the postcolonial, a different intellectual renais- sance of its own, connected to the previous intellectual strands but also representing a distinctive phase. The Harlem Renaissance, the cultural movement that spanned the 1920s and 1930s and also referred to as the “New Negro Movement,”18 and the African Renaissance, defined as a movement geared toward intellectual and cultural exchanges that are as vital as the political and economic col- laboration needed to strengthen African capacities, 19 have received a great deal of attention from writers. In contrast, despite its relationship to these movements, the Black Intellectual Renaissance is yet to receive similar attention.20 An examination of the available sources on the Black Intellectual Renaissance makes it possible to delineate three definitions of the con- cept based on three epochs: the first era, from the late 1800s to the early 1900s; the second era, from the 1950s to the 1960s; and the third era, from 1990 to the present. For the first era, the Black Intellectual Renaissance is defined as the movement to use folklore as a basis of artistic emphasis. According to Simon Bronner, “in December 1896, Alexander Crummell, who had sent in a letter of support to the Hampton Folklore Society three years before, invited . . . eighteen young learned men, many of whom taught classics in American universities,” to join him in forming the American Negro Academy. 21 Crummell defined the purpose of the

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6 Toyin Falola and African Epistemologies organization as a means “to advance the black race toward civilization by embracing the spirituality of and “‘the life of the mind’.” 22 Bronner adds that academy publicist “[Anna Julia] Cooper had endorsed the work of the [society] but later urged it to change its tack.” She and William Scarborough, another member of the academy, who addressed the Hampton Folklore Conferences of 1896 and 1899, called for folklore to be employed “as a basis for a black intellectual renaissance emphasizing artistic uses.” 23 As it pertains to the second era, the Black Intellectual Renaissance is defined as an aspect of the struggle of the African-American civil rights movement to outlaw racial discrimination and secure voting rights. Frank Jones states that the Black Intellectual Renaissance of this era saw millions of African-Americans wearing “their hair long because they knew they were beautiful, and determined that they would go to the best schools and emerge culturally intact and intellectually stout, as they continued to fight for the race .”24 Jones adds that, armed with the battle cry of “for the race,” this group of blacks adhered to the call with an almost religious zest, leap- ing “over intellectual walls and work[ing] intellectual exploits, knowing nothing was beyond their intellectual abilities .” 25 For the third era, the Black Intellectual Renaissance is defined as the movement by a generation of blacks to emerge as agents of his- tory. As is quoted as stating, “What you have with this current generation is [black] people trying to find their own experience in their own culture.”26 In the words of Sam Fulwood III, “Personalities and notions among members of the Third Renaissance cover the gamut: the acclaimed and celebrated to the obscure and ridi- culed; the ultra-left to neoconservative to the reactionary right; the radical isolationist to the conservative integrationist; the Afrocentrists to the Classicists . . . ” 27 Indeed, those who were once marginalized, neglected, or both in academic circles are now using their own voices in telling their stories. Given the preceding postulates, a contributor to the Black Intellectual Renaissance is someone who engages in any or all of several activities. First, one may employ culture to understand Africans and to discuss the contributions of black people to world civilization. Second, one may gen- erate new ideas that make a leap over intellectual walls, as well as gener- ate intellectual exploits that show firm commitments to black people’s progress. Third, one may try to locate one’s own experience in black culture. Fourth, one may connect academic writings with practical proj- ects and social movements that seek change in society. Indeed, in addition to embodying all of these attributes, Falola’s stature is built on adapt- ing cultural and intellectual inheritances dating back hundreds of years, understanding multiple cultures and academies, and making diverse con- tributions to various fields. Evaluating his works, as many before have found out, is very complicated because of both the quality and range of his work. In this book, my analysis is on the following:

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Introduction 7

a. the cultural groundings of his body of work; in other words, how he relies on Yoruba and African cultures to present experiences and organize data; b. the methodological approaches; c. the intellectual agenda—what Falola is trying to communicate and the reasons; d. the policy implications of his scholarship; and e. the self in a world of culture and ideas—what his biography tells us about him and his methods of operation.

The Context: Intellectualizing Modern Africa

Toyin Falola’s works can be usefully situated in the context of African intellectual history since the independence era of the 1960s. It is impera- tive to begin with definitions of intellectual history in general and African intellectual history in particular that one finds in Falola’s work and those of his contemporaries. It should be noted here that the focus on African intellectual history since the 1960s does not discount African intellectual activity before that era. In fact, as , in addition to other Africanist scholars, demonstrated in his many works, a high-quality, rich, written African intellectual tradition has existed since the precolonial period.28 As these scholars also prove, during the ancient era, ideas flowed from Africa to Europe, and this phenomenon had a tremendous impact on the development of world civilization. Toyin Falola has played a central role in representing African intellectual history, with major works on the production of knowledge and its rele- vance since the nineteenth century. In works such as Nationalism and African Intellectuals , he presents intellectual history as the study of ideas and their development over time, or the history of human thought in written form. As it is currently practiced, intellectual history somewhat hinges upon its relation to a canon or doctrine and also upon an abundant number of texts through which one can trace ideas as they have proliferated and changed. 29 For African intellectual history, as Derek R. Peterson and Giacomo Macola point out, the study of this phenomenon is a relatively new endeavor, and, thus, very little is known about what Africa’s thinkers made of their times. According to these authors, African intellectual history comprises a small but growing body of scholarship that highlights how, in autobiographies, historical writing, fiction, and other literary genres, African writers intervened creatively in their political world. Peterson and Macola add that “African brokers—pastors, journalists, kingmakers, reli- gious dissidents, politicians, entrepreneurs—all have conducted research [and] interviews, [read] archives, and [presented] their results to critical audiences.”30 Falola’s work on intellectual history has concentrated on African epistemologies.

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8 Toyin Falola and African Epistemologies

The Study of Africa

Without exception, Falola’s works enable us to speak about the study of Africa in general and specific terms. The study of Africa is in part the extension of intellectual history, as well as the uses to which knowledge is put. The names of some traditional studies suggest different objects of focus, but it is difficult to deny that Africa is intimately involved when geog- raphy, history, political science, linguistics, economics, or anthropology, to name some topics, are discussed. Some observers question whether the relatively new approach of African Studies is not already covered by other disciplines. While these familiar approaches pretty much study Africa, they nonetheless differ in their foci. The main difference results because only a part or aspect of Africa is investigated. Nonetheless, as with any of the specialties mentioned above, the study of Africa as a whole rather than in its particular aspects calls for a spe- cial label that stresses its peculiar interests. Indeed, Falola tends to argue that Africanists must go further than mainstream economists, political scientists, linguists, anthropologists, geographers, and the like: they must assume that there are aspects of Africa that are common to any continent, and they should endeavor to make those connections explicit. It is important to identify some of these themes to which Falola has responded. In so doing, I will use just a few of the scholars who have dis- cussed these themes that can also be found in Falola’s work. Leo Spitzer points out, in one of the few contemporaneous works on African intellec- tual history covering the period from 1960 to 1970, that “historical writ- ing about Africa . . . [underwent] a quantitative, if not always qualitative, boom,” but little work was done “in the area of African intellectual his- tory. . . . One obvious reason for this dearth of work,” according to Spitzer, “is the elusiveness of intellectual history in general—the great [challenge] involved in researching and writing about it [in a comprehensive man- ner].” 31 It became “apparent that there was not just one pattern of thought in any period, but there were several—some dominant, others subdomi- nant, [and] others incipient.” 32 He observes that historians often discov- ered “that several modes of thought tended to coexist in the mind of a single individual—even when these seemed be completely incompatible with each other.” 33 Falola responded to this challenge by writing various essays on intellectual history, as well as a book that connects nationalism with history writing after 1945.34 As Spitzer observes, “intellectual historians, therefore, not only find themselves working with relatively “‘soft’” evidence, but they must also interpret it on the basis of less than objective judgment about particu- lar times, places, and individuals.” The problem, Spitzer notes, “is com- plicated when non-Africans study African intellectual history” because, “influenced by their own sociocultural background and by what might be called the prevailing spirit of the times, non-African historians frequently

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Introduction 9 project alien and inapplicable cultural, political, social, and economic ideas on an African milieu.”35 These obstacles notwithstanding, asserts Spitzer, many good works in African intellectual history were produced during that decade. He describes these works in three ways. The first category comprises those works he says “critically examine the nature of the European challenge to Africa, the ideas at the basis of European [imperialism] in Africa.” Spitzer cites Philip Curtin’s Image of Africa , which examines “hang- ing British ideas towards Africa,” as a pioneer work and James Duffy’s Portuguese Africa , which includes a description of “changes in Portuguese ideas and ideology towards Africans.” Leonard Thompson’s article “Afrikaner Nationalist Historiography and the Policy of Apartheid” and Sheila Patterson’s Last Trek are additional works in this vein. Spitzer notes that, “with the exception of Henri Brunschwig’s French Colonialism 1871– 1941: Myths and Realities , in which the analysis of ideas plays a relatively small role, no comparable study to these has been made on the French in Africa.” The Germans, he added, were completely neglected in this regard. 36 The second category of works, according to Spitzer, are those written mainly by Africans in the mid- and late 1950s at the height of nationalist ferment, but which were influential throughout the 1960s. 37 Classified as “defensive history,” these studies were primarily concerned “with African ideas as one aspect of a broad survey of African history.” Spitzer includes in this category the Ghanaian J. C. de Graft-Johnson’s African Glories: The Story of Vanished Negro Civilizations , first published in 1954 and reprinted in 1966, and the Senegalese Cheikh Anta Diop’s Nations negres et culture and L’Afrique noire pre-coloniale as leading examples of this genre. These works debunked the European racism and arrogance that declared “Africans have had no history. . . . [and] are primitive, barbarous, and lack- ing creativity.” The counterparts to these works are those on n é gritude.38 As Spitzer puts it,

They are books written because their authors consciously sought to rediscover a proud past in order to build pride in their own pres- ent. Declaring black Africans to have been the originators of great world civilizations in North Africa and Egypt, countering the often repeated Biblical curse on the Negro race as the descendants of Ham, they sifted and interpreted evidence in order to restore their heritage to a place of honor and to heal their battered pride and regain self- respect.39

Spitzer notes that one would have expected that “with the success of the various nationalist movements and a greater feeling of security about themselves and their own accomplishments,” this type of “defensive his- tory” would have vanished. “Interestingly enough,” he points out, “the genre is alive among [ for whom] the search for identity

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10 Toyin Falola and African Epistemologies and the countering of white racist myths of black inferiority persist.” He cites Earl Sweeting’s African History as an example of this literature.40 The “third category of works in African intellectual history, numeri- cally the largest [during the 1960s and 70s], share one major [attribute]: none of them deal with the history of African thought in general (that is, of mass of Africans).” Instead, these studies devoted their attention “pri- marily to biographies of individual Africans or the of thought of groups of so-called Western-educated Africans: (‘elite histories’).” Spitzer notes that each of these studies tends to react to foreign influences and events, particularly those of the West. 41 Spitzer sensed “the need for greater interdisciplinary cooperation and comparative approaches in the study of African intellectual life. . . . ” In October 1969, the American Council of Learned Societies–Social Science Research Council Joint Committee on Africa sponsored a conference entitled “African Intellectual Reactions to Western Culture.” The event brought together “historians, political scientists, anthropologists, and individuals concerned with the study of African literature.” Some of the papers presented at the joint conference made comparative analyses “of the intellectual reactions of rural and relatively isolated social groups—like the Fang and the ‘blanket’ Xhosa—with [those] of urbanized Africans more exposed to direct European influences, such as the Senegalese urban elite and the Sierra Leonean Creoles.” The conference resulted in the publica- tion of a volume entitled Africa and the West , edited by Philip Curtin.42 Spitzer points out that the case of South Africa, which offered numerous opportunities for studies of the literature on African intellectual history, was severely underutilized. 43 The racist Apartheid regime was “reluctant to admit the possibility that Africans have an intellectual history” and disenfranchised research attempts in this field. 44 The white South African regime even refused to approve visas for Spitzer and his wife. Even foreign- ers were discouraged from studying intellectual history in South Africa.45 Black South Africans circumvented the challenges to telling their own histories through autobiographies. 46 Finally, according to Spitzer, “quite a substantial literature has appeared . . . studying the influence of African Americans on Africans.”47 I have gone to some length to use Spitzer’s work to mark out some of the similar themes that one finds in Falola’s writings: the constitution of indigenous knowledge, colonial epistemologies, reformist and modern- ist ideas, and key African thinkers and the knowledge they are trying to package. If Falola deals with the precolonial and colonial, he has generated an equally large body of work on the postcolonial and contemporary. An ever-growing number of book-length studies deal with the history of Pan- Africanism. One cannot understand Falola’s work without understanding Pan-Africanism. One of the earliest was a study by Imanuel Geiss enti- tled The Pan-African Movement , published first in 1968 in Germany and eventually translated into English in 1974. Geiss begins his analysis with

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Introduction 11 the transatlantic and “triangular” trade, applying the term “proto Pan- Africanism” to these early manifestations. He concedes, however, that the term “Pan-African” did not come into usage until the twentieth century. 48 In 1982, P. Olisanwuche Esedebe published an important essay, “Pan- Africanism, the Idea and the Movement, 1776–1983,” later published as a book with the same the same title, which provides a more detailed and balanced study than Geiss’s and which critiques the German scholar’s approach. The data uncovered by Esedebe’s multiarchival research carried out on both sides of the Atlantic have almost addressed every aspect of the subject. 49 Nevertheless, according to Mario Fenyo, other authors added to the existing body of knowledge, including, for instance, a series of works written by Opoku Agyeman beginning in 1985 with Pan-Africanist Worldview . There are countless articles and essays of varying lengths and depths not accounted for in the tally of books in the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. 50 As Fenyo points out, several attempts have been made to elaborate a comprehensive without, however, seeking common Pan-African elements. 51 Fenyo also notes that the best known in the English-speaking world are the Cambridge History of Africa and the multi- author series produced by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), The General History of Africa Series . The Cambridge History , published in eight volumes between 1975 and 1986, was the first attempt, at least in the United Kingdom, to integrate and assess the achievements of scholars focused on Africa. The editors of the volumes were British, as were the overwhelming majority of the con- tributors. Generally speaking, the volumes fail to present the continent as an interrelated (i.e., Pan-African) whole. 52 Fenyo mentions that the UNESCO series sought to overcome the short- comings of an almost exclusively British interpretation. The mission of the work, as defined by Bethwell Allan Ogot, president of the committee in charge of drafting the series, was to consider Africa “as a totality. The aim is to show the historical relationships between the various parts of the con- tinent, too frequently subdivided in works published to date.” 53 The series, Fenyo points out, is published in an unabridged clothbound version and in an abridged paperback version, both in eight volumes. Each of the volumes consists of about 30 chapters, written mostly by African scholars from the continent. Those who are not African are widely recognized as students of African civilizations. Thus, each volume is edited by an acknowledged contemporary scholar. The first version appeared in English, but several of the volumes have also been published in French and Arabic, and some have been translated into Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, and Portuguese, with further translations contemplated in Kiswahili and Hausa.54 According to Fenyo, single authors dealing with Pan-Africanism, or the history of the continent as a whole, usually have a point of view that may limit their acceptance by students or scholars. 55 As a reaction against those who blame Africa’s predicament on outside factors, Fenyo observes that

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12 Toyin Falola and African Epistemologies scholars, mostly political scientists from both Africa and Europe, argue that Africans, particularly African leaders since independence, must share the blame, principally because of what is termed “corruption.” Here, too, we may make distinctions between those who believe much of Africa’s wealth has ended up in the bank accounts of specific leaders, usually iden- tified as dictators, and those who believe that European and American observers often overlook similar phenomena in their own politics. These observers fail to understand—we are told—African traditions, such as the ten percent rule that applies in some countries or regions and constitutes part of the culture; hence, they refer to the phenomenon as “kickbacks” or “bribery.” 56 Fenyo also notes that the list of pertinent publications employing the Pan-African approach within various disciplines becomes exceedingly long. The best we can do is to pick and choose. 57 Mario Fenyo further argues that there are some economists who, whether dealing with the continent as a whole or focusing on some region, have perceived the difficulties of Africa in Pan-African terms or as epito- mizing the problems of the Third World in general as prime examples of underdevelopment. From the economic point of view, adds Fenyo, the publications can be broken down into two main groups: (1) those that are sanguine about the prospects of development and (2) those that are primarily analytical and critical. Most progressive economists (and other social scientists) describe the continent as generally underdeveloped, although they often prefer the term “developing” as more politically cor- rect and less offensive to Africans themselves. As regards the trends, those who think of Africa and the Third World as “developing” rather than “underdeveloped” often admit that most African countries, especially those south of the Sahara, have made little progress since the end of the Cold War. Indeed, the gross domestic product of Africa as a whole dipped into the negative toward the end of the twentieth century; it is only as of late that we have seen an economic turnaround as a consequence of the successes in South Africa. Some authors find a causal relationship between the collapse of the Soviet Union and the negative indicators in many African countries, not because the Soviet Union is no longer available to offer help but because the United States and the West are no longer court- ing the “hearts and minds” of African people.58 Fenyo identifies works that deal with the entire continent from the point of view of other disciplines. Equally significant, posits Fenyo, is the linguistic approach to Pan-African studies, particularly when the focus is on Africa south of the Sahara. Fenyo adds that other Pan-African scholars have focused on African ideas, values, and philosophy. Fenyo also mentions the fact that I (Abdul Karim Bangura) also explore these themes in my own work, in particular in “Ubuntugogy: An African Educational Paradigm,” which describes a Pan-African paradigm that recognizes and stresses the collective and the community over individualism and capitalism.59 Fenyo further mentions documentary films embodying a Pan-African approach, including at least three popular series available on video or DVD:

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Introduction 13

Basil Davidson’s four-part series, Africa and the Africans; Henry Louis Gates’s series, Wonders of the African World; and, possibly the most effec- tive, Ali A. Mazrui’s eight-part series, Africa: Its Triple Heritage, origi- nally commissioned by the National Endowment for the Humanities but eventually produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation. According to Fenyo, apparently, the US government disavowed Mazrui’s work, which may be translated as an indication of its effectiveness.60 Moreover, notes Fenyo, several pertinent encyclopedias have been pub- lished over the past decade or so. Except for the fledgling encyclopedia sponsored by then-president that was to be edited orig- inally by W. E. B. Du Bois, the oldest may be the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Africa (1981). Others include Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience , edited by Henry Louis Gates, and the recent Encyclopedia of African History and Culture , published in 2005.61 Finally, according to Fenyo, the Internet is an almost inexhaustible source of publications dealing with various aspects of Pan-Africanism. Scholars and the general public can read more recent manifestos for a united Africa on the Internet, particularly on USA–Africa Dialogue, a listserv moderated by Falola. 62

African Studies as a Science: Policy Implications

If intellectual history is seen as an “art,” advocacy and policy statements tend to be treated as either politics or “science.” Where Falola presents policies and advocacy statements, he tends to assume that knowledge has valuable uses. History becomes not just a body of opinions but enhanced to the level of “science.” In view of this, a discussion of the application of “science” to Falola’s body of knowledge becomes relevant. In a similar vein that Francis P. Dinneen points out in General Linguistics (2007) and I did earlier in Research Methodology and African Studies, Volume One (1994), “the discussion has been edging toward the suggestion that African Studies might merit the definition of ‘the scientific study of Africa.’ The claim has been made often enough in books and scholarly articles, but both critics of the field and its practitioners have become less certain, particularly as the scope of what is called African Studies continues to expand.” 63 The rest of the discussion in this section draws from both Dinneen’s work and mine. The designation of African Studies as a scientific discipline is challenged within and outside the field. While some Africanists argue that the field merits the science label, some say that it has the potential of being so, and others have abandoned the claim due to “the increased role of subjectivity in allowing intuitions about one’s subject matter to count as ‘scientific’ evi- dence. Some dismiss the claim as pretentious or demonstrably misleading. Many think nothing more than a discussion of labels is involved.” 64 Nonetheless, since people earn academic degrees in African Studies, “its standing as a discipline is a matter of some interest, both for the self-esteem

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14 Toyin Falola and African Epistemologies of those who are already in the field or intend to enter it and for mem- bers of the public, especially those who might confuse a persuasive but temporary subjective stance with the solidity ordinarily attached to ‘sci- entific’ pursuits.” 65 Indeed, as Dinneen has pointed out about the field of Linguistics and I had argued earlier for African Studies, “Africanists’ recommendations have important consequences in education and other areas of public concern. They are called upon to evaluate those who teach African Studies, evaluate texts about Africa, make policy recommenda- tions to governments, advise other professionals, influence decisions of international organizations, and the like. Why should responsible persons pay attention to what they have to say?” 66 Dinneen and I have mentioned that in addition to the preceding ques- tions are others such as the following: “What is science? What does science involve? Is there just one science, or are there many? Is science identical with a particular method, or does the object of study determine whether a scientific study can be made of it? Is the distinction between ‘natural’ and ‘social’ sciences legitimate, illusory, or a matter of degree?”67 Dinneen and I therefore assert that “some of the allusions to the complex continuum of subjectivity and objectivity are involved here.”68 When discussing African Studies, we can only presuppose the answers to these questions, instead of making them explicit. Consequently, some of the presuppositions that undergird the analysis of Falola’s works in this book are outlined as follows, akin to what Dinneen and I did in our works cited above:

(1) Science may be about causes and effects, but the kinds of causes and effects discussed in physics, chemistry, biology, and the like are not identical with some of those operative in African Studies; (2) in addition to natural or objective causes, human or subjective ones are also involved in African Studies; (3) science is ordinarily under- stood to “explain” a definable range of phenomena by showing how they cohere with other areas defined the same way, which allows us to predict them and may lead either to comprehension, control, or both; (4) We can comprehend some things (like laws of planetary attraction), without being able to control them, we can control some things (like electricity) without understanding them fully, and we can predict some things without either comprehension or control (like the ancient prediction of eclipses within Dogon astronomy); (5) there are “objects” impervious to scientific study and methods incapable of achieving the scientific results. For example, in the era before microscopes, microbes could only be abstract or theoretical “objects,” while now we can observe them instrumentally; (6) if some “object” of investigation is random, it is not susceptible to scientific analysis. A method that is random is incapable of scientific results, regardless of its object. However, assumed randomness may result only from deficient conceptualization, methods, or instruments;

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Introduction 15

(7) the objects of science are abstract, at least in the simple sense, and they differ from what we experience in the “concrete,” as illustrated by objects like “Fulani” versus “H 2 O”; (8) Science is concerned with the universal rather than the individual, although sciences are con- structed principally from, and should apply to, individual instances; (9) sciences can differ according to their purposes, and these purposes are not immanent in data but determined by scientists. Thus, studies of the same material for different purposes deserve different labels (like those proposed for African Studies); (10) a science should con- struct precise technical terms and conventions appropriate to its own objects, methods, and purposes first, and translatability into other sciences is a secondary priority.69

The preceding considerations, as Dinneen and I point out, “suggest why and how technical terms in any discipline should be made exact and why empirical methods lend themselves to objectivity.” 70 As we also observe, there exist “degrees of ‘empiricism,’ ranging, for example, from the directness of unaided vision through the indirectness of instruments that increase the scope of one’s vision or from simple forms of human touch and hearing through increasingly sensitive mechanical and elec- tronic interactions where we can observe what we cannot directly hear or feel (as in dial readings).” 71 We therefore conclude that “the ‘empiri- cal’ data become increasingly remote from the original inputs, and, ulti- mately, human observers have to agree about what they observe and the relevance of those observations.”72

Book Outline

This book examines Falola’s scholarly work with theoretical and method- ological grounding. Ten of the eleven chapters are organized into three thematic parts for the sake of coherence and cohesion. Chapter one intro- duces the biography and works of Falola. The conclusion is presented as an interpretive overview of Falola’s contributions to the Black Intellectual Renaissance. Part I, “Africa in the Configurations of Knowledge,” is made up of four chapters. In chapter two , I show that major concepts in Falola’s work are based on the African-centric paradigm. In chapter three , The Parable of the Three Rings , a classic allegory for religious tolerance and understanding, is used to explore the notions of pluralism and religious tolerance in his work. Chapter four examines the postulates on the precolonial, colonial, postcolonial, and modern Nigerian state in his work to see the currents of ideas that have shaped the understanding of Falola’s generation of the state and its capacity at self-transformation. Chapter five offers an analy- sis of the axioms of African migrations and movements in Falola’s work. The findings reveal that Falola’s postulates suggest the ancient Egyptian

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16 Toyin Falola and African Epistemologies

behsâ u-pehsa , or predator–prey, phenomenon: i.e., the supposition that there are two species that interact as predator and prey. Part II, “The Yoruba in the Configurations of Knowledge,” has three chapters. In chapter six, a combination of pluridisciplinary methodology, the linguistic presupposition analytical technique, and fractal methodol- ogy is employed to determine the fractal complexity in Falola’s acclaimed memoir, A Mouth Sweeter than Salt: An African Memoir (2005). Chapter seven shows how his book Yoruba Gurus: Indigenous Production of Knowledge in Africa exemplifies ubuntugogy, which I define as the art and science of teaching and learning undergirded by humanity toward others. In chapter eight , pragmatic linguistic analytical tools are utilized to show the deep- structure meanings in Isola, his orí k ì (praise poetry). The last part is “The Value of Knowledge: Policies and Politics.” Chapter nine demonstrates that of Falola’s more than 100 books, none seems to have been cited by as many diverse academic disciplines as The Power of African Cultures . The book has been cited in the fields of political science, gender studies, business management, language studies, agricul- tural economics, history, literature, education, and religion because of its breadth and depth. Chapter ten presents evidence of paradigms in Toyin Falola’s work that deal with peace on the African continent. This is important because I seek to show how he contributes to African thinkers’ efforts to bring to light many African peace and conflict resolution paradigms upon which Africans can draw to resolve conflicts. In chapter eleven, a discussion of the notions of Pan-Africanism in his work is provided. A careful exami- nation of his writings makes it possible to delineate at least three themes within which his treatment of Pan-Africanism can be sensibly subsumed: (1) Edward Wilmot Blyden’s ideas of Pan-Africanism and its circulation, (2) the grounding of Pan-Africanism among Africans in the United States and the United Kingdom in the twentieth century, and (3) the transition from old to new Pan-Africanism. Chapter twelve builds upon Falola’s ideas and extends them in various ways, first, to understand him, second, to suggest creative ways of sharing knowledge, and, third, to point to how a new generation of Africans can profit from knowledge, irrespective of where it is generated. I show how e-clustering can be used to learn about and teach Falola through the use of the abundant Internet resources avail- able on him and his work. In sum, this book brings out a number of key points about Falola and his scholarship. Indeed, as Dinneen and I point out, “many systematic insights are so obvious, so fundamental, that they are difficult to absorb, appreciate, and express with fresh clarity. Some of the more basic ones are cited from accounts of investigators who have earned their contem- poraries’ respect. Thus, the originality [of a book such as this one] hinges upon the clarity with which familiar but unconnected facts about the texts analyzed are marshaled into a digestible framework.” 73

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INDEX

A Mouth Sweeter than Salt, 16, 21, 33, 60, 63, ajo, 47 65, 237 alajo, 48 fractal analysis of, 99–120 Alao, Akin, 1, 21 aboke, 67 Amistad’s legacy, 48 Adepuju, Oluwatoyin, 69 ancient Romans, 112 Adesanya, Aderonke, A., 110 andragogy, 121, 124–8 Afolabi, Niyi, 1, 4, 21, 206, 213 anticolonial experience, 162–4 Africa apartheid, 10, 32, 123, 166, 199 as scientific study, 13ff Asante, Molefi, 6, 50, 123, 215, 239 the study of, 8–13 Austin, J. L., 114–46 Africa, back-to movements, 48, 180–1, 207–8 Awolowo, Obafemi, 73, 212 Africa-centric paradigm, 15 Awoonor, Kofi, Nyidevu, 118–19, 123 African civil societies, 83 African epistemology and cosmology, 106 babalawo, 65 African humanism/Ubuntu, 106 Babatunde, Emanuel, D., 69–71 African intellectual history, 7–10 Bahl, Vik, 2, 4, 22 African languages, 43, 106 behs â u-pehsa model, 85, 87–8, 95, 237 African migrations and movements, 85ff Beier, Ulli, 69, 74 Falola on migrations, 86–7 Bewaji, John A. I., 68–9 African renaissance, 5, 105, 119, 135 binary logistic regression, 116 African revolution, 106, 122 Black Intellectual Renaissance, 5–7, 15, African spirituality, 105 235–40 African state, 77ff folklore and, 5–6 postulates by Falola, 80–3 brain circulation perspective, 89 African Studies and Research Forum, 19 brain drain, 86–91 African studies as science, 4 Brigandage, 48 African Studies Association, 19 Bronner, Simon, 5 African-American Brown, Clifford, 112–13 civil rights and, 6, 48 Brown, Gillian, 111 identity and, 9–10, 164 Brunschwig, Henri, 9 African-based pedagogy, 107 African-centered concepts, 43ff, 47–57 Cabral, Amilcar, 106, 122, 166 Africanizing education, 121 canoe house, 49 Africa’s economy caravan leaders, 49 cash crops and, 82, 171 cash crops, 82, 171 corruption and, 171–2 Chafe, Wallace, 111 external markets and, 170–1 Chaos Theory and African Fractals, 111 Africology, 103 Classicists, 6 Afro-Brazilians, 179–81 cluster-building concept, 222–4 Afrocentricity, 118–20, 167 colonialism Afrocentrists, 6 African corruption and, 170–1 Agyeman, Opoku, 11 British occupation and, 33–5

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294 Index colonialism—Continued differential equation theory, 88–96 conquest and, 50, 165, 173 Dike, K. O., 5, 167 culture and, 162–7 Diop, Cheikh Anta, 9, 22, 50, 95, 103, 117, education and, 122–4 239, 250, 257, 260, 278, 279, 292 neocolonialism, 33, 83 Doortmont, Michel, 134 Nigeria and, 28–35, 41–2, 82 Du Bois, W. E. B., 13, 51, 123, 180, 181, slave trade and, 164–70 208–9, 212, 239 violence and, 166 Duffy, James, 9 Western, 101 colonization of memory, 49 Easton, David, 79 committee of elders, 50 e-clustering, 217–33 commoditization of land, 28 Falola e-clustering strategy, 226–31 communality of being, 27 learning and teaching with, 231–2 concepts in communication, 45ff Economic Reforms and Modernization in Nigeria, configurations of knowledge, 15–16, 41, 97 1945–1965, 33 conflict resolution paradigms, 16, 185 education contemporary , 105 adult education, 124–5, 127 Cooper, Anna, Julia, 6 African educational paradigm, 121–35 countercolonization projects, 50 indigenous knowledge, 10, 101, 103–5, 226, Crowther, Samuel, Ajayi, Rev., 210, 132–3 135 Crummell, Alexander, 5 lifelong learning, 107–8 cultural correspondences, 73 pedagogy, 105, 107, 121, 124–8 Cultural Identity and Nationalism, 34 Western paradigms, 121–4, 129 culture Eglash, Ron, 116 cognitive learning theory and, 160 Egypt collectivity and, 159 ancient Egypt, 15, 27, 56, 85, 95–6, 116–17, defining, 156–60 215, 236–7, 239 development and, 164, 178 Elepo village, 65–8, 117 indigenous, 167–8, 133, 210 ergonagy, 121, 124, 127–8 modern cultures in Africa, 155–83 Esedebe, Olisanwuche, 11, 206 nonmaterial and material, 157 esusu, 47 relativism and, 157–8 Ethiopia, 122, 164, 208, 214 Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and, 158–9 ethnic nationalism, 82, 173 selection theory and, 159 Eurocentric descriptions, 28 Culture and Customs of Nigeria, 31, 60 Evers, Michael, 127 Curtin, Philip, 9, 10 Falola, Bisola, 2, 4, 22 Dan Fodio, Usumanu, 30, 63, 173 Falola, Toyin Darfur, 195 African studies, 1ff Dasylva, Ademola Omobewaji, 69 biographical information, 17–40 data analysis, 113–17 contributions to the field of intellectual Davidson, Basil, 13 productivity, 28–36 Davis, Philip, 111 leading African historian, 1 De Graft-Johnson, J. C., 9 poetic eulogy, 36–40 decolonization, 5 responses to his scholarship, 24–7 defensive history, 9 review of scholarship, 2–16 defining science, 14–15 Falolaism, 4 Development Planning and Decolonization in Fanon, Frantz, 106, 123, 205 Nigeria, 29 Fenyo, Mario, 11–13, 203 diaspora festschriften, 1, 2, 3, 4 colonization of, 85 Fog, Agner, 159 migration to, 86–94, 164, 179–81, 203–15 folklore, 5–6, 161 slavery and, 49–50, 85 fractals, 112 diasporic muse, 26 Frankfort-Nachmias, Chava, 44, 45 diegetic method, the, 160–2 Frege, Gottlob, 111, 142

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Index 295

Gagiano, Annie, 101 law Garang, John, Sir, 195–6 peace through, 191–3 Garvey, Marcus, 123, 181, 205, 208, 212 rule of, 84, 171, 187, 193, 237 Gates, Henry, Louis, Jr., 13 laws of planetary attraction, 14 Geiss, Imanuel, 10–11, 203, 206 Lerche, Charles, Jr., 188 , 32, 155, 169–71, 215, 223, 226, Levinson, Stephen, 111 239 liberalism, 192 Gowon, Yakubu Joseph, 188–90 , 32 Grice, Herbert, Paul, 111 Liebovitch, Larry, 112–13 Guinea, 122–3 lineage head, 51 linguistic implicature, 143 Hase, Stewart, 128 linguistics Heaton, Matthew, M., 102 deixis and, 140–1 hermeneutics, 106, 107, 108 mathematics and, 99, 102 Herskovits, Melville, 157–8 pragmatic linguistic analysis of Isola, 139–52 heutagogy, 121, 124, 128 presuppositions and, 141–52 historiography, 28, 32, 51, 205 reflection and, 147–8 History of Nigeria, The, 30 speech acts and, 144–7 The Human Cost of African Migrations, 213–14 training and, 139 Hutchinson, Francis, 186 Lotka–Volterra model, 87 Hutchinson, J. E., 112 Macionis, John, 157 Ibadan, 28, 33, 34–5, 65–9, 99–102, 103 Malawi, 83 Ibadan: Foundation, Growth and Change Mandelbrot, Benoit B., 112 1830–1960, 34 marriage, 178–9 Ifa, 65, 70, 71, 72, 74, 132 Mars, Jean-Price, 123, 181 Ikheloa, Ikhide R., 101 Marxism, 166, 168 Ile-Ife, 17, 54, 59, 131 Mazrui, Ali, A., 13 indigenous African religions, 59 metaphors Ingalls, John, 125–6 types of, 24–7 Internet, as learning/teaching tool, 219–21 methodology Ishida, Takeshi, 186 action research methodology, 226 Islamic jihad, 30, 173 cluster analysis methodology, 217 Isola, analysis of, 137–51, 238 educational methodology, 128 iwofa, 51 fractal methodology, 16, 99, 102, 111–13 linguistic presupposition, 108–11 James, C. L. R., 123 Pan-Africanism and, 205 Johnson, Mark, 24 pluridisciplinary methodology, 16, 99, 102, Johnson, Samuel, 131, 210 103–8 qualitative methodology, 60 Kates, Carol, 111 scientific method, 14 Kemetic civilization, 108 scientific methodology, 15 Kenyon, Chris, 128 Middle Passage, 205–6, 211 Key Events in African History: A Reference Guide, migration 21, 32 Africans and, 15, 85–96 Knabe, Friederike, 102 black emigration, 179–80 Knowles, Malcolm, 124–7 last stone age and, 80 kofa system, 51 transatlantic slave trade and, 48, 164–70, 205 Lakoff, George, 24 Migrations and Creative Expressions in Africa and language the African Diaspora, 213 the politics of, 177–82 millennium development goals, 77 shaping the world through, 158–9 Miseducation of the Negro, 51–2 symbolism in, 43–6 missionaries, 30, 50, 63, 130–3, 163, 165, Late Stone Age, 80 176–7

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296 Index

Modern Africa, 7 Old Oyo Empire, 28 modernist ideas, 10 Olodumare, 59, 68–72 mogaji, 52 Olorun, 110 Mokhtar, G., 103 ooni, 54 monetization and markets, 28 ordinary differential equation, 88 Monmouth University, 21 Oriki Isola, 137–52 osomolo, 54 Nabudere, Dani Wadada, 103–8 Oya, 68, 73 Nachmias, David, 44, 45 Oyebade, Adebayo, 1, 2–3, 21 Namibia, 91 Oyimbo, 54 narrative inequality, 31, 56 Oyo Empire, 28, 63 narratives diegetic method and, 160–2 Pan-Africanism, 10–16, 34, 54–5, 206–15, extradiegtic-homodiegetic, 182 239–40 historical, 77, 211 Blyden, Edward Wilmot and, 5, 16, 166–7, intradiegetic-heterodiegetic, 162, 165, 167, 203, 206–11 177, 179, 181–2 globalism and, 239 intradiegetic-homodiegetic, 162, 182 Pan-African movement, 163, 180–1, national parties, 30 203–15, 239–40 nationalism slave trade and, 205–6 African, 34–5, 85, 163–4, 208 Pan-Afrikan University, 105–8 African intellectuals and, 85 Parable of the Three Rings, The, 61–3 cultural, 168–9 Patterson, Sheila, 9 ethnic, 82, 173 peace Nigerian, 30–1, 174 coercion and, 187–91 Yoruba, 131–4 culture and, 186 Nationalism and African Intellectuals, 7, 34, 85, law and, 191–4 211–12, 237 through communication, 194–6 negative and positive feedback loops, 116, 118 Ubuntu/communalism and, 196–201 négritude, 9, 179 Poesis, 36 neoliberal economic policies, 31 political economy, 28, 169–72 Neo-Renaissance man, 4 Political Economy of a Pre-colonial African State: new humanities, 106–7 Ibadan, 1830–1900, The, 28 new negro movement, 5 politics Nigeria language and, 177–8 independence in, 33 religion and, 174–6 nationalism in, 34 the West and, 173 Nigerian-Biafran War, 188–91 Power of African Cultures, The, 155–83, 238 postulations on Nigerian State, 80–4 precolonial Nigeria, 3–4, 79–81 Second National Development Plan, 191 predator-prey model, 85–96, 237 Third Republic, 174–6 presuppositions of order, 114 violence in, 29, 60, 63, 228 primary products, 29 Nigerianization, 52 primordialism, 28 Nollywood, 53 professional orators, 28, 137, 236 Nkrumah, Kwame, 122, 165, 205, 209, 212 progressive unions, 134 Nyerere, Julius, 22, 56, 123, 209, 227, 287 Rachal, John, 127 oba, 53 racism, 9, 54, 61, 133, 164, 205, 207, 208, 210 ogo, 53–4 religion Ogun, 65–6, 69–74, 132, 180 aboke, 67 Ogundiran, Akin, 1, 21, 244 Abrahamic religions, 59 Ogungbemi, Segun, 69 ancient Greeks, 71 Okebadan carnival, 66–7 Christianity and , 6, 29, 32, 59–68, 74 Okpeh Ochayi, Okpeh, Jr., 188 conflicts in Nigeria and, 29–30, 59–75 Old Africa, 86, 178–9 cult of Ogun, 65–6

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Index 297

Judaism, 59, 62, 71 Ubuntu, 106, 128, 185, 196–8 olola, 71 ubuntugogy, 12, 16, 121–35, 238 religious pluralism, 59–75 , 56 tolerance in Ibadan, 68 underdevelopment religious tolerance, 63–9 colonialism and, 166–8 revolutionaries, 117, 165–6 corruption and, 171–2 Russell, Bertrand, 142–3 political economy and, 169–72 Third World and, 12 Said, Abdul Aziz, 188 United States Saifawa dynasty, 80 African culture and, 179 Sapir, Edward, 158 anti-Islam sentiment in, 195 scale invariance, 113 back-to-Africa movements and, 180 scion of Agbo, 37, 139, 142, 143, 146 e-clustering and, 220 Searle, J. R., 144–6 Pan-Africanism and, 203, 207–8, 211–15 Segre, Cesare, 160 Soviet Union arms race and, 188 Shango, 69, 70, 72, 74 University of Cambridge, 17 Sierra Leone, 129–30, 131, 207 University of Ibadan, 217, 240 Sills, David, 157 University of Ife, 17, 28 Smith, Olubunmi, Pamela J., 110 University of Rochester Press, 19, 20 sogundogoji, 55 University of Texas at Austin, 17 Somaliland, 79 USA–Africa Dialogue, 13, 20, 24, 217 South Africa, 10, 12, 32, 77, 83, 90, 91, 164, 166, 171, 176, 180, 193, 198–200 Vansina, Jan, 101 Soyinka, Wole, 74 Vercoutter, Jean, 103 Spitzer, Leo, 9–10 Violence in Nigeria: The Crisis of Religious Politics St. Clair, Ralf, 127 and Secular Ideologies, 29, 60, 63 Stanford, Barbara, 186 state, defining, 77–9 Weeks, Keith, 112 Steen, Lynn, 111 Wenden, Anita, 24, 186–7 Strawson, Peter, 111 women Sudan, 80, 81, 195–6 cults of, 65, 68, 73 Sweeting, Earl, 10 empowerment of, 68, 178–9 exploitation of, 179 Taiwo, Rotimi, 1, 21 Yoruba traders and caravan leaders, 49 Tanaka, Kazutoshi, 127 World War II, 29, 33, 35, 82, 129, 166 Taylor, J. Charles, 101 Teferra, Damtew, 90–2 Yoruba Thiong’o, Ngũgĩ wa, 118, 123, 167 culture, 32, 52 Third Renaissance, 6 elite, 130–4, 210 Third World, 12 gurus, 16, 31, 56, 121–35, 238 Thompson, Leonard, 9 language, 131–3 times-technologies, 222 nationalism, 131–4 TOFAC (Toyin Falola International religion, 59–75 Conference on Africa and the African Yorubaland, 3, 28, 101, 129–35, 173, 210 Diaspora), 38, 44 Yoruba Gurus: Indigenous Production of Knowledge TOKTEN (Transfer of Knowledge through in Africa, 16, 31, 121, 238 Expatriate Nationals), 91 Yule, George, 111 transatlantic slave trade, 164–5, 167, 170, 205 trans-Saharan trade, 81 Zambia, 91, 212 triangular trade, 11, 206 , 91 Tylor, Edward Burnett, 156–7 zikism, 56

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