Bring african perspective to solve Africa’s diverse problems – UNICAL VC tells African Scholars

African scholars have been charged to bring the African perspective to their scholarship to solve the several problems confronting the continent in a bid to get it right, Myschoolnews report.

The charge was given by the Vice Chancellor of the University of Calabar, Prof Florence Obi in an address delivered at the 46th Annual Conference of the New York African Studies Association (NYASA) with the theme “ Decolonizing Global Hegemonies in Africa and the African Diaspora held at the Senate Chamber of the University of Calabar.

The Vice Chancellor who was represented by the Deputy Vice Chancellor (Administration), Prof Eno Nta stated that the inherited Western political system which has been in practice in several African countries over many years has failed to address the perennial challenges of the continent.

Prof Florence Obi opined that there is much wealth of knowledge and human capital in Africa waiting to be unleashed which if properly utilised can comfortably address the debilitating challenges and shore up the fortunes of the continent.

She cited a project in Niger Republic in which two plots of land were subjected to two different irrigation systems, the traditional African tassa irrigation system on one plot and the western modern system on the other and disclosed that the millet yield from the African based system was more than four times what was obtained from the other.

Prof Obi said there was need for Africans to retrace their steps , get back to their roots in a bid to redefine who they are and what they believe as that will aid their identity re-discovery.

The Vice Chancellor called on participants to pay attention in their debates to also deal with the” negatives” that were prevalent before and even after colonialism like unhealthy rituals and unprofitable sacrifices that projected the continent in a bad light .

Prof Obi urged the scholars to seek to strike a balance in the preservation of the positive in the core african values and the acceptance and domestication of specific western values which can further enrich the continent.

In an earlier address, the President of the New York African Studies Association (NYASA), Prof Ukelina Bekeh bemoaned the prevalent scenario in the continent where Africans have learnt the modes of thinking and knowledge of the “ white man” as against the African modes or system of knowledge.

Prof Bekeh queried why academic paper presentations in Africa are replete with citations of ‘foreign’ authors not African and again not written in our indigenous languages as against English Lanaguage.

The NYASA President stated that our’ colonial interactions created certain infractions like’ misleading Africans not to think or do knowledge production in their own languages.

Other infractions engendered by the colonial interaction as pointed out by Prof Bekeh include Africans forgetting who they are as evident in the abandoning of their gods for that of the white man, sidelining of their traditional educational system and disruption of existing traditional political systems.

He challenged participants in their paper presentations to think about “ our home-grown philosophies”, connect their presentations to who they are and not to present what is foreign in content in an african environment.

The Professor of History and African Studies said the deliberate call at the conference is for all participants drawn from various fields of human endeavour to interrogate all aspects of African lives affected by colonialism and chart the true african path to follow.