Table Of ContentA
F R I C A N A
VOLUME 6, NO. 1
JUNE/JULY 2012
Editor-in-Chief A. Curtis Burton
Managing Editor Christopher LaMonica
Editorial Board
John Akokpari Masse Ndiaye
Lere Amusan Stanley Naribo Ngoa
Priya Chacko J. Shola Omotola
Mourtada Deme Cleménce Pinaud
Ibaba Samuel Ibaba Karen Smith
Christopher LaMonica Kathryn Sturman
Victoria Mason Françoise Ugochukwu
Douglas Yates
Advisory Board
Edouard Bustin
Anne Serafin
A F R I C A N A
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AFRICANA JUNE/JULY 2012
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Cover Photo: African masks © Reinhardt | Dreamstime.com
VOL. 6, NO. 1 II
CONTENTS
v From the Editors
1 Trapped in Disintegration? Post-2011 Presidential Elections
Violence and National Security in Nigeria
Francis C. Chikwem
40 A Look at the Struggle of Zimbabwean Married Women
Regarding Safe Sex
Francis Machingura
69 Land to the Landless? A Theological Reflection on Some
Christian Views to the Land Reform Program in Zimbabwe,
2000-2008
Richard S. Maposa
108 Confronting Negative Peace in Africa: CIDJAP and Peace-
Building in Enugu State of Nigeria, 1991-2003
Dr. Jacinta Chiamaka Nwaka
141 Re-Imagining and Re-Casting ‘Us’ And ‘Them’: The Novel
Coming Home and the Contemporary Resurgence of Race-
Inspired Nationalism in Zimbabwe’s Past Decade
Oliver Nyambi
168 Mediation as Conflict Resolution in Traditional Ndebele
Society
Sambulo Ndlovu and Lindiwe Ndlovu
193 ‘…Neither Cameroon nor Nigeria—We Belong Here…!’ The
Bakassi Kingdom and the Dilemma of ‘Boundaries’ and Co-
Existence in Post-Colonial Africa
Ndu Life Njoku
AFRICANA JUNE/JULY 2012
210 Arms Proliferation and Conflicts in Africa: The Sudan
Experience
Dr. Nekabari Johnson Nna and Baribene Gbara Pabon
236 Fabricating Unease: Intertextuality, the Nation and Intellectual
Leadership Crisis in No Longer at Ease
Uzoechi Nwagbara
259 The Gebira Role in Ancient Israelite Royal Cult and Women
Leadership in Ile-Ife Zone of Cherubim and Seraphim
Churches
Abiola Ayodeji Olaniyi
279 Assessing Nigeria’s African-Centered Foreign Policy against an
Inside-Out Paradigm: A Proposal for a New Alternative
Foreign Policy Approach
Dr. Franklins A. Sanubi
290 Chirikure Chirikure as a Writer in Politics: A Study of Selected
Poems
Wellington Wasosa
313 BOOK REVIEW: Reforming the Malawian Public Sector:
Retrospectives and Perspectives (Richard Tambulasi, ed.)
Adeniyi S. Basiru
320 BOOK REVIEW: Youngest Recruits: Pre-War, War & Post-War
Experiences in Western Côte d’Ivoire
(Magali Chelpi-den Hamer )
Dr. Christopher LaMonica
VOL. 6, NO. 1 IV
FROM THE EDITORS
In our inaugural and several other issues of Africana, we have
emphasized the importance of including Africa-based scholarship in
the global debates of the social sciences. The marginalization of
African scholarship takes many forms and happens for many
reasons.1 The notion, emphasized by Africanist Robert Bates, et al.,
that “arguments are not privileged by their origins…” is wrongheaded,
self-serving, and frankly absurd.2 Put simply, the debates of the social
sciences and humanities do not take place on a level playing field;
differences of material wealth have an enormous impact on the
structure of academic debates in the world. Far too often, this is the
kind of elitist argument one finds among Western-based Africanists;
with blinders on, many Africanists delve into the field with little sense
of urgency or purpose. It is our contention that Africanists have a
special responsibility to: 1) recognize the vast disparities of material
wealth that exist within this particularly challenging field of study
and 2) do all in their power to facilitate meaningful dialogue. Put
even more bluntly: Bates, et al. think far too highly of the worth of
their own scholarly contributions to African studies. As we enter the
21st-century, the dire circumstances of much of Africa require
improved dialogue, improved academic engagement, with a clear
acknowledgment, by all involved, of the human suffering that now
exists on the African continent. Somehow, Western-led scholarship
has moved away from its Enlightenment focus that valued humanity,
to a profession that rewards scientific analysis above all else. Science
may well have some of the answers but we must not lose sight, as
some now seem to do, of what is at stake; somehow, it seems that
1 See: Christopher LaMonica, “Africa in International Relations Theory:
Addressing the Quandry of Africa’s Ongoing Marginalization Within the
Discipline,” in Peyi Soyinka-Airewale and Rita Kiki Edozie, eds., Reframing
Contemporary Africa: Politics, Culture, and Society in the Global Era, (Washington,
D.C.: CQ Press, 2010): 351-374.
2 Robert H. Bates, V.Y. Mudimbe and Jean O’Barr, Africa and The Disciplines:
The Contributions of Research in Africa to the Social Sciences and Humanities,
(Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1993): xii et seq.
AFRICANA JUNE/JULY 2012
many are forgetting the subject, which is human life. We remind
those who forget that fascism, communism, and other ideological
“solutions” to societal woes were similarly based on science; their
tragic flaw was to forget the subject – let us not fall into that same
trap. The emphasis on humanity is not idealistic, as scholarship
seems to suggest today. It is the root of all democratic sentiments in
every corner of the earth and at all times in human history. The true
idealists are those who pretend to be the authorities today: pushing
for a “level playing field” when there is not one and, while pretending
to be scientific, ignoring glaringly obvious human suffering in the
process.
Instead of being more honest and realistic about their subject,
many Africanists prefer to get embroiled in petty squabbles against
the few scholars that challenge the “cultural arrogance” of the
Western scholars.3 For example, in Africa and the Disciplines, the
editors critique Afrocentricity citing the works of, notably, Molefi Kete
Asante – a favorite target of establishment Africanist scholarship.
Defenders of the Western classics have similarly challenged Martin
Bernal, author of the Black Athena series, who argues the obvious:
Ancient Greece did not develop in isolation. Yet instead of
understanding the obvious, instead of appreciating that Afrocentric
scholarship is a tactical approach aimed at challenging the Eurocentric
norms of scholarship, many Western based Africanists choose to
defend their own Western turf, pontificating with a veneer of science,
as if their own ideas were the only ones with any merit – as if their
ability to dominate the dialogue had nothing to do with their own
material advantages. We submit that the very notion that we should
regret the lack of meritorious ideas coming from the continent is
nothing short of foolishness; more than anything, saying so
3 The term “cultural arrogance” is used by Martin Bernal in his Introduction
to Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, (New Brunswick:
Rutgers University Press, 1987), p. 73.
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demonstrates how deeply entrenched the intellectual block, that
systematically marginalizes African scholarship, has become. In
actual fact, Africa and the Disciplines is of several mindsets: Robert H.
Bates, V.Y. Mudimbe, and Jean O’Barr do not write any of the book’s
chapters. They seem to have written a very disjointed introduction to
the book – presumably to give the book professional credibility – then,
structuring the book in two parts: Social Sciences and The
Humanities, offer diametrically opposed points of view. Of all,
Christopher Miller comes closest to the challenge of “Africa in the
social sciences” when he writes of “The Challenge of the Intercultural
Literary.” Finally, in the last chapter of the book, Miller states the
obvious: “The production of knowledge is related to the structure of
power.”4 And that is all that we are saying here: that Gramscian
dilemma is what has motivated us to push for an Africana project.
By including the voice of African scholarship in African area
studies, we are demonstrating our own recognition of the imbalances
of power in academic dialogue. We readily admit that this modus
operandi is at once a humanist impulse, based on our profound respect
for our fellow men, and motivated by our belief that scholars can and
should strive to be more democratic than the political worlds in which
they reside. There is, and will continue to be, a tension that is created
by those who challenge, unsettle, and threaten to disrupt the
established order of the social sciences and the humanities. We
submit, as mentioned in African and the Disciplines, that “the
contribution of African scholarship [ought to] be valued, recorded,
and institutionalized.”5 Moreover, we readily submit that this effort is
normative in the same way that striving for democratization is just.
It cannot be over-emphasized: far too often in scholarship the
efforts of the humanist and the inclusion of the normative are brushed
4 Ibid, p. xx.
5 Ibid, pp. xx-xxi. These are, again, the views of Christopher Miller, with
whom we concur.
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AFRICANA JUNE/JULY 2012
aside as impractical or idealist. This is particularly true of the debates
of political science, where the links between power and condition are
too often considered the most appropriate, practical, and mature
answer. Countless social science observers have commented on this
link from, on the one hand, Thucydides, Niccolo Machiavelli, and
Thomas Hobbes to, on the other hand, Karl Marx, to Antonio
Gramsci, and to Paulo Friere. The former group’s ideas are generally
oversimplified and used to defend the principle, allegedly established
by Athenian General Thucydides, the Father of Political Realism, that
“the strong do what they have the power to do; the weak suffer what
they must.” The latter group’s ideas are similarly oversimplified yet
are said to support the general view that something ought to be done
to improve the condition of the weak. In democratic politics these
social science voices can be heard as well: conservatives defending the
maintenance of the status quo, while progressives argue that the status
quo disproportionately benefits the powerful. It is a pattern of social
science debate and politicking that literally spans the globe. We are of
the view that the marginalization of peoples in much of sub-Saharan
African politics has become so extreme that the lack of global
attention to the matter is a clear indication of willful ignorance.
Today, global communications are such that the words and images of
human suffering are clearly heard and visible to the point where
retreating to a safe bubble – Ivory Tower or otherwise – is quickly
becoming a luxury of numbered days. Violence and terrorism are
tactics that, upon reflection, we hope to which few would resort but,
with the percentages and sheer numbers of the suffering in today’s
world, one wonders what options are left to many of the
marginalized.
In the 1950s and 60s Frantz Fanon famously addressed this
same issue in his socio-psychological observations of marginalized
Algerians in colonial Algeria. Given the persistence of
marginalization and trauma experienced by so many, Fanon
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AFRICANA JUNE/JULY 2012
ultimately concluded that violence would be the only viable option.6
How long, one must ask, will 80-90% of entire populations
throughout sub-Saharan Africa put up with living on less than $2 per
day? Is it any wonder why some, discouraged by the lack of
opportunities, engage in civil unrest (at best) or even (at worst) violent
or subversive means for altering their material lot in life?
In fact, studies have demonstrated that the inclusion of
radicalized groups into the formal processes of politics, while
seemingly tragic in the short-term, does eventually lead to the de-
radicalization of those same groups.7 One would expect to find
similar conclusions in many social studies areas, including
psychology and sociology: inclusion of the socially marginalized can
only improve the prospects for peace. But, again, in African area
studies there remains an overarching lack of acknowledgment of
Africa’s marginalization. Much of this, we suspect, is due to the
legacy of the Cold War: acknowledging the materialist nature of
African realities was considered Marxist, ergo not worthy of real
consideration. This ideological resistance to daily social and political
reality needs to be revealed and discussed. The alternative is to wait
for science to play itself out – to wait, as a Stalinist regime did, and to
“crack a few eggs” while those in power make their omelet. We ask:
how many millions of human beings must die as we await the benefits
of an ideologically-based science? That wait, we must all recognize, is
a privilege and that wait, we contend, is simply unjust.
To understand African realities today, one must acknowledge
the dramatic differences of material wealth that exist in this world and
critically assess how this can to be. Yes, there may well be elements of
6 Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (1961).
7 A point recently made at the May 2012 New England Political Science
Association Conference by Mohammed Elghoul of the University of
Massachusetts in a paper entitled “Moderate Revolutionaries? Hizbullah and
the Islamic Revolution.”
VOL. 6, NO. 1 IX
AFRICANA JUNE/JULY 2012
this assessment that lead observers to “Marxist-like” sensibilities but
we must avoid the Cold War instinct of summarily dismissing all of
our critical observations as a result. Today, what is vividly clear is
that the historical development of the African state has led to political
circumstances that are at once politically centralized and generally
structured around the control over a natural resource; many aspiring
politicians in Africa get involved in politics for little more than
personal enrichment and power. As in history, the African State
remains something to latch onto; once there, it becomes virtually
impossible to let go of the state’s comparatively abundant resources.
This is deftly described in Chinua Achebe’s novel A Man of the People;
in his words, once acquired, losing “a share of the national cake” is
inconceivable.8 Again, in an atmosphere of few opportunities, thusly
empowered politicians desperately do “what they have the power to
do” while, from their perspective, the “weak suffer what they must.”
Like it or not, political realities in sub-Saharan Africa therefore retain
an air of rapaciousness that is logically based on a fear of falling from
the pillars of political power to the depths of where the clear majority
of the population now resides. The political survivalist adheres to
theories and practices of a super- or hyper-realism that, not unlike the
realisms of ancient worlds described by Thucydides, is linked to
power and prestige. But in today’s African contexts, these realisms
take place, if at all, alongside a cliff’s edge. To the extent that he
listens to the debates of the social sciences, the African politician is
understandably cynical about the Africanist promoter of ideas or of
democratic ideals. Like everyone in that context, he is reminded daily
of the vast chasm of material differences between himself and the
average citizen; he is required daily to ensure that he does not allow
himself to slip into the humiliating and life-threatening experiences of
the majority of his fellow citizens.
8 Chinua Achebe, A Man of the People, (New York: Anchor Books, 1989, orig.
pub. 1966): 37, 136.
VOL. 6, NO. 1 X
Description:Instead of being more honest and realistic about their subject, many Africanists
prefer . This is deftly described in Chinua Achebe's novel A Man of the People;.
