What Is Wrong With Africans?

 By Tochukwu Ezukanma

In his Philosophy of History, the 19th Century German philosopher, Friedrich Hegel, wrote so disparagingly about Africans, “The African exhibits the natural man in his wild and untamed state; there is nothing harmonious with humanity to be found in his character”. 

And “the undervaluing of humanity among them reaches an incredible degree of intensity: cannibalism is looked upon as quite customary and proper. The devouring of human flesh is altogether consonant with the general principles of the African race.” We can disregard Hegel on the grounds that, as of the 19th Century, the Europeans’ prejudiced and inadequate knowledge of Africa could not have given an accurate and objective account of Africans.

Plateau Carnage And Antics Of A Low-Road Government

By Ikechukwu Amaechi

On Saturday, June 23, Dr. Sylvester Ugoh, former Minister of Education, sent me a video clip of Chimamanda Adichie delivering a speech as the Harvard University 2018 Class Day Speaker.

*President Buhari 

It was the quintessential Chimamanda at her literary best – evocative and enchanting. She was selected by the Harvard students, as it is the tradition, to act the role, another validation for the lady of letters who has become Nigeria’s foremost 21^st century literary ambassador.
I don’t know what informed the leitmotif of her speech which she titled, “Above All Ese, Do Not Lie,” but she handled the concepts of falsehood and truth in a uniquely fascinating way asking some fundamental questions such as: “Should we call a lie, a lie? When is a lie, a lie?”

Scholar And Novelist Isidore Okpewho Passes On at 74

By Nduka Otiono 
Africa’s foremost scholar of Oral Literature and award-winning novelist, Isidore Okpewho, has passed on at 74. He was a prolific author, co-author and editor of about 14 books, dozens of articles and a seminal booklet, A Portrait of the Artist as a Scholar.

Prof Isidore Okpewho

Prof. Okpewho died peacefully at a hospital in Binghamton, a town in Upstate New York where he had lived and taught since 1991. His teaching career spanned University of New York at Buffalo (1974-76), University of Ibadan (1976-90), Harvard University (1990-91), and State University of New York at Binghamton. 

According to family sources, the Distinguished Professor at State University of New York, Binghamton, passed away on Sunday, September 4, 2016, surrounded by family members. Although he battled illness recently, the scholar and humanist had demonstrated exceptional capacity to deal with his challenging health conditions. Indeed, only two years ago, his last book to which he had long committed his intellectual resources, Blood on the Tides: The Ozidi Saga and Oral Epic Narratology, was published by University of Rochester Press.

Born on November 9, 1941 in Agbor, Delta State, Nigeria, Okpewho grew up in Asaba, his maternal hometown, where he attended St Patrick’s College, Asaba. He proceeded to the University College, Ibadan, for his university education. He graduated with a First Class Honours in Classics, and moved on to launch a glorious career: first in publishing at Longman Publishers, and then as an academic after obtaining his PhD from the University of Denver, USA. He crowned his certification with a D.Litt from University of London. 

With his two earliest seminal academic monographs, The Epic in Africa: Toward a Poetics of the Oral Performance (1979) and Myth in Africa: A Study of Its Aesthetic and Cultural Relevance (1983), Okpewho quickly established his reputation as a first-rate scholar and a pioneer of Oral Literature in Africa. For his distinctive and prolific output he was honoured with a string of international academic and non-academic awards that included the Nigerian National Order of Merit (NNOM), in Humanities for the year 2010.