Africanization For Schools, Colleges, and Universities: For Schools, Colleges, and Universities

By Frederick Nwosu

Equipping people for good citizenship, patriotism, nationalism, and service above self cannot be gainsaid. This book offers 100% indigenous African perspectives. Therefore, readers can relate to the content, especially considering the pervasiveness

• Language: English
• Publisher: HOME & ABROAD USA PUBLISHING
• Release date: Aug 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9780976829812

Frederick Nwosu

Professor Frederick Nwosu has been a teacher of decades. He started as a secondary school Business Instructor. He later attended higher institutions where he bagged, Bachelor, Master, and Doctorate degrees. He has been combining corporate and teaching jobs at different levels up to university professor teaching doctorate degree students. He also works as a Coach and Mentor to Entrepreneurs. He is also a philosopher. He has authored several scholarly articles and some books. He is the creator of the Andragogic Intersect Quadrant and a few other learning models. His public speaking engagements expose him to multiple audience types. On the academic front, he is a doctoral specialist in the fields of Finance, Leadership, Research Methodology, and Management. His other skills include singing, songwriting, composing, keyboards, music production, promotion, and marketing. Above all, his passion for Africa is second to none.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Elements of Nationalism

Definition of a Nation

Description of Nationalism

Psychology of Nationalism

Philosophy of Nationalism

Understanding Nationalism

A nation is a cluster of people or a people group with specific cultural affinities that set them apart from other people groups. They are united in culture, social anthropology, geographic space, and several other attributes. Therefore, in several countries, different nations can exist. It must be understood that many African countries (if not all) are not nations; they are mostly a conglomeration of nations that are pulled together on a political basis. The formation of African countries has mostly been from colonialists. That is why wars occur from time to time. Think about the different wars you can remember in Africa; you will realize that those wars are caused by external factors tool detailed to enumerate here.

A nation would be a cluster of people with common affinities. It makes sense, and that is why Africans stick to their kith and kin wherever they are. Unfortunately, most African countries were formed as a result of colonialism; they were not formed based on shared common cultural heritage. In those colonial machinations, indigenous people found themselves woven into groups to share political space with unrelated indigenous peoples. In other words, those concocted countries did not come together due to common interests or cultures. This could be part of the reason many African groups are in conflict. For example, xenophobia occurred in South Africa. Even though it was difficult to understand why there could be such hatred for fellow Africans, the background knowledge of colonial machination explained the conflicts.

A nation is a people group who share some affinities unfortunately for Africa the colonizer does not allow African ancestors to decide with whom they want to live, to build their nation. The consequences are there more wars more division, our generation must correct this. A country is not a nation. A nation is a group of people bound together by cultural ties and shares social, cultural, and geographical attributes. Most African countries have several Nations in them. Because Professor P.L.O. Lumumba stated that one out of every five Africans is a Nigerian, it is important to look at a Nigerian example: Nigeria, for instance, emerged out of the marriage of three major indigenous tribes. The marriage was conceptualized and conducted by the colonial masters, Britain. where the three major tribes of Igbo, Hausa, and Yoruba have to exist in one country even though they all do not see themselves as one. This was the cause that stirred the Nigerian civil war in 1967, less than 7 years after independence on the 1st of October 1960.

The definition of the nation seems correct to me here. However, in the case of Ivory Coast, the country is far from the wishes of its first President, Felix Houphouët Boigny. The first President wanted to build a strong nation. Unfortunately, sone events that the country experienced (socio-political unrest) showed that it still had a lot to do to build a strong nation. Even within the ethnic groups that make up our country, they find that the sense of belonging to the same group that exploits things in common does not exist.

A nation is expectedly made up of people who are united in culture, social anthropology, geographic space with a common goal in mind (achieving a greater nation together) as one body/party. Nigeria is a very good case study where there are over 50 ethnic groups (with Yoruba, Hausa, and Igbo nations as the core) forced into a political entity to become a country. This would not have happened if not for the insistence of the colonial masters that amalgamated the north and the south in 1914. Regardless of the façade, the trapped indigenous nations continue to agitate for self-rule.

A nation is a community of people formed based on common language, territory, history, ethnicity, or psychological make-up manifested in a common culture. This definition indicates that Africa has many nations. Nigeria also has many nations that can be referred to as tribes or ethnic groups. However, as a result of colonial influence, African nations were divided into countries. For instance, in Nigeria, three major nations were grouped as well as in other nations of Africa. This has led to so many wars such as Somali Civil War-1991; Nigerian-Biafra Civil War 1967; Rwandan Genocide-1994; the Lord’s Resistant Army Insurgence- 1987; Eritrean-Ethiopian-1998, among others (Shivji, 2003).

A large body of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular country or territory. A nation is a large group of people having a common origin, language, and tradition and usually constituting a political entity. African countries are described as a conglomeration of nations that are pulled together on a political basis and have been experiencing wars due to cultural differences.

Description of Nationalism

Nationalism is a sensibility. It is a mind and mental state. It is a feeling that manifests in the behavior of a people group. Nationalists are protective of what they consider their heritage. That heritage might be language, artifacts, music, skin color, speech pattern, or tonality. Nationalists seek to protect these sensibilities from dilution. They do not want ‘outsiders’ to penetrate their circle and affect these elements of heritage.

The intention is usually noble, but some of the good get lost in translation as observed in many African countries. In Kenya, for instance, there is tribalism that cuts across even how we make vital decisions such as voting. We also observed the same in Rwanda during the genocide, where one tribe’s feeling of superiority and entitlement almost led to the extinction of another. Nationalism is inside of people; it is the feeling people have that emboldens them to live proudly with their specificities. This feeling aptly described Africa’s founding fathers who fought the colonizer to gain independence.

Nationalism is simply the perception of the psychological sense of nationhood and national prestige. It is a patriotic affiliation to one’s national leanings. It exhibits itself in the behavior of a group of people. There is pride and protection to that with which they identify themselves as a nation. The most common is their language and culture; a large body of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular country or territory.

Nationalism is a sensitivity. It is a spirit and a mental state. It is a feeling that manifests itself in the behavior of a group of people. Observations at this level reveal that this notion is very difficult to manipulate in African countries because there is a risk of tribalism and xenophobia. The nationalism to be advocated on our continent must be moderate. otherwise, African unity would be an illusion.

This deals with the sensibility, mind and mental state, and behavior of grouped people. Nationalism is where the nationalists’ belief that their core group must be protected from dilution, intrusion, and extinction. Do you think that it will be right to say that Nationalism comes when Africa is free from imperialism?

Nationalism in this text can be said to be a self-identification with one’s nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations. Not wanting outsiders to penetrate their circle is a practice of nationalism… coming together irrespective of the tribes to have a common goal (which is protecting the heritage of the nation).

Africans should extol the virtues of nationalism. Accordingly, Africans are known to love the tribes they are individually born into. They love the languages and rarely speak other people’s languages except if and when expedient. They historically adored only their products. They cherished their culture and displayed peculiar loyalty to their kinship system. They paid little or no attention to the country in which they find themselves because the countries were colonial creations that had no consideration for the indigenous tribes. Over time, colonial indoctrination wiped out most of the tenets in the people’s way of life, and a newly packaged version of the worship of God, for instance, was introduced and driven into the people. The indoctrination provided a different way to worship the same God; those who resisted the new package were either imprisoned or killed. African nationalism’s origins are found in anti-colonial protest and the artificial boundaries of post-colonial states. But it has proven a resilient force in African politics, alongside the colonially engineered states, with few border changes in the post-independence period (Dorman, 2019). Sooner than later, new education systems were introduced by the colonialists to create job seekers, servants, and glorified slaves within the colonial creation called country. The people’s languages were labeled ‘vernacular’. Their dressing was labeled devilish and supplanted with western dress codes and modes. People were made to begin to want to look, talk, walk, and act like the colonialists because almost everything with which the people were known had been labeled devilish.

Nationalism may also constitute the act of yielding to the superiority of the way of the land. People become conscious of their place in society with due attention to supporting everything about their nationhood (completely different from ‘countryhood’). It becomes clear that there is a difference between nationhood and countryhood. Colonial authorities would prefer the use of the word, ‘nation’ in place of ‘country’ so that the people of the land (indigenous peoples) may see the two words as meaning the same thing. Far from it. The truth is that a nation is a bloc while a country is a creation. Different people groups or indigenous blocs can confer with one another through certified representatives or proxies and create a country of shared values. In such a creation, the indigenous groups would maintain their homogeneity while the heterogeneity of the so-created country will be understood as pertaining to any collaboration the groups would engage in from time to time. The distinct groups will continue to focus on their culture without imposing their culture on other constituting members of the so-created country. Any deviation from such recognition and mutual respect could lead to communal clashes, ethnic wars, civil unrest, etc. Thus, nationalism is about nations rather than about countries. The two must be understood as culturally unrelated.

Nationalism is a way of thinking that says that some groups of humans, such as ethnic groups, should be free to rule themselves. … The other definition of