The African Community Life

About the Book

Historians who tried to write some history of some parts of Africa before the last quarter of the 20th century had many handicaps. Many of them were foreigners who neither understood the language nor appreciated the life values of the African people about whom they tried to write. Some were Africans or African Diaspora who were products of foreign scholars and too tied to their teachers to be different at that time.

There was another academic handicap confronting writers who attempted to write about African Civilization, culture, or history at that time. Mainly two schools of thought concerning the development or lack of it in the African race handicapped them. The first group of the theorists maintained that Africans made no development worthy of classification as historical achievement or history before the arrival of Europeans in Africa. This group agreed that every development in Africa started after the European contacts were made and because of the contacts.

The second group of theorists on African development held the view that African people made some insignificant developments before Europeans arrived in Africa. They also maintained that the European contact brought about total devastation of the minor developments made leaving the people to start all over again. They also agreed that every development made thereafter were reactions to the European impacts and therefore direct results of European presence and contacts in Africa.

In summary, both schools of thought held that every notable development of Africa, especially south of the Sahara desert, was a result of the impact of the European contact with Africa. According to the first school of thought, all developments were results of the European contacts making the Africans to start thinking and producing meaningfully thereafter. The second school of thought agreed that after the total devastation of African developments caused by the European contacts, every African significant development was a result of some type of reconstruction caused by the European activities. Both schools of thought agreed that nothing significant in the African development or civilization was indigenous.

The impact of these unfounded theories was that historians in particular and writers in general who wrote about African developments tried very hard to find traces of European actions in every major African development. Finding European or foreign impacts on African community development became a major concern of a successful African historian or writer on any cultural matter. It is not surprising therefore; that African indigenous institutions large or small were not the main concern of these writers.

However, the above-unfounded theories on African history and development have been discarded. African developments have recently been treated as usual human developments passing through historical evolution as other peoples of the world. Just as it is with other peoples of other parts of the world, contacts with foreigners produce some impacts on both the peoples and the foreigners. The effects of such contacts are never the same. Likewise, early European contacts with African people had varying effects on the developments of the African peoples.

Recently the spread of the television has impacts on the way other peoples who have never been to Africa see African peoples. The scenes of wars, disorder, diseases and misery in some parts of Africa shown on the television all over the world for one reason or the other do not completely represent life in Africa. The scenes seem to present an incomplete picture of the African peoples and their total community life. It is only through a thorough study of the African community life that a complete picture of the African development and civilization can be seen. This book, THE AFRICAN COMMUNITY LIFE Indigenous Concepts on Society, Government and Development: The Abiriba Community Case Study, presents Africans

About the Author

Dr. Kalu O. Uche Dr. Kalu Okoro Uche obtained his PhD in African History from Howard University, Washington DC in1974. After getting his doctorate degree, the Alcorn State University in Lorman Mississippi, employed Dr. Uche as an assistant professor of Social Science and History in 1974 to 75. Later Dr. Uche moved to Nigeria where he worked for many years as a top level administrative officer of the governments of the East central and Imo States. Appointed by the Nigerian President, he served as a member of the two governing councils of the University of Nigeria Nsukka and the Obafemi Awolowo University Ile Ife in the 1980s. For many years, Dr. Uche conducted extensive research on traditional African systems of government, including the Abiriba System. He also actively participated in the political life of Nigeria and Abiriba cultural activities. He received several honorary awards including Abiriba chieftaincy title of Ugochinyere Abiriba. Dr. Uche is the author of The African Community Life: Indigenous concepts on Society, Government, and Development: The Abiriba Community Case Study.