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.