The intellectualism of Peter Ekeh, By Ahmed Aminu-Ramatu Yusuf

The day, 17 November marks 4 years since Professor Peter Palmer Ekeh peacefully transited in Buffalo, New York, United States of America.

The beaming-face, soft-voiced, justice-loving, and highly-patient Ekeh, in life was, and in dying stays, a world acclaimed mental, famend scholar, quintessential tutorial, instructor of lecturers, and globally recognised scholar within the fields of political science, social anthropology, sociology, historical past and African Research.

A Nigerian of Urhobo extraction, Ekeh born on 17 November, 1937, printed many ground-breaking, authoritative, and significant works. A few of them are accessible on the web.

His concepts are finest understood and appreciated when studied holistically, for they’re organically linked and dialectically associated. All nearly purpose at understanding and tackling the African disaster.

However Ekeh’s most celebrated, cited and mentioned works are: “Colonialism and the Two Publics in Africa: A Theoretical Assertion” (1975); “Social Alternate Concept: The Two Traditions” (1993); and “Social Anthropology and the Two Contrasting Makes use of of Tribalism in Africa” (1990).

One among Ekeh’s most interesting works, although unpublished, is “The African State and the African Disaster.” He offered it on the first symposium of the Particular Committee on Africa of the United Nations College, held in Nairobi, Kenya, from 4-7 March, 1985.

In it, he argued that: “the African disaster centres across the African state… the African disaster is a disaster of the state. It’s the newness and ill-formations of the African state that has produced the varied issues that represent the African disaster.”

Ekeh posited that the European state: “has its historic origin in feudal society” and “it’s anchored within the continuity of its personal historical past, even stretching to its Greek and Roman antiquity by way of feudal and absolutist programs of rule, unto the current type of post-capitalist formation of nation-state.” Not so the African state, which: “was an influence imposed instantly by the forces of European imperialism which flowed from the wants of European industrial capitalism.”

The creation of the African State, Ekeh asserted: “concerned the dissolution of pristine African states (and non-state political entities) and its subsequent incorporation right into a widened colonial territory”. It was created: “by way of threats, deceits and violence, together with the humiliation of kings and chiefs, the plundering and looting of treasuries and properties, the desecrations of holy locations and symbols, and, in some circumstances, the wiping out of villages and the sacking of cities.” All these, for him, have severe and disastrous implications.

First, in contrast to the pre-colonial African state or the metropolitan European state, which germinated from the contradictions and struggles of their societies, the present African state didn’t come up from the contradictions and struggles in African societies. Therefore, it isn’t rooted in African historical past, traditions, values and tradition.

Secondly, in contrast to the pre-colonial African state or metropolitan state which is an organ for the promotion of the pursuits of the inner ruling lessons, the present African state is primarily and mainly a machine for the promotion of the pursuits of European forces and their African allies, probably not the pursuits of African folks.

Thirdly, in contrast to the pre-colonial or metropolitan state, the African state has no natural linkage with the African folks. The African state, he mentioned, doesn’t: “take pleasure in the advantages and benefits of inherited traditions of governance”. It lacks legitimacy and authority, and depends totally on intimidation, threats and violence in nearly all its undertakings.

On the idea of those, the next may be inferred. First, imperialism, mainly by way of the African state, expelled Africans from independently making their very own historical past in their very own methods. In Amilcar Cabral’s phrases, it led to the negation of ‘the historic strategy of the dominated folks by the use of violent usurpation of the liberty of the method of the event of the productive forces.”

Additionally, the attitudinal inclinations of most Africans in the direction of the state lies in its historical past and tradition. Most Africans don’t basically consider they personal the state. They contemplate the state as an unbiased pressure that’s against society; as an alien organisation which exist for itself; and a pressure to be, as a lot as potential, prevented, and positively associated to if advantages may be derived.

This was not the case within the pre-colonial African societies. In these, residents believed they owned the state and their possession is manifest. Whereas within the colonial interval, the forces of imperialism got here to Africa on the supposition that the African state belonged to their rulers and the lots had been inconsequential. Within the post-colonial period, most African leaders and their allies see the state, its assets and wealth as their private properties.

Additional, constitutional types of authorities exist mainly for individuals who management the state. This was in contrast to within the pre-colonial African societies, the place constitutional types of governments existed and had been taken with no consideration. As an illustration, as Claude Ake famous: “Chiefs had been answerable not just for their actions however for pure catastrophes corresponding to famine, epidemics, floods, and drought” and “may very well be required to enter exile or “ask to die” [to commit suicide].

In at this time’s African societies, leaders, whether or not elected or appointed, navy or civilian, see themselves as being above society. Folks and their welfare are thought-about secondary, if not irrelevant to the functioning of the state. Folks’s participation in politics and within the administration of the state is disdained, suppressed, and, in some circumstances, abolished.

Thus, the crises of democracy and growth lies deeply rooted within the historical past and nature of the African state. It largely explains why governance will not be taken critically; why service to the folks is changed by service from the folks; and why management by instance is changed by management by no matter means crucial!

It equally accounts for why in style participation in politics is suppressed in favour of politics of state management; why folks’s freedom, human rights, and management over their governments is undermined; and why the politics of growth is changed by the politics of primitive accumulation and monopolistic acquisition!

Ekeh was not a glorifier of pre-colonial African societies. He acknowledged that there have been African societies which “belonged to kings.” One was the Fulani Empire, the place the founder, Usmanu Dan Fodio, wrote that: “The federal government of a rustic is the federal government of its king with out query. If the king is a Muslim, his land is Muslim; if he’s an Unbeliever, his land is a land of Unbelievers”. Fodio additional argued: “[The King] is the Shade of God … on the Earth, for verily if he has executed righteously, he has the Reward and grateful remembrance, but when he does evil, the Bondage awaits him and his folks undergo.”

The very fact, nonetheless, was that in most African societies, the folks, their ancestors, the gods, and ALMIGHTY GOD had been believed to personal the state. Kings had been simply leaders, and first amongst equals. However they had been, most significantly, accountable and answerable to the homeowners of the state.

If Africa is to progress, the nation constructed, democracy attained, and growth achieved, its concrete insurance policies, plans and programmes ought to circulation from Ekeh’s writings.

Ahmed Aminu-Ramatu Yusuf labored as deputy director, Cupboard Affairs Workplace, The Presidency, and retired as Common Supervisor (Administration), Nigerian Meteorological Company, (NiMet). Electronic mail: aaramatuyusuf@yahoo.com