African Culturalist Subversion of Western Otherizing Logic in Decolonising the Mind: Ngugi’s Indigenization Project

When discussing African literature, it becomes impossible to bypass the issue of language, and more importantly African native languages, which seem to be close to quasi-inexistent when it comes to writing in them. In fact, most African written literature has come to life using the languages of the European languages imposed by force and at times subtly by the colonizers. In his book, groundbreaking Decolonising the Mind , Ngugi wa Thiong’o, the Kenyan writer and critic, addresses the issue by attacking these European languages in practice in both African nation-states and literature, and what the said languages represent ideologically and hegemonically when in use in Africa. In order to have a truly African literature, i.e. one utterly independent from the former colonial influences, Ngugi proposes a literature in African in African indigenous languages. How does he go about putting this in practice? Does such a proposition fit well in our days and age? These are the questions, among others, this paper seeks to address. The transition of the dead to the world of the ancestors in indigenous societies goes beyond the burial and physical disintegration of the individual. The rites attendant on the absence of the deceased in the Ugbo /Benin milieu culminate in the final journey to the world of the ancestors. This can be termed apotheosis, which may be considered the general recognition that the deceased can be considered an ancestor and could sit among other ancestors. While using aesthetics as a springboard, the paper establishes the fact that indigenous ritual performances may amount to what Eliot T. S. terms “the objective correlative”, and other new generations of aestheticians such as James Shelley call “sensible pleasures, rational pleasures”, and Wonderly terms “transcendent desires.” The signs and symbolic gestures attendant on the rite of passage that are potent means of establishing belief and amplifying a picturesque presentation of what may seem abstract are instrumental in upholding transition rituals in indigenous societies. The rites of passage further amplify the belief of indigenous people that necessary rite must attend the demise of every person upon the yield to the power of death and the negation of which could bring fatal consequences on the offspring of the individual. This paper aims at studying the story of the creation of the universe in Book One of the Bantu Text Indaba, My Children (1964) in an attempt to contextualize it within parallel creation myths from other traditions and cultures. The paper claims that the text under study is a creation myth, which is viewed as a sacred text with a cosmogonic function: to inform about the creation of the universe. To achieve this end, the researcher compares the common motifs recurrent in two of the most famous creation myths: the Book of Genesis of the Hebrew Bible and the Babylonian creation myth known as the Enûma Eliš on one hand, and the ones found in Indaba, My Children on the other. These motifs are the sexual act as a means of creation, the human form of the first creative being, bringing order after a state of chaos, and creation out of the feeling of loneliness. Through comparing those recurrent motifs in the above-mentioned texts, the researcher asserts that creation myths, even if they are geographically apart, share certain motifs and features that distinguish all of them. The study examines language use in prophetic movements’ advertisements in Harare, Zimbabwe. Specifically, the research establishes and explains the significance of linguistic strategies, which were used by Prophetic Movements in Harare, Zimbabwe. The purpose of the study is to demonstrate that language use in this context is an act of cognitive manipulation where the reader is strategically coerced to take up the message. The study is a qualitative research enterprise and it used document analysis as the method of data collection. The study was informed by Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) by Fairclough (2003). The study established that Prophetic Movements employ code-switching and mixing, slang, interrogatives, imperatives, salutations and personal pronouns to lure potential congregants. The use of these linguistic strategies is motivated by the need to persuade congregants to attend the events being advertised. The use of linguistic strategies is determined by situational factors such as the need to market in order to withstand competition from other Prophetic Movements. The Whatsapp platform created in the year 2009 is a mobile messaging app which allows the users to exchange messages without having to pay for SMS. It also makes communication and the distribution of multimedia messaging more easily and faster using internet connectivity. This study therefore investigated the potentials of Whatsapp group in promoting learning, social interaction and democracy among undergraduate students in University of Maiduguri, Borno State Nigeria. The study had three objectives and three corresponding research questions. Qualitative design was adopted for the study. The population consisted of all the four Whatsapp groups formed for the undergraduate levels of adult education programme. Out of these four Whatsapp groups, two were selected for the study. The two groups selected for the study were those of 300 and 400 levels in the 2017/2018 academic session. The population of the group members at 300 level were 97 while those at 400 level were 103. This gave a total population of 200. Three posts consisting of messages covering information text and supportive images, audio, video and document files posted to the group platform made by three male students and female students in each of the levels in line with the research objectives raised for this study were chosen by expert views for analysis. The reliability of the posts were determined cross checking with the facts on ground to ensure that only consistent data is used for the analysis. Analysis in this study was done using narratives only. The result of the study shows that Whatsapp groups utilized by undergraduate adult education students in 2017/2018 academic session for the 300 and 400 level students has greatly promoted their learning, social interaction and practice of democracy. The study concluded that the Whatsapp group is a very important platform for undergraduate adult education students. It therefore recommends amongst others, that Class Representatives should partner and add their various course Lecturers to their groups so that they could help them clarify certain concepts or issues they did not understand in the classroom. Available evidence from history of the Nigerian area shows that women have played very prominent role in socio-economic development in the area. It has also been established that throughout the developing world, they predominantly engage in multiple economic activities that are crucial to the survival of poor household. In the case of Nigeria, they constitute 49% of the nation’s total population and are responsible for the reproduction of the labour force and for producing of 70% of nation’s food supply. This has therefore always placed them at the forefront of struggles to ensure favorable socio-economic and political situation for survival and have as such been victims of state repression in the course of this. The paper therefore seeks to examine the relationship between women, rise against Economic Depression and exploitation and State repression in Nigerian. Data obtained from primary and secondary sources (literature review and content analysis) were deployed to carry out the study with an analytical and narrative historical method. Administration in Egypt is one of the key areas of research, which reflects on the organization of the government and the complexity of The Centralized Economy as well as of Society. Its evidence almost entirely depends on textual evidence that contains information about the titles and hierarchy of officials, their responsibilities and administrative units, and the nature of the bureaucratic transactions involved. Therefore, at the most basic level, administration deals with the recording of bureaucratic processes in the form of written records (Köhler 2010: 41). In addition, Bureaucracy/ administration is one of the parameters of Statehood in Predynastic Egypt. It is the most rational known means of exercising authority and its administrative apparatus are well represented in Pre- and Protodynastic Egypt by Various artifacts (Anđelković 2008: 1048). Early childhood development is at the top priorities of sustainable development views globally, and for some countries that look forward to achieving a qualitative leap in their human and economic growth, and achieving the wellbeing of their people. While the developing countries, including countries of the African continent, face challenges that hinder the achievement of this overall development in the early childhood. The economic challenges represented in the limited budgets and the financial allocations are at the top of these challenges that prevent the achievement of the development goals. Whereas, the cultural challenges as well, represented in the low social awareness about the importance of the overall development at the age of sixteen of the individual, development techniques and the growth requirements that need to be fulfilled, maybe considered the major challenges that prevent the development plans. The field researches point to shocking indicators in some of the development aspects that reflect a great deterioration in the social awareness of the right development techniques that contribute in the children survival and their prosperity. From this point, the need to adopt cultural aspirated programs presented to raise the awareness targeting the raise of the social awareness and shedding the light on the different roles that have to be contributed by the individuals in this development, and th