UI prof seeks removal of ‘colonial’ ideas in literary research on Africa

Nelson Fashina, a literature professor at the University of Ibadan (UI), has called for the removal of what he describes as “colonial concepts” in humanities research on Africa.

The academic spoke on Thursday at the 523rd inaugural lecture delivered at the university in Oyo state.

The lecture was titled ‘Text, Grammatology, and the Automation of Theories in African Literary Discourse’.

Fashina touched on the importance of promoting theories that are indigenous to Africa.

He said there is a need to critically review western theories that propagate contentious “colonial paradigms”.

The professors said this is especially to portray that features present in post-colonial discourse were also available in pre-colonial experiences in various settings on the continent.

“Our acceptance of these colonial paradigms as our literary or critical strategies within the humanities is indeed a betrayal and denial of our pre-colonial histories,” the professor said.

“They are repressive, insulting, misleading, and decreative.

“[They are] a mistaken acceptance by our academic forebears, including Homi Bhabha, Edward Said, Buchi Emecheta, Frantz Fanon, Jamaica Kincaid, Salman Rushdie, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak.

“This school of scholars believes that, for literature texts to satisfy the criteria for epistemic fulfilment, they must be politically correct.

“The doctrine of political correctness implies that no literature text may be neutral to the critical condemnation of hierarchies of class, gender, race, culture and other mores that are said to be oppressive.”

Fashina said it is important to question western concepts when analysing African experiences.

“These concepts and timelines that tie us to western colonialism should be minimised or banished, altogether, from our teaching and research subjects in the humanities,” the professor added.