The Question of the African Personality in Chukwudum Barnabas Okolo: A Critical Review

Abstract

Okolo maintains that the African is identified by his personality which is the attitudinal disposition he designates as ‘beingwith’. He adopts the term ‘being-with’ to represent the African ‘communality’ which is all there is to be truly African. Though maintaining a radical communalistic viewpoint suspending in socio-ontological considerations, Okolo posits that this attitude characteristically defines and symbolically stands for that by which ‘an African’ is identified. However, Okolo’s position inheres some problems that border on one, the question and place of right and freedom of the individual as a community-member in the face of the community-consciousness, two, imposition of the title ‘African’ on even non-Africans as he opines that even an American, for instance, who imbibes by the principle of ‘being-with’ is ‘an African’, among other problems. Nonetheless, this paper defends that there are serious series of challenges/disruptions to this personality of ‘being-with’ which today hinder a satisfactory realization of its practicability/liveability even among Africans. The expectations from the paper include one, an analysis of Okolo’s thoughts, pointing out the loopholes for further academic exercise on African philosophical discourse, two, to reiterate the fact that what is African has substantial potency to sustain Africa, and address African problems hence ‘African solutions to African problems’, and third and finally, to propose an alternative view to ameliorating the radical communalistic positions in Okolo. The paper shall here also adopt philosophical conceptualization, content and contextual analysis and clarifications to critically review Okolo.