The Ghettos of Pan-Africanism excavates the tortuous trajectory of the struggle for totalistic emancipation of black humanity and affirms the undiminished integrity of the axioms encapsulated in Pan Africanism as a philosophy of radical action for that elusive emancipation. The Ghettos is against the background of strenuous attempts at counterfeited deflections of the original ideas of pan Africanism through politically driven contentious reinterpretations of the philosophy on the home continent and increasing ethnicization of black humanity in the Diaspora through direct and nuanced repudiation of the essences of the black self. These deflections of the philosophy and physical defections from the race are often for narrow and convenient ends. The Ghettos of Pan Africanism revalidates the original understandings of pan Africanism as a race based radicalized voice articulating the centrality of the unity of black people in pursuit of the common destiny of that one race. Pan Africanism was never based on the aggregation of states burnishing mere fictive sovereignties in their odious reinforced silos of massive human misery. African states are highlighted as sore fixations in aborted transition validated by the anti-people political entrepreneurs (poliprenuers) who double as proxies of the inimical external order and their human agency in the inimical external Other. The Ghettos illustrates the consequences of this in the pervasive malignancy of African statehood that is understood as an acursed impediment to the fulfillment of the emancipation thrust of black struggle. In practical terms, the rejection of Pan Africanism as the fundamental underpinning of political evolution by Africa’s wounding fathers in Addis Ababa in 1963 is adduced as the source of the consolidation of Africa and black humanity along the tangents of relevance in the affairs of humanity.
Professor Ademola Araoye is Director of Abuja Leadership Center, a TETFund Center of Excellence in Public Governance and Leadership at the University of Abuja, Gwagwalada, FCT, and Nigeria. He is a former Nigerian diplomat and retired from the United Nations as Head of Office for the Consolidation of Democratic Governance of the United Nation Mission in Liberia (UNMIL). He is author of Cote d'Ivoire: The Conundrum of a Still Wretched of the Earth (Africa World Press, New Jersey, 2012) and The Sources of Conflict in the Post-Colonial African State (Africa World Press, New Jersey, 2014).
“At once profoundly erudite and deeply reflective, this book is a triumph and tour de force. It provides a fresh discursive canon that interrogates the contested contours of pan-Africanism in a manner that is bound to shift intellectual and normative debates in a new direction. Here pan-Africanism is liberated from the shallow reductionism that has stifled deeper introspection; while the debilitating stasis and paralysing structuralism of the African interstate system stands exposed for its dehumanizing post-colonial effects. In an age where power continues to express itself as a ruse of history, we encounter in these pages the power of an emancipatory epistemology that is embedded in subtle interpretation, thoughtful argument, and excellent scholarship”.
Prof Garth le Pere, Extraordinary Professor, University of Pretoria, South Africa
$ 40.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-53-4 Ι Published 2021 Ι Pan-African University Press
A preeminent translator has translated a prominent book, producing an outcome that is magnetic and majestic. A timeless story comes alive, the strictures of state decadence narrated with clairvoyance, but the resolution drags us to an uncertain destination. Can there be a secular rapture?
– Toyin Falola, Professor of History, University Distinguished Teaching Professor, and Jacob and Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities, the University of Texas at Austin
Those familiar with Ṣaworoidẹ, late Akínwùmí Ìṣọ̀lá’s celebrated drama, both text and movie based on it, know too well the importance of the story it tells, to wit, a contemplation of the fortunes of our contemporary life as reflected in the core areas of state/individual, individual/individual relations, and the mutual encumbrances that they entail for everyday living. This is not to neglect its commentaries on private and public morals, the institutions of culture and how we navigate the challenges of change in all its ramifications. What Professor Olúbùnmi Smith has done in this splendid translation is to offer a wider audience Ìṣọ̀lá’s genius as a dramatist, stylist, and just one heck of a storyteller without losing the beauty, the tightness, and the topicality of the original. Add to that her conveyance of the universal themes that abound in the text that make Ìṣọ̀lá’s work not a mere Yorùbá story. We all owe Professor Smith a debt of gratitude for enhancing our repertoire, once again.
– Olúfẹ́mi Táíwo, Africana Studies and Research Center, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
Pamela J. Olúbùnmi Smith is a Professor Emerita of English, Humanities and Women’s Studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Dr. Smith holds a doctorate in Comparative Literature from the University of Washington. Her research interests and publications are in the areas of translation studies and Yorùbá Language and Literature. Her four English translations from the Yoruba include: Ẹfúnṣetán Àníwúrà, Ìyálóde Ibadan & Olú Ọmọ Tinuúbú, Ìyálóde Egba (2004) and Treasury of Childhood Memories (2016) by Akinwumi Isola, and The Freedom Fight (2010) by Adébáyọ̀ Fálétí, the two leading contemporary Yoruba writers. She is a co-author of yorùbádictionary.com.
$ 65.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-57-2 Ι Published 2021 Ι Pan-African University Press
In the Sands of Time is a culmination of some of the brilliant stories received for the inaugural Toyin Falola Prize. A total of 34 power-packed narratives render a broad range of African youths' perception of their continent and how they can relate to it in creative form.
"These stories delightfully bring the diverse experience of being African in contemporary times quite close."
Abimbola Adelakun, author of Under the Brown Rusted Roofs
"Thanks to the Toyin Falola Prize for uplifting the voices of these talented authors who have written diverse and fascinating stories that come with a lot of soul. These stories will take you on a journey of laughter and sorrow, of power and surrender, and pleasure and pain. A timely and utterly ravishing collection, this anthology is the gift we need now more than ever."
Ukamaka Olisakwe, author of Ogadinma
"Ensnaring, seductive, and deep. This collection is nothing less than a kaleidoscope of the narrative genius of young contemporary African storytellers."
Gilbert Ndi Shang (PhD), Comparative Literature, University of Bayreuth
$ 65.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-55-8 Ι Published 2021 Ι Pan-African University Press
Texts and Contexts of Migration in Africa and Beyond
The essays in this volume attest to the fact that, while migration evinces challenges in the economy and other aspects of development, its impact on other branches of knowledge is understudied. This book attempts to connect migration to literary and cultural studies, thereby broadening our understanding of an important aspect of African lives.
Dr. Oluwole Coker is an Associate Professor of Literature-in-English at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria.
Dr. Adebusuyi Adeniran is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria.
$ 85.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-54-1 Ι Published 2021 Ι Pan-African University Press
Tunji Olaopa, a University of Ibadan trained political scientist, retired Federal Permanent Secretary, is a professor of public administration/public policy and Directing Staff at the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru, Jos, Nigeria. A Fellow of the Institute for Strategic Management, Nigeria, he is a 2015 recipient of the Nigeria National Productivity Order of Merit Award, the 2018 University of Texas at Austin Thabo Mbeki Award for Public Service and Scholarship and the 2018 University of Ibadan 70th Anniversary Lifetime Achievement Award. He has authored over a dozen other books on governance and public service institutional reform.
The inauguration of NIPSS in Nigeria was a unique phenomenon not only because it was a government owned think tank, but essentially because it was one of its kind on the continent. The breath of its mission and objective, as well as the development vision that gave birth to it makes it a unique institutional embodiment of the determination that Africa needs to transform her predicament to possibilities. This volume is an exercise in institutional hope. NIPSS represents a trajectory of where Nigeria as a state is coming from and where it is headed. This book outlines the framework by which the possibility of NIPSS becoming a think-and-do tank—through a focused institutional reform—will also signal the capacity of the Nigerian state to achieve development and progress.
NIPSS: Conception, Operations and Framework for Repositioning constitutes a deep seminal attempt to benchmark NIPSS in the tapestry of African and global think tanks, all within a research objective to create perspectives that should serve as touchstone for NIPSS’ repositioning into a world-class institution. I sincerely hope this attempt will be a fundamental addition to the entire corpus of reform initiatives that the leadership of NIPSS and the Nigerian government has been incubating in their fervent desire to make NIPSS what it deserves to be—the ideational source for transforming Nigeria’s policy architecture in ways that will make the dividends of democratic governance available for qualitatively transforming the well-being of Nigerians.
—Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, GCFR, PhD, former president of Nigeria and founder of NIPSS
$ 65.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-52-7 Ι Published 2020 Ι Pan-African University Press
The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Volume 8, Part 1: South African Diaspora in southern and eastern Africa in Precolonial times
This book provides a regional perspective of the South African diaspora’s involvement in the history of southern and eastern Africa, specifically in the countries known today as Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. It positions the 19th century migrations and interaction with other people in the region within the broader regional demographic, political and economic dynamics of the nineteenth century. Accordingly, the book reinforces the assertion that the migrations are better understood as a regional or continental phenomenon rather than as an external intrusion into the societies concerned. The regional perspective is explained by making reference to the dynamic and changing nature of all the societies in southern and eastern Africa during the nineteenth century. It is argued that the migrations were an integral part of those dynamics, even though the Ndebele, Ngoni and ‘Shangaan’ originally came from an area which is now called KwaZulu-Natal in the Republic of South Africa. This is, however, not to discount or belittle the phenomenal character of the movement in question, especially as defined by the coverage of a vast territory which extends from southern to eastern Africa in just over one generation.
$ 75.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-51-0 Ι Published 2020 Ι Pan-African University Press
This book honors the memory of the late Professor J. A. Atanda for his contributions to Yoruba scholarship and society. The book covers a wide range of topics discussing the Yoruba people of West Africa, exploring various themes on their cultural backgrounds, history, and institutions. The editors are both historians: Toyin Falola teaches at the University of Texas at Austin and Professor Dipo Olubomehin has served as the Head of Department and Dean, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Nigeria.
$ 85.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-50-3 Ι Published 2020 Ι Pan-African University Press
The Right to Development in Africa: Issues, Constraints and Prospects
The right to development in Africa is both urgent and mandatory. As this book points out, the components of this right include: fostering respect for the rule of law, defeating corruption, tapping into African cultures and philosophies, advancing gender justice, and promoting the right to education. This thought-provoking book is useful to lawyers, academics, policymakers, and students.
Serges Djoyou Kamga is a Professor of Law at the Thabo Mbeki African Leadership Institute (TMALI), UNISA. He is a member of the 'building committee' of the Cross-cultural Human Rights Centre, a consortium of one European University, ten Chinese and four African universities aimed at bringing Southern concepts and ideas in the area of human rights to Northern audiences. His areas of interest include Leadership and African renaissance, Development and human rights, human rights from a cross-cultural perspective, and Disability rights. He publishes in these areas.
$ 75.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-49-7 Ι Published 2020 Ι Pan-African University Press
Paradise Lost? A Political History of British Southern Cameroons from 1916 to 1972
This captivating and detailed book should be required reading for anyone interested in learning about the current conflict in the Southern Cameroons region of Cameroon where oppression by the central government has incited an armed insurgency aimed at creating a new state called Ambazonia. The author, currently a political prisoner in Cameroon, correctly points out that this conflict is rooted in the reconfiguration of Africa by colonial powers after the First World War and particularly in the “botched decolonization” of Southern Cameroons during the 1950s.
Tim Stapleton, Professor, Department of History, University of Calgary, Canada Author, Africa: War and Conflict in the 20th Century (2018)
This inspirational book is not only insightful and well-written, but also well-researched and historically grounded. It captures the complexity and multi-layered complicity of the UN, France, Cameroon Republic, and the UK as well as their roles in the 1961 botched decolonization process that led to the annexation of British Southern Cameroons which had attained self-government in 1954. The book draws both national and international attention to an end to the glaring injustice suffered by the territory and its people at independence. The author’s depth of knowledge regarding the reasons for the current struggle for the restoration of statehood of Southern Cameroons, is balanced by depictions of the people’s long suffering and their inherent right to freedom and independence. The book will definitely be of interest to political scientists, historians, economists, students and friends of British Southern Cameroons and Africa.
Bridget A. Teboh, Professor of History, University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, USA
This book is a welcome addition to the growing body of literature on the Southern Cameroons Question. It will enrich the compelling repertoire of scholarship on the Southern Cameroons heroic struggle for liberation from a vile black-on-black colonization. The author, a prisoner of conscience, is one of Southern Cameroons’ indefatigable liberation fighters, a man who has suffered torture and unlawful imprisonment countless times since the mid-1990s and is currently serving a pre-determined life sentence peremptorily imposed in 2019 under cover of darkness by French Cameroun’s Kangaroo military tribunal.
Professor Carlson Anyangwe, Former Executive Dean of Law & a Rector at Walter Sisulu University, South Africa, Author, Betrayal of too Trusting a People: the UN, the UK and the Trust Territory of the Southern Cameroons (2009)
Nfor Ngala Nfor is a product of the Political Science Department of Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, Nigeria. He is a Pan Africanist and a lover of humanity. Nurtured in African core values and trained in mission schools with great emphasis in the fear of an omniscient and omnipotent Creator, he is a strong advocate and defender of truth and a crusader for human freedom, justice, equality, and dignity and right of all peoples to be masters of their destiny. As Chairman of the Social Democratic Front’s (SDF) Constitutional and Political Affairs Committee, he worked hard for the institutionalization of genuine democracy and the rule of law in Cameroon. To him, life is worthless and meaningless without the restoration of the Southern Cameroons statehood. He sees the Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC), which he came to lead, as the thorn in Yaoundé establishment’s flesh, and treats members of the organization as members of his larger Southern Cameroons’ family. At the time of publishing this book, Nfor Ngala Nfor was in prison in Yaoundé as one of the leaders of British Southern Cameroons renamed The Republic of Ambazonia. He was abducted in Abuja, Nigeria on January 5, 2018 and extradited to Yaoundé, Republique du Cameroun.
$ 55.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-48-0 Ι Published 2020 Ι Pan-African University Press
The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Volume Four Part Three
Raymond Suttner, writing in his published doctoral thesis, Rendering Visible: The Underground Organisational Experience of the ANC-led Alliance until 1976 (2008), acknowledges that The Road to Democracy in South Africa multi-volume series draws on the expertise of independent scholars and is 'based on extensive archival as well as oral [history testimonies], ranging very widely and covering a lot of interviewees and much documentation on struggles throughout the country'.
Two enduring challenges linked to the production of knowledge in South African historiography are challenged by committed scholars, researchers and public intellectuals. The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Volume 4, Part 3 addresses the previously neglected and undermined voices of black scholars, researchers and public intellectuals. The publication also ensures that oppressed voices of the majority of our population are at the centre of the historic narrative.
Comprising of eleven chapters, Volume 4 Part 3 tackles the debate on whether the real locality of the struggle for liberation in South Africa was urban or rural and comes to the conclusion that it was indeed a national struggle and that it permeated all parts of the country. Included in the volume are chapters by Marepo Lesetja who analyses the often neglected struggle for liberation in what was then the Far Northern Transvaal (now Limpopo Province); Tshepo Moloi examines the re-establishment of the ANC and PAC in selected townships located in the PWV area—the urbanised socio-economic hub of the country; Lungisile Ntsebeza assesses the political economy of the land question in South Africa's urban areas up to 1994, with a focus on the Cape Peninsula; Sifiso Mxolisi Ndlovu embraces the cultural, emotional and human aspects of the liberation struggle by exploring why and how it was that Rolihlahla Nelson Mandela became the 'public face' of the liberation struggle. He also explains why culture can be perceived as the fifth (i.e. additional) pillar of the liberation snuggle for national liberation. Luvuyo Wotshela discusses the fate of the Ciskei Bantustan and adjacent border towns and their political transition towards a democratising South Africa from 1985 onwards.
Selected Works of Chief Isaac O. Delano On Yoruba Language
This book provides four of the major language-related works of Chief Isaac Oluwole Delano. They constitute the masterpiece of his pivotal contribution to the Yoruba language and, in a way, to its literature, a feat that places Delano over and above his contemporaries in the pioneering efforts of intellection on the broad field of Yoruba studies. With this anthology, comprising of four books, A Modern Yoruba Grammar; Agbeka Oro Yoruba: Appropriate words and expressions in Yoruba; Conversation in Yoruba and English; and Atumo Ede Yoruba, we showcase and bring to the close range of students, teachers, scholars and other beneficiaries of Yoruba, a lifetime achievement of a mega-lover of the Yoruba language, culture and literature. This document, in excess of 900 pages, is a valuable “mobile library” so much needed in an age when indigenous knowledge bases are endangered and the potential beneficiaries of such knowledges are the first to run away from them.
Michael Oladejo Afoláyan, Ph.D., a former student of Chief Isaac O. Delano, is currently an Independent Scholar, and a retired professor from Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville. He also retired from the directorate of Illinois Board of Higher Education's Academic Affairs Division, Illinois, USA. Afoláyan is the current co-founder and President of M & P Educational Consulting International. As an eclectic scholar with backgrounds in Yoruba language, linguistics, education, and literary analysis, he draws from a rich pool of multidisciplinary scholarship to investigate and interrogate theoretical, philosophical and pragmatic ideas. He embraces a lifelong studentship of cultural knowledge and intellectual curiosity. Educated earlier in life in the organic indigenous Yoruba epistemology (at the feet of village elders), and later in life at three Western citadels of learning – University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), Ile-Ife, Nigeria; the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. Afoláyan has authored and co-authored many journal articles, book chapters, and books. He is the author of a memoir, Fate of Our Mothers: The Collected Stories of An African Village Boy and currently he is co-authoring a translation of Joseph Odumosu's (1895) Iwe Iwosan.
Toyin Falola is a historian of the Yoruba and Nigeria, founder and co-editor of Yoruba Studies Review. He has produced over 160 books, and honored globally —including seven honorary doctorates— for his scholarship and service. He is a University Distinguished Teaching Professor and Frances and Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities at the University Of Texas at Austin.
The works and life of Chief Isaac Delano underscored his invaluable conviction that language is the software for the creation and development, processing, storage, retrieval, and for the preservation and use of culture. The Yoruba say, Ibadan l'omo, o mo layipo, and Delano's compendium of Yoruba language, history and anthropological chronicles is also a signifier to knowing the "layipo" of the Yoruba people. Language plays an indisputable role for the understanding, interpretation and deciphering and decoding of the Yoruba cultural values and beliefs that are obscured in proverbs, sayings and conversations, unique grammatical structure, and their family system, gender equity, and democratic political culture and communal philosophy but not communist governance and governmentality. Toyin Falola and Michael O. Afolayan have in a manner of speech archaeologically excavated or exhumed and brought alive the erstwhile buried works and life of Chief Delano for us all to enjoy and learn from. I commend this must-read encyclopedic work to students of language in general and to decolonization of the Yoruba mindset and to posterity for the preservation of the endangered Yoruba language, cultural values and beliefs.
Bola Dauda, author of Life Begins at 70! and the co-author of Decolonizing Nigeria 1945-1960
$ 75.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-47-3 Ι Published 2020 Ι Pan-African University Press
A Dictionary of Yoruba Monosyllabic Verbs
The ingenious assemblage of A Dictionary of Yoruba Monosyllabic Verbs is chief among Chief Isaac Oluwole Delano's contributions to the lexicography of the language. The laborious effort of documenting and entering the unique lexical items into a single voluminous text for the Institute of African Studies of the then University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) in Ile-Ife is a historical undertaking. No one before or even after Delano has attempted a dictionary of this magnitude, let alone of the Yoruba monosyllabic verbs. Reprinting this seminal work is an attempt to invoke the magnanimous memory of this giant lover of the language and it is our way of honoring the fortieth anniversary of his death. Chief Delano, who passed away on December 15, 1979, left a treasure trove of unforgettable works on the Yoruba language and literature. The current dictionary constitutes the most ambitious and arguably most voluminous of a single work in the Yoruba language. This dictionary is time-tested and has constituted a quintessential legacy that will always pass the test of time.
Isaac Delano's "A Dictionary of Yoruba Monosyllabic Verbs" comes across to people like me as a surprise, "a bolt from the blues," as they say. I am aware that references are made, occasionally, to the dictionary in passing, but never did many of my generation set our eyes on a copy to appreciate the magnitude of its worth as a goldmine for all lovers, scholars and students of the Yoruba language and of the culture that foregrounds it. It is also mindboggling the extent to which the author's patriotism and dedication to advancing the cause of the Yoruba language and culture could have motivated him to have embarked on such a noble task of producing the Dictionary to assist students, so early in the life of this country, and more significantly, without any funding support that researchers and scholars enjoy today. It is much more curious that a great work like that had been gathering dust for decades unattended to! It is a great relief, and no doubt, spirit-lifting that Professors Toyin Falola and Michael O. Afolayan, two of a kind, to have made the Dictionary accessible to the reading public. It is a must read to all scholars and students of Yoruba language and culture.
Ademola O. Dasylva, FNAL, Professor of African Literature, Oral Poetics & Performance
Clarence Shepard Day Jr (1874-1935), an American author and cartoonist, best known for his 1935 work, Life With Father, once said "The world of books is the most remarkable creation of man. Nothing else, that he builds, ever lasts. Monuments fall; nations perish; civilizations grow old and die; and, after an era of darkness, new races build others. But in the worlds of books are volumes that have seen this happen again and again, and yet live on, still young, still as fresh as the day they were written, still telling men's hearts of the hearts of men centuries dead." Chief Delano has, with his Dictionary of Monosyllabic Yoruba Verbs, written one of those books and led us into the "magic world of books". But more importantly, Toyin Falola and Michael Afolayan have not only been our guards into the heart of Chief Delano but have led us out of the long era of darkness over Chief Delano's legacy and have guided us into the remarkable everlasting world of books where everything is alive, young and fresh. With the reissue of Chief Delano's book, the lives of the Yoruba as a language, a nation, and a people will never be the same again. I commend the book to all students and lovers of etymology.
Bola Dauda, author of Life Begins at 70!
$ 75.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-46-6 Ι Published 2020 Ι Pan-African University Press
Cultural Modernity in a Colonized World: The Writings of Cheif Isaac Oluwole Delano
This book is about the intellectual life and times of Chief Isaac Oluwole Delano, a cultural icon who significantly shaped Yoruba Studies. It examines the contributions of Chief Delano through a careful interrogation of his many records, letters, documents and over a dozen publications, spanning from 1937 through to 1973. He covered biographies, history and religion, all under the rubric of what may be referred to as Historical-Anthropology. A prominent author, Chief Delano bequeathed several chronicles of events in Nigeria, and accounts depicting the realities of Nigeria's period of transition into modernity. Aside from being the first Administrative Secretary of the Egbe Omo Oduduwa, a cultural organization that became a political party in Nigeria, Delano was one of the pioneers of Linguistics Studies in West Africa. His activities in this respect led to the second phase of his publications and collections, which cover areas of language and language usage in Yoruba. Born in 1904, he worked as a clerk in the colonial government before venturing into writing and later becoming a full academic. His career trajectory ensured a robust relationship with many of the leading intellectual communities of the time, both within and outside Africa. His records and publications offer accounts of how Nigeria got to its current decayed state, and gives critical insights into how it could escape the quagmire. This comprehensive book covers his biography; the fabric, texture, and contents of his work; the philosophy that undergirds his writings; and a robust contextualization of how to understand them as well as an epistemological guidance to their significance.
Toyin Falola is a historian of the Yoruba and Nigeria, founder and co-editor of Yoruba Studies Review. He has produced over 160 books, and honored globally —including seven honorary doctorates— for his scholarship and service. He is a University Distinguished Teaching Professor and Frances and Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities at the University Of Texas at Austin.
Great expectations from one suited to and capable of undertaking such a monumental task of (w)riting the omissions of history. There are no surprises here: Toyin Falola leads by example, and this is TF, true to his commitment to ensure the rediscovery/reawakening of the generation once silenced or inconveniently lost. At once the work of an intellectual in its rigor, and a gripping story, lyrical in its telling. A gift to scholars of Yoruba cultural history and for future generations.
Pamela Olubunmi Smith, Emerita Professor, University of Nebraska at Omaha
A magnum opus, Cultural Modernity is a colossal contribution to reimaging the history and traditions of a great nation and people, and a deserving tribute to Baajiki Ake (Lord Notable of Ake).
Akinloye Ojo, Director, Africa Studies Institute, University of Georgia, Athens
$ 105.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-45-9 Ι Published 2020 Ι Pan-African University Press
Understanding Ogbu Kalu: Christianity and Culture in Africa
This is one of the few books ever written on an African scholar, showing the possibility and benefits of such a rare approach and unprecedented generosity. Rich with details, learned in its findings, and revolutionary in its recommendations, Toyin Falola continues to extend the frontiers of scholarship in African studies with finesse.
Apollos Okwuchi Nwauwa, Professor of History and Africana Studies, Bowling Green University, Ohio
In this fine, thoughtful and highly engaging book, Toyin Falola honors the intellectual legacy of Ogbu Kalu, which anchors on African Christianity, Global Pentecostalism and Global Missions.
Gloria Chuku, Professor and Chair of Africana Studies, University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
In this lucid and well-written book, one of the most respected historians of our time, Toyin Falola, places the works of Ogbu Kalu in their comprehensive historical contexts.
Caleb O. Oladipo, Snellings Chair of Christian Evangelism and Missions, Campbell University Divinity School.
$ 105.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-41-1 Ι Published 2019 Ι Pan-African University Press
Sweat Is Invisible in the Rain
Sweat is Invisible in the Rain is a memoir of living in two homes, one on either side of the Atlantic. Cherno Njie describes his childhood and youth in Banjul, the capital of the small African country of The Gambia, and his later life after moving to the United States in the 1980s to earn his university degree. The Njie family compound was an idyllic home: brothers and sisters, uncles and aunties, friends and strangers. Cherno tells how he carried the memories of his home and the lessons of his mother and father to Austin, Texas, where he studied at the University of Texas at Austin. His life and successful career in Texas, though far from Gambia, was nevertheless rooted in that country. After the Gambian elections of 2011, which long-standing president Yahya Jammeh allegedly won, he explains his growing resolve at the time to contribute to Jammeh’s defeat. This came to a head when he participated in a coup plot that failed on December 30th, 2014. Njie gives his side of the story, his account of the coup, and what has since happened. Though Sweat is Invisible in the Rain is a story of two homes, it is a story of one life.
Cherno Njie is an Austin-based real estate developer, investor, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He was born in Banjul, The Gambia when the city was still called Bathurst. After growing up and working in The Gambia, he moved to Texas for his university education and graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 1987. Afterward, he began his now twenty-five-year career both as a state official at the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs and in the private sector as President of Songhai Development Company. In 2014 he was involved in the failed attempt to depose then Gambian President Yahya Jammeh. Upon his return to the United States, he was arrested and convicted of violating the Neutrality Act of 1794. He now lives freely in Austin with his wife and children.
A heartfelt, heart-wrenching expose on a significant political and military event in Gambia's history, written against a backdrop of strong cultural and family values that shaped Cherno Njie's early political awakening… a must read for Gambians, especially young students, and scholars alike, as it makes an important contribution to Gambia's historical repository.
Abdoulaye Saine, Professor and University Distinguished Scholar, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio.
As memoires by Gambians go, this is a trendsetter not only by the wide sweep of its scope, but also for its candour, candidness and cadence… Every phrase, paragraph and page comes out in a seamless weave of a glowing story of a lifetime.
Hassoum Ceesay, Historian and author, Gambia National Museum
The dog that visited the leopard's turf and came home to tell the story should be congratulated, as the Yoruba adage goes. Njie's memoir, Sweat is invisible in the rain, is a sacred saga of survival with the resemblance of that audacious dog at the proverbial turf of the voracious leopard. Polished and smooth, sophisticated and complicated, this is one memoir that will pass the test of time, trump every test of literary merit, and score high on the readability scale. But not so for the journey of the author. Rough, rugged and narrow, yet, triumphant in it all, Njie's life is a tale that transcends its West African setting. It is the rustic simplicity of an African childhood that metamorphosed into a global earthquake, the tremor of which shook the trans-Atlantic world! This memoir is, indeed, a testimony to the explosive supremacy of resiliency, survivability, native intelligence, and the courage to tread on the ground that even angels dread. It underscores the sacrosanctity of the family, and the enduring power of friendship.
Because the road to success is always under construction, Njie is not afraid to touch on the limitations of his effort while teaching us that it is better to try and fail than to fail to try. Sadly, as John F. Kennedy once quipped, "Victory has a thousand fathers; defeat is an orphan;" the naysayers may slight the effort of Njie and his co-compatriots in their attempts to relieve and rid their nation of the yoke of dictatorship, the ruinous coup is not altogether a failure; after all, it put the pain of The Gambians on the world map, and the blood of the martyrs were not shed in vain. The anchor holds. Njie is still standing; the dictator is gone. Sweat, indeed, is invisible in the rain, but rain will stop; sweat will dry up; and the breeze of mercy will provide the consolation and the ultimate reward.
A five-star kudos to the words of the griot, Cherno M. Njie – the invisible power that slain the most mighty generals!
Dr. Michael O. Afolayan, Author of Fate of Our Mothers
What a rich, colourful and deeply insightful excursion into the heart and soul of The Gambia and one of its illustrious sons! Extremely readable, Cherno Njie's memoir draws you in not just to the sights, sounds, sorrows and soul of the Gambia, it communicates too the urgency for its transformation and restoration, for the sake of future generations.
Olajumoke Yacob-Haliso, Associate Professor of Political Science and Public Administration, Babcock University, Ogun State, Nigeria.
Cherno M. Njie's remarkable persona lingers long after one gets to meet him. He is a unique blend of the vintage entrepreneur, political activist with uncommon courage and determination regarding the future of Gambia, and a public intellectual par excellence. His memoir, ‘Sweat is invisible in the rain’, says in clear terms that achieving progress in the African state is not an event but a struggle. It is therefore a must read manual for any progressive African development worker who knows what development is all about and is poised to make a difference.
Tunji Olaopa, Executive Vice-Chairman, ISGPP & Professor of Public Administration at Lead City University, Ibadan, Nigeria.
Sweat Is Invisible in the Rain may be purchased here.
$ 35.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-43-5 Ι Published 2019 Ι Pan-African University Press
Urban Crises and Management in Africa: A Festschrift for Akin Mabogunje
Africa is a rapidly urbanizing continent largely due to increasing rural/urban migration. The rapid growth is without commensurate infrastructure, basic services and employment opportunities. What is the nature of these problems and how do urban residents and institutions respond to them in different contexts? What are the gaps left to be filled by policy makers and other stakeholders? The essays in this volume respond to these questions and a few other strategic issues. In this respect, this publication looks at the issue of “urban crisis” and its management from three tracks: (i) the human security track that underscores the stressful living conditions of many city dwellers in Africa; (ii) the governance track which pertains to how those responsible for managing African cities fail in their duties; and (iii) the relational track that deals with how the urban dwellers in Africa are engaged in different forms of conflicts (violent and non-violent) largely as a result of the stressful conditions of city life. Some policy recommendations are made in the papers.
Isaac Olawale Albert is a Professor of African History, Peace and Conflict Studies and the pioneer Director of the Institute for Peace and Strategic Studies, University of Ibadan, Nigeria. He was a federal delegate to the 2014 National Conference in Abuja and also served in 2014/2015 as a member of the Presidential Panel for the Review of Nigeria’s Defence Policy.
Dr Taibat Lawanson is Associate Professor of Urban Planning at the University of Lagos, Nigeria where she leads the Pro-Poor Development Research Cluster and serves as the co-director of the Centre for Housing and Sustainable Development. She holds a PhD in Urban and Regional Planning from the Federal University of Technology, Akure. She has taught courses and conducted research on urban informality, urban management, pro-poor development, governance and environmental justice. She is widely published in all these research areas.
$ 65.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-40-4 Ι Published 2019 Ι Pan-African University Press
Power, Development and Institutions in Africa
Good governance, development and democracy are needed to improve the human conditions in Africa. All three must encapsulate the running of post-colonial states, bringing along the people, promoting participation, justice, and human rights. The African renaissance will not happen unless governance, development and democracy come together as one for the sake of progress of Africa. This book argues that governance, development and democracy must be about fundamentally transforming the African polity, its economy, its social conditions, and its relations with former colonial powers.
Siphamandla Zondi is a professor and the head of the Department of Political Sciences, University of Pretoria, and coordinates the Department’s Institute for Strategic and Political Affairs, which analyses national, continental and international affairs including decision-making, leadership, norms, values, and agency. He oversees the Centre for the Study of Governance Innovation and the Centre for Mediation in Africa. Between 2004 and 2016, he worked as the head of the Africa programme of the Institute for Global Dialogue associated with University of South Africa, and later as the head of the Institute itself. His intellectual interests lie in the area of Africa's international relations, building decolonization theory, and transformation of the modern world and its systems.
Serges Djoyou Kamga is an Associate Professor at the Thabo Mbeki African Leadership Institute (TMALI), UNISA. He is a member of the building committee of the Cross-cultural Human Rights Centre, a consortium of one European, ten Chinese, and four African universities aimed at bringing Southern concepts and ideas in the area of human rights to Northern audiences. His areas of interest include leadership and African renaissance, development and human rights, human rights from a cross-cultural perspective, and disability rights.
$ 60.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-39-8 Ι Published 2019 Ι Pan-African University Press
Literally, I could not sleep; hyperbolically, I could not breathe, until I finished reading Life Begins at 70 – A Godfather’s Confessional Memoir. . . It’s that good – pure and simple! The memoir of Bola Dauda is breathtaking and “bewitchedly” captivating! This is one book to be read in whole, diligently, and with undivided attention.
Professor Michael Oladejo Afoláyan, Fate of Our Mothers: The Collected Memories of An African Village Boy
Reading Bola Dauda rekindles the feelings I had with The Confessions of Saint Augustine. Both are spiritually anchored and authentic. A nugget for readers interested in personal biographies. Dr. Dauda provides practical suggestions that are applicable to those nefarious issues of daily existence and along with it, several amusing stories and anecdotes.
Professor Augustine Agwuele, Professor of Linguistics, Texas State University, U.S.A.
This book celebrates the narrative character of the moral life, accents the historical nature of social existence, and holds up virtues as the foundation of the good life. In telling the story of his life, Dr. Dauda has put forward a theory of the narrative formation of individual or group character that should enliven social ethics in Africa.
Professor Nimi Wariboko, Walter G. Muelder Professor of Social Ethics, Boston University, USA.
The critical thinking of Dr. Bola Dauda makes this uncommon autobiography of a naked emperor an inspirational guide to a life of freedom, purpose, integrity, joy and success in the world today. Teens and adults as well as parents will find the cakes one could eat and keep from his bakery in the secret garden delectable and nourishing to the soul.
Dr Samson O. Ijaola, Sub-Dean, School of Post Graduate Studies, Samuel Adegboyega University, Edo State, Nigeria.
Bola Dauda holds a master's and doctorate degrees in Political Theory and Institutions from the University of Liverpool. As a scholar, he is widely published in Europe, the United States, Africa and Asia. Dr. Dauda’s writings have been translated into Spanish, Chinese, and French. He is an ex-honorary fellow of the University of Leicester, and a life member of the U.K. Coaching Academy.
$ 45.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-38-1 Ι Published 2019 Ι Pan-African University Press
Divided People of God: Church Union Movement In Nigeria: 1875—1966
In 1974, when the first edition of this book was published, Dr. Ogbu Kalu (1942-2009) was a young, devout Presbyterian minister and scholar who believed that the unity of the Church of Nigeria was not only possible but necessary. Indeed, an ecumenical movement had seen a similar need for unity and predicted that this unity would occur in December of 1965. The vision was to create not multiple churches of many denominations, but rather one complete, unified church composed of Anglicans, Methodists, and Presbyterians. However, this was not to be, due to inner negotiations breaking down. Dr. Kalu thus took it upon himself to write a study about the impulses and arguments toward unity and why unity is the true intention of God. This second edition’s publication honors Dr. Kalu’s call to unity, and it allows the modern reader to ponder what unity means in the twenty-first century and the current Church of Nigeria.
$ 50.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-37-4 Ι Published 2018 Ι Pan-African University Press
Security, Conflicts, and Peacebuilding in Africa
Peace has remained elusive in Africa. The continent continues to be riddled with insecurity and conflicts that are tearing it apart and stalling its development prospects. Beyond the legacies of colonialism, case studies in this volume highlight different causes and dimensions of insecurity, conflict, conflict management mechanisms and peacebuilding efforts in Africa. Clashes over identity differences and weak governance structures remain sources of the concern. To solve the conflicts, communities have often resorted to the traditional African ways and the modern system based on western rules. Various ways of effecting peace-making and peace building and the weaknesses of the current peacekeeping methods are explored.
Busani Mpofu is a senior researcher at AMRI, College of Graduate Studies, University of South Africa, and a Research Associate in the Human Economy program, University of Pretoria. His main research interests are in African economic history, with a focus on Third world urbanization, urban poverty, inclusive development, development discourse and theory, and Land reform and agrarian histories in Africa.
Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni is a Professor and Acting Executive Director of Change Management Unit (CMU), University of South Africa. He is the founder and coordinator of the Africa Decolonial Research Network (ADERN) based in the College of Human Sciences, University of South Africa. He is a decolonial theorist who has published extensively in African history, African politics, and development.
$ 60.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-36-7 Ι Published 2018 Ι Pan-African University Press
Migrant Stories: A Memoir of Living and Survival in the West and Asia
Migrant Stories: A Memoir of Living And Survival In The West And Asia is volume 2 of A.B. Assensoh’s life, times and odysseys. With a foreword by Professor Damien Ejigiri, the long-serving Dean of the Nelson Mandela College of Government and Social Sciences at Southern University and A & M College in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the book provides a unique overview of a professional colleague that he has known for some decades. Dr. Assensoh has provided a proverbial mirror – similar to what Duke University’s distinguished History Professor John Hope Franklin did with his own published memoir – through which his readers can read about a variety of topical migrant stories, which have been couched in his own preface; musings about far away from home stories; faces, places and celebrations; the shocking story of a modern “cougar” pouncing on a young black man; racial escapades in Europe and the Americas; discussions beyond politics, several of which have law flavor, stemming mostly from his latter-day Law Studies; and an epilogue dealing with a discussion of issues before he enters eternity, during which he expects his Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity members to initiate him into their prestigious Omega chapter, just as it was done for other past deceased members, including the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a proud Alpha and Morehouse College man. Similar to what he shared with his readers in volume one of his earlier published memoir, Dr. Assensoh has provided readers of Migrant Stories: A Memoir of Living and Survival In The West And Asia with several memorable photos, with appropriate captions.
A.B. Assensoh, LL.M. (Oregon), PhD (NYU), is professor emeritus of Indiana University, and courtesy professor emeritus of University of Oregon. Assensoh, a trained journalist and historian, is author, editor, or co-author of several scholarly articles and books, including A Matter of Sharing: A Memoir (PAUP, 2016); African Military History and Politics: Coups and Ideological Incursions, 1900-Present (Palgrave, 2002; 2006); Malcolm X: A Biography (Greenwood, 2014); Malcolm X And Africa (Cambria, 2016); African Political Leadership: Jomo Kenyatta, Kwame Nkrumah and Julius K. Nyerere (Krieger, 1998). Ghana-born A.B. Assensoh lives in Eugene, Oregon, USA with his lawyer-political scientist spouse (Dr. Yvette M. Alex-Assensoh) and their two sons, Kwadwo and Livingston, both students of the University of Oregon.
$ 45.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-35-0 Ι Published 2018 Ι Pan-African University Press
Looking Back from the Future: The View From Onitsha—Message To My Children
Looking back from the Future provides an imagined perspective looking back from an unspecified time in the future, on significant events in the eras that have passed. Onitsha today is a leading Igbo and Nigerian city on the banks of the River Niger. In the envisaged future it is a major city in what has become a ‘World of Homelands.’ The defining feature dividing early and later eras is: ‘rooted ethic.’ In the early eras the ‘Ethic of Darkness’ (with attendant attributes of exclusion/division/acquisition) is dominant. In the later eras the ‘Ethic of Light’ (with attendant attributes of realization/actuation/civil persuasion/inclusion) is dominant. Looking Back explores prospects offered by the ‘transformational’ properties of the computer, the internet and the world of cybernetics. It suggests possibilities for movement out of Darkness, into sustained Light, and on towards establishment of the Civil Commons, throughout what is envisaged as a World of Homelands’—the socio-ethno/political units that have replaced States and most Nations.
Professor Michael Vickers, historian and writer with a range of scholarly, literary and journalistic contributions over the past fifty years, has given much of his mind and heart to the land and folk of Nigeria; and in more recent years to projecting their path, along with all Africa folk, to what he perceives as the Horizon Future. Recipient of the Distinguished Academic Award (2012) from the University of Ibadan, he has taught and conducted research at the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) Nigeria, and other universities in America, Canada and UK. He is author of several acclaimed books, including most recently, On Wings of Light (2015), and Bright Beams in Dark Shadow (2017); the principal themes of which derived from this current work, Looking Back from the Future, in its original (2011) form. He holds a doctorate in Political Science and West African Studies from the University of Birmingham, UK, and is Emeritus Director of Parliamentary and Public Affairs, The Hillfield Agency (UK).
$ 40.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-34-3 Ι Published 2018 Ι Pan-African University Press
The Road to Democracy in South Africa, Volume 3: International Solidarity, Part 3
The International Solidarity Movement emerged out of post-World War II anti-colonial struggles, and drew on the organisational capacity initially of South African anti-apartheid organisations, liberation movements and exiles. It matured in the post-colonial period and in the context of the Cold War. As a global social movement, it engaged in national and global collective action aimed at social action and transformation. Its modes of protest, research and knowledge dissemination, forms of mobilisation and the knitting of global networks make it unique. It is not simply the sum of its constituent parts, or even its membership, or reach. It was the locus of global solidarity and action. It reached globally and in so doing drew individual and collective acts of anti-apartheid into a broader common political space that transcended national boundaries. Forms of anti-apartheid action in multiple political spaces in many spheres and arenas became one of the defining characteristics of the International Solidarity Movement as a global social movement.
$ 100.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-32-9 Ι Published 2018 Ι Pan-African University Press
There, but for the Grace of God
There, but for the grace of God is a gripping and detailed memoir of the handling by the Nigeria military government of the 1984/85 strike action by mostly the Nigerian Resident Doctors under the auspices of the Nigeria Medical Association. Professor Abiodun O K Johnson, the author, was then Professor of Pediatrics, the elected Provost of the College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, and the ex-officio Chief Medical Director (CMD) of the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan. As a consequence of the doctors’ action, the striking doctors were dismissed from their jobs. Professor Johnson was removed and he was retired from the Public Service with immediate effect, a decision he has always contended was wrong. About 4 years later and following a change of government, the dismissed Resident doctors were allowed to return back. The author was also re-instated as Professor at the University of Ibadan. He, however, chose to go on voluntary retirement and has been domiciled in the United States of America since 1985. He believes that the regrettable state of Nigeria is a result of recurrent mismanagement by the country’s governments. He also believes that, given the military culture and mentality, it has no business running a country.
Professor Abiodun Johnson, MD FRCP DCH FWACP FAAP FACN, was born in Lagos in 1939. He obtained his medical degrees (MB, BS U. London) in 1965 at the University College Ibadan (UCI); his Postgraduate / Residency training in Pediatrics and Internal Medicine in the UK: and his post-doctoral Fellowship training in Pediatric Gastroenterology / Nutrition at Stanford University Medical Center. He was the first to be awarded the MD degree by the University of Ibadan. Since leaving Nigeria in 1985, he has held academic / teaching appointments at various medical schools in the USA until he retired as a Professor at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences. He has three daughters, two of whom are also physicians and the third is a Mechanical Engineer. Professor Johnson now spends his time reading, writing, swimming, traveling, and singing in a Church choir.
$ 45.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-33-6 Ι Published 2018 Ι Pan-African University Press
Victor Ekpuk: Connecting Lines Across Space and Time
This book captures the full essence of Victor Ekpuk’s work as an artist of global reputation, a master of mysterious scripts, ancient signs and symbols. His messages, encrypted in nsibidi and other symbols and signs, find expressions in paintings, illustrations, cartoons and murals. His powerful messages are encrypted in those signs and symbols in ways that are sometimes obvious, often times complex, and subject to multiple ambiguous meanings, from the ritualized to the sacred, from the secularized to the mythical. In this book, twelve talented authors reflect on the artist, his background, the foundation of his creativity, and the interpretations of his symbolic messages.
$ 100.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-20-6 Ι Published 2018 Ι Pan-African University Press
This book examines the progress that Black Americans have made in the United States in the post-World War Il era, from the framework of American citizenship. The data in this book show that Black Americans have made substantial social, economic and political progress during this period. For example, as of 2013, there were 60,000 Black American physicians; 50,000 lawyers and judges; 111,000 engineers; 329,000 mathematical or computer scientists; and 305,000 registered Nurses. However, depending on the variable examined, one would find a gender gap favoring either males or females. For example, by 2016, there were 2.446 million Black women and 1.841 million Black men aged 18 and over with at least a bachelor's degree. While there are more Black females in the U. S. workforce, including in the top job category, professional and managerial positions (33.4% vs. 23%), Black males continue to earn higher incomes. This book presents various explanations for these gender gaps within the Black American population and the implications that result from them.
Amadu Jacky Kaba is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Seton Hall University. Prior to returning to Seton Hall University in 2005, he worked with the late renowned political scientist, Professor Ali A. Mazrui (Post-Doctoral Fellowship), teaching and conducting research in the Social Sciences at Binghamton University, State University of New York, and Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, from July 2002 to June 30, 2005. He is the author of almost 80 scholarly publications including over 50 full-length peer reviewed scholarly journal articles and six books. He earned all of his degrees from Seton Hall University: B.A. in Political Science in 1997; Master's degree in Public Administration (MPA) in 1998; and Ph.D. in Higher Education Leadership, Management and Policy in May 2002.
$ 45.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-28-2 Ι Published 2018 Ι Pan-African University Press
State and Development in Post-Independent Africa
Is the State still relevant for development in contemporary Africa? There have been several scholarly efforts geared toward understanding the role of the State in facilitating socio-economic development in Africa. While some see the State as a benevolent political authority which possesses the necessary mandate and responsibility to advance development, others see it as an area for personal accumulation and rent sharing. Indeed, there have been mixed results on the activities of the State and economic development in Africa over the past five decades of gaining political independence. This book contributes to the debates on the domestic and external forces that have continued to shape the role of the State in fostering socio-economic and political development in post-independent Africa. Contributors to this volume went beyond diagnosis of the challenges facing the continent to proffering solution and charting alternative strategies for achieving inclusive development.
This book provides insightful analyses from multi-disciplinary perspectives on the nature of the state and development in Africa. It covers an array of topics such as Pan Africanism, Governance, Inter Governmental Institutions, Regional Integration, the African Diaspora, Leadership and Peacebuilding, seeking to not only highlight the problems facing the continent but also to challenge the dominant western lenses through which they have been interpreted. It showcases the thinking of African scholars and charts a new development agenda for Africa. It makes a useful contribution to the debates on state and development in Africa.
Cheryl Hendricks, Professor of Political Science, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Samuel Ojo Oloruntoba, PhD is a Senior Lecturer at the Thabo Mbeki African Leadership Institute, University of South Africa. He is co-editor with Toyin Falola of the Palgrave Handbook of African Politics, Governance and Development, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2018.
Professor Vusi Gumede, a former Associate Professor at the University of Johannesburg, is the Head of Thabo Mbeki African Leadership Institute at the University of South Africa researching and publishing in the political economy of development in Africa.
$ 55.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-31-2 Ι Published 2018 Ι Pan-African University Press
Transforming The African Public Service
This volume is an attempt to consistently think through the reform of the public administration and public service dynamics that could serve as an institutional framework for reorienting Africa’s postcolonial predicament. Africa has often been regarded, among other uncomplimentary epithets, as the most difficult administrative contexts in the world. The failure of the public service in Africa is essentially the failure of the democratic experiment in Africa. The ten lectures gathered in this significant volume derive from the author’s practical and intellectual involvement with public administration thinking on the continent including the articulation of the African Public Service Charter under the auspices of the African Union Commission. The essays are all united by a firm conviction that once the public/civil service in Africa fails, then all else has failed in terms of an infrastructural transformation of Africa that will make democratic governance a meaningful experiment for Africans. The volume therefore delivers a serious trajectory of how the African public service and administrative dynamics can leverage on global best practices and existing reform ideas to undermine the African predicament and install good governance for Africans.
Tunji Olaopa, PhD, a retired Federal permanent secretary in Nigeria, is a Fellow of the Institute of Management Consultants of Nigeria and recipient of the 2015 Nigerian National Productivity Order of Merit Award. He is now the Executive Vice Chairman of the Ibadan School of Government and Public Policy (ISGPP), Nigeria. He combines an uncommon theoretical and practical insights into the reform dynamics of the Nigerian and African public service that derives from an over twenty seven years of reform crusade concerning the operational workability of democratic governance and the imperative role and responsibility of the civil service. Tunji Olaopa is the author of over a dozen other books including Public Administration & Civil Service Reforms in Nigeria (2012); Innovation and Best Practices in Public Sector Reforms: Ideas, Strategies & Conditions (2012); Public Service Reforms in Africa (2010); Managing Complex Reforms: A Public Sector Perspective (2011); The Joy of Learning (2009); and The Labour of Our Heroes (2016).
…there is no one better positioned to take up the urgent task of fashioning the philosophical and intellectual enterprise crucial to the re-alignment of public service in Africa, which he superbly demonstrates throughout the pages of this book…
Toyin Falola, Jacob & Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities, The University of Texas at Austin
$ 35.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-25-1 Ι Published 2017 Ι Pan-African University Press
Reforms, Governance and Development in Nigeria
This volume combines conceptual and empirical methodology to connect the administrative dots between the dynamics of democratic governance and the imperatives of development in Nigeria. The optimism underlying this book derives from the author’s reflection on the connection between democratic governance, the civil service in Nigeria and the critical import of reform as the sine qua non for achieving not only a paradigm shift in Nigeria’s productivity profile, but also as the means through which democracy can become a truly liberating ideology for Nigerians. The volume explores a deep historical strategy as an administrative method by which to understand why the capability readiness of the Nigeria civil service system has been compromised and how a deep political commitment to the transformation of the ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) can transform Nigeria in terms of infrastructural and human capital development.
Tunji Olaopa, PhD, a retired Federal permanent secretary in Nigeria, is a Fellow of the Institute of Management Consultants of Nigeria and recipient of the 2015 Nigerian National Productivity Order of Merit Award. He is now the Executive Vice Chairman of the Ibadan School of Government and Public Policy (ISGPP), Nigeria. He combines an uncommon theoretical and practical insights into the reform dynamics of the Nigerian and African public service that derives from an over twenty seven years of reform crusade concerning the operational workability of democratic governance and the imperative role and responsibility of the civil service. Tunji Olaopa is the author of over a dozen other books including Public Administration & Civil Service Reforms in Nigeria (2012); Innovation and Best Practices in Public Sector Reforms: Ideas, Strategies & Conditions (2012); Public Service Reforms in Africa (2010); Managing Complex Reforms: A Public Sector Perspective (2011); The Joy of Learning (2009); and The Labour of Our Heroes (2016).
$ 45.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-24-4 Ι Published 2017 Ι Pan-African University Press
Africa and Its Diaspora: History, Identity and Economy
This book provides important aspects of African diasporic experiences, covering the mass movement of Africans to Asia, Europe, and United States of America, the resistance to the epistemic violence caused by slavery and slave revolts, and the survival of African culture in the Diaspora. The book also explores the role of arts in fostering development as well as the influence of slavery and religion on Africans. Given the contradictions that continue to define African experiences in the global capitalist system, the book offers some alternative points of departure.
Samuel Ojo Oloruntoba is a Senior Lecturer and the Coordinator of the Research cluster on Innovation and Developmental Regionalism at the Thabo Mbeki African Leadership Institute, University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa. He obtained his PhD in Political Science with specialization in International Political Economy of Trade from the University of Lagos, Nigeria, where he is a tenured Faculty member. Oloruntoba is the author of Regionalism and Integration in Africa: EU-ACP Economic Partnership Agreements and Euro-Nigeria Relations, and co-editor of Regenerating Africa: Bringing African Solutions to African Problems and the forthcoming Palgrave Handbook on African Politics, Governance and Development. Oloruntoba received the 2016 Wangari Maathai Award for Innovative Research Leadership at the University of Texas in Austin.
$ 55.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-21-3 Ι Published 2017 Ι Pan-African University Press
Gender, Culture and Development in Africa
Gender, Culture and Development in Africa interrogates ways in which gender, culture, and development in the African context reinforce, shape, and reshape one another. In four parts, comprising fifty chapters, the book provides stimulating debates and constructive engagements about the enactment of gender and power relations within the African context and its implications for development outcomes. The engaging and carefully organised chapters furnish the readers with a sumptuous "buffet" of narratives, pedagogical dialogues and critical discourses on African women and men in their varied cultural, political, economic and social contexts. The multidisciplinary approach traversing literary studies, education, political science, religious studies, linguistics, history, economics, and law, amongst others, makes the book relevant to scholars of gender and African studies across these disciplines.
Mobolanle Ebunoluwa Sotunsa is a Professor of Gender Studies and African Oral Literatures in the Department of Languages and Literary Studies, Babcock University, Nigeria.
Olajumoke Yacob-Haliso is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Babcock University, Nigeria.
This is a must read book for anyone interested in the issue of gender imbalances between men and women in pre-colonial, colonial, post-colonial, and contemporary Africa. The subject of gender in societal development continues to attract scholarly attention globally in recent times. This volume brings together fifty essays written by established and upcoming scholars, male and female, all placing their essays in the context of momentous events and profound social changes that have marked gender, culture, and development in our time. This high quality collection offers strong individual essays that, when read together; add up to more than the sum of their parts. The volume is bound to change how we think about and perhaps how we study gender in Africa.
Akintunde Akinyemi, Professor and Chair, Department of Languages, Literatures, and Culture, University of Florida.
An eloquent testimony of the beauty of multidisciplinary discourse in unearthing the dynamic concept of gender especially in a multicultural setting as Africa. A reference material.
Ayandiji Daniel Aina, PhD, Professor of Political Behaviour and Communication & President/Vice Chancellor, Caleb University, Lagos, Nigeria.
$ 65.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-27-5 Ι Published 2017 Ι Pan-African University Press
Socio-Economic Development in Africa: Challenges and Dimensions
What options do African countries have to grow their economies and improve the living standards of their populations? What course should their socio-economic development take? The book reasons that African states, more than ever, need partnerships with the outside world in the development of the continent, based on equality, mutual benefit and win-win cooperation. This need has arisen as many Africa nations experience decreases in their fortunes in economic development and equitable distribution of resources among their peoples on the one hand, and increased dependence on development aid and loans from developed nations and international monetary regimes, on the other. The book opines that genuine partnerships with donor countries should distinguish between a simple analogy of other nations' development experiences and the genuine analysis of the respective dynamics of cases of African nations. It concludes that beneficiation of African raw materials on the continent is a key to Africa's success in boosting economic growth, development and reduction of poverty and unemployment.
Alexius Amtaika is a Research Professor at University of Limpopo in South Africa. He holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, specializing in Political Theory and Governance of Local States. He is the author and editor of four books. He is a former recipient of the University of Michigan African Presidential Research Fellowship (2008-2009). He is also the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of African and Asian Local Government Studies.
$ 45.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-26-8 Ι Published 2017 Ι Pan-African University Press
The Long Struggle: Discourses on Human and Civil Rights in Africa and the African Diaspora
The long and arduous struggle for human and civil rights is a defining theme in the historical experiences of African people and their descendants in the Diaspora. Challenges to fundamental human and civil rights continue to manifest in multiple dimensions, and are still critical issues in the political, economic, and social realities of black people. Featuring thirteen original chapters contributed by scholars from both sides of the Atlantic, this book interrogates the complex dynamics of human dignity and rights within the global African context from a multidisciplinary perspective. By providing an integrated discourse on fundamental issues of human and civil rights such as state repression in the modern African state, women's rights, minority rights, the right to education, and racial disparities and injustice in Black America, the book offers academics and the general reader a valuable resource to understand the historical and contemporary processes shaping human rights and freedom in the African world.
The book advances an important argument: that oppressive ideologies and practices which disproportionately victimize black people in Africa and in various diasporic locations have compelled the victims to develop a rich conceptual repertoire on rights as well as a robust vocabulary and a set of ameliorative methodologies for demanding and defending their human and civil rights. The most indelible contribution of this volume is that it insightfully and coherently weaves the struggles and sociopolitical experiences of African peoples in multiple spatial and temporal settings into current debates on human and civil rights. In this regard, the editors and authors clear a space for the universal idioms of rights to productively engage with the experience of and struggle for these rights in historically marginalized communities.
Moses E. Ochonu, Professor of African History, Vanderbilt University
A rare collection of definitive, compelling and discursive accounts of multifarious manifestations of the age long struggles of the Black race for human freedom and civil rights on both sides of the Atlantic, Adebayo Oyebade and Gashawbeza Bekele's The Long Struggle: Discourses on Human and Civil Rights in Africa and the African Diaspora is authoritative, well conceived, and a major addition to the thin body of literature on the subject matter in Global African historiography.
Akin Alao, Professor of Legal History, Obafemi Awolowo University
Adebayo Oyebade is Professor and Department Chair of History at Tennessee State University.
Gashawbeza Bekele is Assistant Professor of Geography at Tennessee State University.
$ 35.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-23-7 Ι Published 2017 Ι Pan-African University Press
The Collected Works of J. A. Atanda
This collection of the essays and books of the late Professor J. A. Atanda covers the broad spectrum of his work on the Yoruba, the Old and New Oyo Empire, colonial Nigeria and Buganda, and reflective essays on a newly independent Nigeria. Divided into five parts according to each of these themes, The Collected Works of J. A. Atanda is unique for encompassing the scope, breadth and depth Of the scholarship of Professor Atanda over the course of some thirty years. The collection definitively represents the contributions of Professor Atanda to African scholarship in general and fortifies our memory of the meaning of that scholarship.
Thank God, someone has finally noticed the pivotal contribution of a mega-intellectual. This book by Professor Toyin Falola is the megaphone that sounds the trumpet of the essential works of the late Professor J. A. Atanda, perhaps the greatest chroniclers of Yoruba history. No doubt, The Collected Works Of J A. Atanda is another notable work that celebrates one of our unsung intellectual generals, an essential read for any lover of Yoruba history.
Dr Michael O. Afolayan, Founder & Lead, M&P Educational Consulting International
This is a beautiful and excellent collection in remembrance of a renowned and worthy Yoruba historian.
Julius O. Adekunle, Professor of African History, Monmouth University
Professor Atanda's intellectual legacy is not just his painstaking reconstruction and penetrating analyses of the Yoruba past, but also his unique presentation style. The dexterity with which he simultaneously juggles political and social themes marks him out as the quintessential historian.
Professor Olufunke Adeboge, Department of History and Strategic Studies, University of Lagos
Toyin Falola is a historian of the Yoruba and Nigeria, founder and co-editor of Yoruba Studies Review. He has produced over 160 books, and honored globally --including seven honorary doctorates-- for his scholarship and service. He is a University Distinguished Teaching Professor and Frances and Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities at the University Of Texas at Austin.
$ 75.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-22-0 Ι Published 2017 Ι Pan-African University Press
Culture, Democracy, and Development of in Africa
Conceptually and programmatically, there is no clear connection between the concepts of democracy, culture and development. However, the influences of Western European countries in the implementation of democratic ideals and development models, plans and programs on the African continent, has created vast fields of play between them, in so doing informing and blending into one another. It is in the context of this that this book comes to the fore. First, to assess the question of whether development undergirds democracy or promote democratic impulses. Second, to scrutinize the casual link between democracy and development, which is taken for granted in our times. Third and finally, to assess the claims of whether culture is dynamic and fluid as it is in the era of increased global flows or as an entity to be compartmentalized or understood in fixed terms. The book takes the concept of culture as its point of departure to explore political, economic and social phenomena, on the grounds that, whenever one defines the concept of development or democracy, the notion of culture assumes a deterministic and influential role in it, and that the precepts of democracy or models of development are usually marked by tangible signs or sets of ideas, visions and claims, which ultimately determine the contours of culture. It is on these grounds that, not only does each of these three concepts supports or denotes group or institutional practices, but also contains conceptual claims with ideological power.
Alexius Amtaika is a Research Professor at University of Limpopo in South Africa. He holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, specializing in Political Theory and Governance of Local States. He is the author and editor of four books. He is a former recipient of the University of Michigan African Presidential Research Fellowship (2008-2009). He is also the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of African and Asian Local Government Studies.
$ 45.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-19-0 Ι Published 2017 Ι Pan-African University Press
Culture and Customs of the Yorùbá
This innovative anthology presents an interdisciplinary approach to Yorùbá culture and customs. Written by Yorùbá experts on all continents, the seventy-five chapters in the volume employ a variety of multi-faceted perspectives to provide a detailed study of the Yorùbá people with insights from anthropology, arts, language and linguistics, literature, history, religion, sociology, philosophy, psychology, criminology, law, technology, medicine, pharmacy, engineering, economics, education, political science, music, theater, popular culture, cultural studies, migration and diaspora studies, gender, etc. Each chapter addresses the changes that have taken place in traditional culture. This blend between traditional culture and modifications to such culture gives a balanced and authentic picture of what can be regarded as culture and customs in present-day Yorùbá society.
Tóyìn Fálọlá is Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities and Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas at Austin. He is author and editor of more than one hundred books, including Encyclopedia of the Yorùbá (IUP, 2016), The Yorùbá Diaspora in the Atlantic World (IUP, 2005), Yorùbá Warlords of the 19th Century (AWP, 2001), and The Yorùbá Gurus: Indigenous Production of Knowledge in Africa (AWP, 1999).
Akíntúndé Akínyẹmí is Professor in the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures and affiliate faculty at the Center for African Studies at the University of Florida. He is author of Orature and Yorùbá Riddles (Palgrave, 2015) and Yorùbá Royal Poetry: A Socio-Historical Exposition and Annotated Translation (BASS, 2004); co-author of Dictionnaire usual Yorùbá-français (AFRA-Karthala, 1997); and co-editor of Encyclopedia of the Yorùbá (IUP, 2016).
$55.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-18-3 Ι Published 2017 | Pan-African University Press
Bright Beams in Dark Shadow: Perspectives on Light Emergent
Starting as a simple compilation of selected lifetime writings, Bright Beams in Dark Shadow evolves into a personal testimony with a thrusting thematic thread; that of the ongoing battle of an ever-challenging Light, with an entrenched and dominant Darkness. Underlying emphasis is given to the fast-accelerating shift in Life Principles and Life Values from our planet’s world of the parochial, into a modern world of emergent universals of inclusion and engagement. The profound and transformative role of cybernetics, recognised and understood by few, emerges as the base platform from which all else in our unfolding future, follows. It is hoped this lengthy selection of odes, articles, critiques and commentaries will provide for the reader a powerful stimulant to a wide range of ponderings, queries and challenges at every level and depth; and indeed on new, penetrating and provocative Perspectives on Light Emergent.
Professor Michael Vickers — Taught Political Science at the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) Nigeria; taught and conducted research at universities in America, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Recipient of the Distinguished Academic Award (2012) from the University of Ibadan, he is author of several acclaimed books, including Structure and Conflict in Nigeria, 1960-65 (1973) with Ken Post, Ethnicity and Sub-Nationalism in Nigeria (2000), and most recently A Nation Betrayed—Nigeria and the 1957 Minorities Commission (2010), Phantom Ship (2013), On Wings of Light—Reflections on Cybernetics, Africa and the Wider World (2015). He holds a doctorate in Political Science and West African Studies from the University of Birmingham, UK, and is Emeritus Director of Parliamentary and Public Affairs, The Hillfield Agency (UK).
$30.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-17-6 Ι Published 2017 | Pan-African University Press
The Transformation of Central Nigeria: Essays in Honor of Toyin Falola
Using the scholarship of Toyin Falola as the entry point, The Transformation of Central Nigeria covers significant historical moments in the history of Central Nigeria, a region variously described as the North Central geopolitical zone in Nigeria's official circles and as the Middle-Belt by its indigenous populations. Centrally located in Nigeria and endowed with vast mineral and agricultural resources, Central Nigeria is a mini-Nigeria, for its ethnic diversity, complicated politics and conflicts. The main achievement of this volume is the analysis of the changes since the colonial period to the present.
Sati U. Fwatshak is a Professor in the Department of History and International Studies, University of Jos. His research interests and publications span African economies, African politics, African conflicts, and Islam in Africa. His most recent book is Contemporary Nigeria: Transitional Agencies of Change.
$45.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1943533169 Ι Published 2017 | Pan-African University Press
Decolonizing Nigeria, 1945—1960: Politics, Power, and Personalities
Bearing both the professional and general readers in mind, Decolonizing Nigeria: Politics, Power, and Personalities is an innovative approach at crafting a popular history of a great moment in Nigeria's history. The book is neatly organized into three parts. Part One focuses on the late colonial era's driving forces to bring about self-determination for Nigeria. Part Two deals with the establishment of developmental institutions for self-government. Part Three is organized under the central theme of "Regionalism and Change," highlighting the personalities of Nigeria's most powerful nationalists: Bello, Azikiwe, and Awolowo in relation to how their careers accentuated the structures of regional differences. The final concluding chapter explains the post-independence tasking steps to deal with the "unfinished businesses" of decolonization. Aimed at a wider audience with a blend of grassroots and elitist positions, Decolonizing Nigeria is a monumental work, and a seminal contribution to understanding both the political economies and the geopolitics of the post-colonial multi-ethnic nation states in contemporary global village.
Toyin Falola occupies the Frances and Jacob Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities at The University of Texas at Austin. A celebrated scholar of global stature, Falola has published numerous books, most recently, The African Diaspora: Slavery, Migration and Globalization.
Bola Dauda is an eminent public administrator and scholar. Widely published, Dr. Dauda’s writings have been translated into Spanish, Chinese, and French. He is co-author of Representative Bureaucracy, Meritocracy, and Nation Building in Nigeria.
$25.00 ($55.00 hardcover) Ι ISBN: 978-1943533145 Ι Published 2017 | Pan-African University Press
The Democratization of Africa: Dynamics and Trends
Why does the future of democracy seem uncertain on the continent? The achievement of this book is to provide answers to this question. First, the book reasons that the democratization processes on the continent are moving forward backwards, in that the preconditions for continued sustainability of democracy are absent and not plentiful in almost all African nations. In Europe, development preceded democracy, whereas in Africa, development and democracy are being implemented concurrently, in the face of austerity measures in order to induce economic growth. Thus, the book argues that development, by all counts, is a precondition for democracy and not the other way round. Second, the book suggests that the democratization processes defy the traditional principles of democracy where power evolves from "bottom up". In African nations, power evolves from "top to bottom", creating a deformed and an abnormal form of democracy known as "elite democracy", imposed on African people by African elites through external influences of Western European countries in the form of political conditionality and adoption of the Bill of Rights by African nations, as preconditions for receiving not only development aid and loans, but also for diplomatic relations. Third, the book concludes that the democratization processes are just experiments of transplantation of Western European values to African nations, since Western European values disregard African traditional values and often dismiss them as irrational and primitive, instead of viewing them as complimentary.
Alexius Amtaika is a Research Professor at University of Limpopo in South Africa. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, specializing in Political Theory and Governance of Local States. He is the author and editor of four books. He is a former recipient of the University of Michigan African Presidential Research Fellowship (2008–2009). He is also the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of African and Asian Local Government Studies.
$20.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-138 Ι Published 2017 | Pan-African University Press
Thelma’s Stories: The Life Experiences of an Overcomer
Thelma’s Stories: The Life Experiences of an Overcomer recounts the many experiences that Mrs. Thelma Coleman Alex faced as she grew up a child of America’s Great Depression. They revisit the pain of being shuffled from house to house at the time, especially as her parents left home to find work to earn a living. As a young girl, she faced challenges of living in grinding poverty as well as experiencing humor, love and compassion even in the midst of frequent troubles. Collectively, the stories invariably give voice to experiences and thoughts of many from a time that is often not remembered by many in American history. Above all, these carefully woven and presented stories reflect God’s provision and protection, which shaped young Thelma Coleman’s life into a resilient, compassionate and educated woman, who loved the Lord with all her heart. As an octogenarian, Mrs. Thelma Coleman Alex, affectionately called Grandma Felma by her grandchildren, sees her three grandchildren – Kwadwo, Livingston and Livia – as the joys of her life, hence she happily dedicated the publication to the three of them
Mrs. Thelma Coleman Alex, a native of Greensburg, Louisiana, was born on February 13, 1932 during the height of America’s Great Depression. She is one of eleven children born to Mrs. Pinkie Pitts Coleman and Mr. Felbert Coleman. She earned a Bachelor’s Degree from Southern University in Speech and Drama, and a Master’s Degree from the University of Southwestern Louisiana (USL) in Lafayette, Louisiana. On February 14, 1959, then Ms. Thelma Coleman married Rev. Livingston Alex, who together became parents to two daughters: Attorney Joslyn Renee Alex of Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, and Professor Yvette M. Alex-Assensoh of Eugene, Oregon. Together, Mrs. Alex and her late husband, Alex, served the parishioners of Bethlehem Baptist Church, which was pastored by Rev. Alex for 39 years until he went to be with the Lord on November 11, 1998. Before then, Mrs. Alex and her husband built and operated a day-care center that, for almost 30 years, served hundreds of children in the St. Martin Parish area; the center also prepared the children for academic successes and good citizenship. Mrs. Thelma Coleman Alex loved to write, entertain family as well as friends, read and travel nationally and internationally. Apart from serving on local and national boards, she worked for almost three decades as a school teacher and librarian in the St. Martin Parish School System. This collection of stories is her first published book.
$15.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-11-4 Ι Published 2017 | Pan-African University Press
Getting Our Universities Back on Track
Getting Our Universities Back on Track is a broad narrative on the state of higher education in Nigeria, undertaken within the context of the author’s experience as Vice Chancellor at Adekunle Ajasin University (AAUA), a public university in the country, from 2010 to 2015. The process by which the author negotiated the challenges presented by AAUA in those years are carefully unveiled in a manner that speaks to the emergence of new paradigms for university governance, predicated upon an untrammelled commitment to meritocracy. It is a narrative on the success story of modernization of a public university operating in a particularly difficult policy and politics terrain. It equates a practice manual for university governance in Nigeria, and arguably beyond.
Femi Mimiko, mni, is a Professor of Political Science at Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Nigeria. He was SSRC-MacArthur Foundation Visiting Scholar, Watson Institute, Brown University, Providence, RI; Korean Foundation Visiting Fellow, The Academy of Korean Studies, Seoul; and Senior Fulbright Scholar and Visiting Professor, United States Military Academy (USMA), West Point, NY. He is a recipient of USMA Army Commander’s Public Service Award, 2004; and author of Globalization: The Politics of Global Economic Relations and International Business. Mimiko was Vice Chancellor, Adekunle Ajasin University, Nigeria, 2010 to 2015; and member, the National Institute, Kuru, Nigeria. In 2016, he had a stint as African and African-American Studies Associate, at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.
$25.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-09-1 Ι Published 2017, Paperback | Pan-African University Press
A renaissance book about Benin, Edo, Echoes of Great Benin invites you into the quaint world of probably the greatest living traditionalists of this part of modern Nigeria, the Edo. As she struggles for relevance in a country much of which she had ruled before the coming of the British, she is as the proverbial butcher of carrion. Her fingers are slimy with decayed flesh and they stink. She cannot use them to scratch her itchy body. Her art treasures, artifacts and much of her history, she lost to the British in 1897. Her famous dry moat, Iya, has decrepit sections of it left. Ibota, the aural source of Benin stories I knew, now belongs in the past. The people of Benin, the Edo, now speak Pidgin English in their homes. Indeed, Benin is gradually effacing her history and etching out a life of anonymity. Please read on for a peep into a bit of her present and a greater look into much of her past!
Solomon Omorodion Uwaifo was born in 1932 in Benin City capital of Edo State. He has lived in Lagos most of his life. An Eisenhower Fellow in 1969, Omo Uwaifo as he prefers to be known in literary circles, is an electrical engineer, a poet, a playwright and a prize winning novelist. His second novel Fattening House was joint winner of the LNG Nigeria Prize for Literature in 2004. His first poetry collection, Litany, was long-listed for the LNG Nigeria Prize for Poetry in 2006. He is the author of several books including Electric Power Distribution Planning and Development, Hanon Publishers, Lagos, 1994, 1998 and 2010.
$15.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-12-1 Ι Published 2017, Paperback | Pan-African University Press
Nigerian Political Modernity and Postcolonial Predicaments
Grounded in the ideas of modernity and progress, this book dwells on the difficulties and challenges of transforming Nigeria. It offers an extensive conversation on political modernity, including a foundation laid as far back as the nineteenth century; the implementation of a number of policies and practices in the first half of the twentieth century; and the trajectories of change after the country’s independence. Arguing that the burdens of the past cannot be divorced from the challenges of the present, Toyin Falola also links the troubled present to an unpredictable future.
Toyin Falola is Past President, African Studies Association; Kluge Chair in Countries and Cultures of the South at the Library of Congress; and the Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Chair of Modern Africa, Benue State University. He teaches at the University of Texas at Austin.
$25.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-07-7 Ι Published 2016, Paperback* | Pan-African University Press
*Hardback copy coming soon.
Related Publication: Yoruba Studies Review, Vol. 1, No. 1
Introducing the first volume of the Yoruba Studies Review.
The Yoruba Studies Review is a refereed biannual journal dedicated to the study of the experience of the Yoruba peoples and their descendants globally. The journal covers all aspects of the Yoruba transnational, national, and regional presence, both in their West Africa’s homeland and in diasporic spaces, past and present. The journal embraces all disciplines in the humanities, social sciences, and the basic /applied sciences in as much as the focus is on the Yoruba affairs and the intersections with other communities and practices worldwide. The journal will foster and encourage interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary approaches dealing with a wide range of theoretical and applied topics including, but not limited to: cultural production, identities, religion, arts and aesthetics, history, language, knowledge system, philosophy, gender, media, popular culture, education and pedagogy, politics, business, economic issues, social policy, migration, geography and landscape, environment, health, technology, and sustainability.
The first volume contains the following:
Essays
Religion and the Future of Nigeria: Lessons from the Yorùbá Case, by J. D. Y. Peel
The Interface Between the Written and the Oral in Ifá Corpus, by Ọmó.tádé Adégbindin
A Comparative Study of Olódùmarè, the Yorùbá Supreme Being and the Judeo-Christian God, by S.é.gun Ògúngbèmí
The Glocalization of Yorùbá Ọmọlúwàbí Ideology, by Adémó.lá Dasylva
Is Modernity Single and Universal?: Ò.làjú and the Multilateral Modernity, by Adéshínà Afọláyan
The Migration Patterns and Identity of the Okun-Yorùbá People of Central Nigeria, by Ilésanmí Àkánmídù Paul
Women and the Age-Group System among the Ìjè.bú of Southwestern Nigeria, by Catherine Olútóyìn Williams and Níyì Ògúnkò.yà
Literature and History: A Study of Nigerian Indigenous Historical Novels, by Lérè Adéyẹmí
Special Profile — délé jé.gé.dé.: Art and Life
The Masquerade in the Marketplace: délé jé.gé.dé.’s Introspections and Reflections In Colors and Lines, by Tóyìn Fálọlá
Ìké.ré.-Èkìtì in Art and Cultural Narratives, by délé jé.gé.dé.
Rare Objects and the Rhapsodic World of Yorùbá Elite Art Collectors: Preliminary Notes, by Adérónké. Adés.ọlá Adésànyà
Review Essay
A Voice Sweeter than Salt: Tóyìn Fálọlá and the Construction of Subaltern Narrative Space, by Ben Weiss
Please visit Yoruba Studies Review or email yorubastudies@gmail.com to receive a copy.
Treasury of Childhood Memories
“Childhood is the lost Eden that all adults recall with nostalgia, and in this collection of 13 scintillating stories, one of the finest living writers in the Yoruba language, Akinwumi Isola, plunges back into the archives of memory, and recreates for us some of the delightful episodes of that nirvana of his youth.
"Told with his customary poetic skill and wit, his unmatched gift of the gab, his command of the opulent rhetorical resources of the Yorùbá language, the episodes sparkle like precious stones, telling of a time of innocence and of a world that, sadly, can no longer be retrieved.
"Here therefore is a narration that is more than a fitting paean to friends that are no more, to a cohesive rural community that time has swallowed, to an ethos of communal living and sharing that modernity has erased. As we follow the adventures of these rumbustious young boys, relishing their triumphs and failures, sharing their pains and laughter, we come to recognize ourselves as we too once were, and we come to a better understanding now of the weaknesses and the strengths of our societies. So compelling indeed is Isola's evocative skill that these youthful escapades turn on to a mirror of the dreams and the longings that have brought us to where we are today, the flaws that undid us, and the virtues that strengthened us and might still redeem us.
"We cannot thank Pamela Olúbùnmi Smith enough for her wonderful courage and her brilliant work of translation, in bringing these stories to readers in the English-speaking world.”
-Femi Osofisan, Emeritus Professor, University of Ibadan, Department of Theatre Arts, Distinguished Professor of Theatre, Kwara State University School of Visual and Performing Arts, Ilorin.
Pamela J. Olubunmi Smith is Professor of English, Humanities and Women’s Studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Her English translations include: Akinwumi Isola's Efunsetan Aniwura, Iyalode Ibadan & Olu OmO Tinuubu: Two Historical Plays (2006) and Adebayo Faleti's Omo Olokun Esin (The Freedom Fight, 2010) from Yoruba.
$25.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-06-0 Ι Published 2016 | Pan-African University Press
Africa: Development Challenges and Possibilities
Africa: Development Challenges and Possibilities examines the positive achievements that are being experienced on the continent. In examining Africa’s development paradoxes, one can point to any number of examples illustrating challenges facing the people on the continent. However, there are now many examples of real progress on the ground such as: increase in life expectancy; decreasing infant mortality rates and death rates; and increase in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and GDP per capita. The book examines the impact of Islam and Christianity in Africa; population growth, environment and the challenge to food production; the impact of the African diaspora; and the role of the African Union in Africa’s development.
Amadu Jacky Kaba is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Seton Hall University. Prior to returning to Seton Hall University in 2005, he worked with the late renowned political scientist, Professor Ali A. Mazrui (Post-Doctoral Fellowship), teaching and conducting research in the Social Sciences both at Binghamton University, State University of New York, and Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, from July 2002 to June 30, 2005. He is the author over 70 scholarly publications, including over 50 full-length peer reviewed scholarly journal articles and four books. He earned all of his degrees from Seton Hall University: B.A. in Political Science in 1997; Master’s degree in Public Administration (MPA) in 1998; and Ph.D. in Higher Education Leadership, Management and Policy in May 2002.
$25.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-05-3 Ι Published 2016 | Pan-African University Press
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Contemporary Nigeria: Transitional Agencies of Change
The essays in this volume provide a framework for understanding contemporary Nigeria’s pains and gains. Nigeria remains a country in transition, characterized by many challenges and positive changes. This book captures its dysfunctional elements as well as its success stories as the continent’s most populous nation, generously endowed with both natural resources and human capital. The various views in this book reflect the twists and turns in Nigeria’s post-colonial experience.
Professor Sati U. Fwatshak is a professor in the Department of History and International Studies, University of Jos, Nigeria. His research publications and interests span African social and economic history including the History of African entrepreneurship, African development, African politics, African conflicts, and Islam in Africa. His major publication entitled African Entrepreneurship in Jos, Central Nigeria, 1902–1985 was published in 2011.
$25.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-03-9 Ι Published 2016 | Pan-African University Press
A Matter of Sharing: My Memoir
A Matter of Sharing is a memoir of Ghana-born A.B. Assensoh, who has lived, studied, and worked in the United Kingdom, Nigeria, and Liberia, where he served in editorial capacities. From Sweden, where he studied at the University of Stockholm and also served as Editor of African Features Service in Scandinavia, he moved to the United States in the mid-1970s, first to serve as a Scholar-in-Residence at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania as well as University of Pennsylvania, and he has lived there ever since. His memoir serves as his recollections of events that bring happiness, mixed feelings and, sometimes, sorrow. Apart from sharing anecdotes of some of the events in West Africa of London, this is the first time that he has committed many of the details.
A.B. Assensoh is an African journalist and historian, a Professor Emeritus of Indiana University, and Courtesy Professor Emeritus of the University of Oregon. He has published widely, including African Political Leadership: Jomo Kenyatta, Kwame Nkrumah, and Julius K. Nyerere, and three co-authored books, Malcolm: A Biography; Malcolm X & Africa; and African Military History & Politics, 1900–Present.
$25.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-04-6 Ι Published 2016 | Pan-African University Press
The Humanities in Africa: Knowledge Production, Universities, and the Transformation of Society
The Humanities in Africa addresses issues relevant to the humanities in the African academy, including its methodologies and epistemologies. The nine essays in the volume offer reflections on the role of the various disciplines, the activities of scholars, and the mission of the universities. One of the fundamental arguments in the book is that the diversity of our experience must be manifested in the diversity of our conversation. It addresses the challenges facing the humanities and suggests changes with far-reaching outcomes.
Professor Toyin Falola, Past President of the African Studies Association, occupies the Frances and Jacob Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities at the University of Texas at Austin. A celebrated scholar of global stature, he has written widely on knowledge systems and the state of higher education in Africa.
$32.00 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-02-2 Ι Published 2016 | Pan-African University Press
Fate of Our Mothers: The Collected Memories of an African Village Boy
Fate of Our Mothers is the first in the series of the author’s narrative of the assorted experiences that exemplify the first twenty years of his life. From rustic village life as a five year old boy, to the young adult person slated for the job of an untrained teacher in the city, the eclectic events in the author’s life bring to life the untold stories of rural living, featuring the cultural conflicts endemic in a patriarchal system where while men may rule, the women are the active prime movers in the order of things. The story or compendium of stories take the reader through a life that epitomizes the paradoxical interface among joy, peace, as well as tragedies and pains; successes and gains, as well as failures and losses; protection and comfort, as well as dangerous exposure and vulnerability. The story does not follow the orthodoxy of systematic chronicling that often characterizes traditional memoirs. Rather, the author verbally addresses his own four children, who were born and raised in America, a sporadic reflection of his childhood upbringing in a far away village of Oke-Awo, Aba Iresi in southwestern Nigeria. He describes the rustic simplicity of Yoruba village life, the beauty of living under the roof and compound of a caring father, two relentlessly hardworking mothers, ten siblings, many relatives, and a countless number of extended family members and non-relatives. In all, Fate of Our Mothers whispers into our collective conscience that the survival of the Yoruba universe is anchored in the fate of its women.
Michael Oladejo Afoláyan, PhD, is the founder and lead consultant for M & P Educational Consulting International, which is based in Springfield, Illinois, USA. Prior to this position, Michael served in various leadership positions over the more than three decades of his American sojourn, including having served as assistant director for academic affairs for the State of Illinois’ Board of Higher Education, and a professor of education at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. He studied and has held appointments at Obafemi Awolowo University, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Yale University. His background in education, linguistics, language of education, stylistics, and the critical discourse of culture, society, and learning has often echoed in his academic works. Happily married to his wife of 33 years, Dr. Precious O. Afoláyan, Michael is blessed with four children.
$40.99 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-00-8 Ι Published 2015 Ι 379 pages | Pan-African University Press
On Wings of Light: Reflections on Cybernetics, Africa & the Wider World
As our world battles on from a Darkened past and an equally Dark present, a steady beam of Light persists. It is eternal and within the core Spirit of humankind. It has long sought full release; opening wide the flood-gates of Actuation, Inclusion and Life Engagement. On Wings of Light declares this time has already arrived. Sharply accelerating transfigurative effects, it contends, are due to the advent of Cybernetics; the combined operation of Electronics and Communications in our modern world. Cybernetics not only brings Great Light to illuminate age-old Corridors of Darkness; it points mankind in the direction of a bright and promising Horizon Future. In the unfolding of this future, it maintains that Africa, with its vast lands, folk, resources, root Ethic of Light and increasing prominence, will play the determining role. Exploring relevant concepts, thoughts and perceptions; this work reflects on their meaning, significance and stimulus to practical research and activity.
Professor Michael Vickers taught Political Science at the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) Nigeria; taught and conducted research at universities in America, Canada, and the United Kingdom; is the recipient of the Distinguished Academic Award (2012) from the Toyin Falola Annual International Conference on Africa and the African Diaspora, (Lagos). He authored (with Ken Post) of Structure and Conflict in Nigeria, 1960-65 (London & Madison, 1973), Ethnicity and Sub-Nationalism in Nigeria (Oxford, 2000), Odes of Forest and Town, (Sussex, 2002), Phantom Trail—Discovering Ancient America, (New York, 2005), A Nation Betrayed—Nigeria and the 1957 Minorities Commission (Trenton, NJ, 2010), Phantom Ship (Trenton, NJ, 2013), and Looking Back from the Future (Forthcoming). He holds a doctorate in Political Science and West African Studies from the University of Birmingham, UK. He is Emeritus Director of Parliamentary and Public Affairs, The Hillfield Agency (UK).
$35.99 Ι ISBN: 978-1-943533-01-5 Ι Published 2015 | Pan-African University Press