INTRODUCTION
Who is an African? What constitutes
the citizenship criteria for identifying an African? At surface value, the
answer to these questions and the likes seems obvious, for everyone knows who
the African is, it would seem. However, as soon as other qualifiers are added
to the questions, the answer becomes less obvious. Various philosophers have
put forward various arguments as to the criteria for delineating an African.
There are those who believe that consciousness of commitment to the cause of
Africa should be the main criterion for delineating who the African is. For
others, the criterion should be race, while others subscribe to any person who
is a citizen of any state in Africa.
All these criteria put to
consideration; it however still seems obvious that they have not entirely
answered the question of who is an African. For all these criteria would either
include too much or reduce too much that even the interior Africans would be
excluded. The necessary question to put forward at this point is, who is an
African? Is Barack Obama an African? Are the Egyptians, Arab Africans and the
Moroccans as much Africans as say the Nigerian or Kenyan? Are the White South
Africans really Africans? Furthermore, from these questions, one would
immediately suppose that there could be some level of Africanness. The question is, are there levels of Africanness? Are some Africans more
African than others? Who determines who an African is? How is the African
identity constructed? These questions are necessary for they would aid in the
pursuit of our course: The Question of Citizenship in Africa.
In this necessarily condensed
presentation, we are set out to confront the question of citizenship in Africa.
As such, we shall proceed by critically interrogating the subject matter by
first of all engaging in a conceptual analysis of some important words. We
shall discuss who is a citizen and what constitutes or makes one a citizen of a
place as well as what and who African is? Consequently, we shall then engage in
a short history of the African state, starting from the 7th century
B.C from Carthage in the North, down to the European Exploration down to the
scramble of Africa and invariably leads to the colonization of Africa, the
independence as well as the present day Africa. We shall then attack the topic
squarely by bringing the problems associated with the definition of an African.
As a way of evaluation and conclusion, we shall move a step further to delve
into the topic of strangers in African society, like strangers everywhere. This
word stranger is very ambiguous, means various things in various communities:
intruder, interloper, foreigner, newcomer, immigrant, guest and so on. These
are the convenient labels that social groups habitually apply to persons who,
by reasons of custom, language, or social role, stand on the margin of the
society. We shall then use this concept to interrogate the concept of
citizenship in Africa and consequently use it to solve the problems faced with
by using ideology, race or color, geographical location as well as nationality
in addressing the question of citizenship in Africa.
WHO IS A CITIZEN?
“We, the people
of South Africa, declare for all our country and the world to know: That South
African belongs to all who live in it, black and white, and that no government
can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of all the people”1
According to this declaration that
was adopted at the congress of the people, the Kliptown, in South Africa on
June 26, 1955, citizenship then in South Africa was based on inhabitation. All
those who lived in South Africa during this declaration automatically, were
welcomed as citizens of South Africa. But can this definition of living in a
place suffice for the definition of citizenship today? According to the Concise
Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary (Eleventh Edition), a citizen is a legally
recognized subject or national of a state or common wealth.2 From
this dictionary definition, one would then understand that the conception or
legal recognition of a national of a nation would then vary from nation to
nation depending on how that said nation decides to define who a citizen is.
According to the constitution of
Nigeria, a person can be a citizen of Nigeria in only but three ways:
Citizenship by Birth, Citizenship by Registration, Citizenship by
Naturalization.
Every person born in Nigeria before
independence, either of whose parents or any of whose grandparents belongs or
belonged to a community indigenous to Nigeria.3 By this, all those
who were born in Nigeria before the independence and whose parents or
grandparents were not born in Nigeria, would not suffice to be citizens of
Nigeria. Furthermore, every person born in Nigeria after the date of
independence either of whose parents or any of whose grandparents is a citizen
of Nigeria and every person born outside Nigeria either of whose parents is a
citizen of Nigeria.4
The
definition of citizenship by birth seems to be very clear and self explanatory.
Hence, we would say that a person is a citizen in so far as the person is born
in Nigeria after independence and consequently has either of his/her parent or
grandparent a Nigerian. The question we can ask at this point is, what makes
the parent or grandparent a Nigerian? Easily, one would wish to say that
perhaps the grandparents were Nigerians, and the question would go on ad
infinitum. Is it the case that they has as their lineage, association with
Nigeria or that they are fortunate to have the knowledge of belonging to a clan
or lineage in the Nigerian geographical location?
If we then decide to use this
definition of citizenship by birth, it would suffice to then say that, as raised
in our introduction, Barack Obama is indeed an African, since he has as his
grandparent an African. The question then is, does it imply that everyone born
anywhere reserves the right of citizenship of a nation simply because either of
his/her parent or grandparent belongs to the nation?
According to the Nigerian
Constitution, a person may be registered as a citizen of Nigeria, if the
President is satisfied that the person is a person of good character, the
person has shown a clear intention of his desire to be domiciled in Nigeria and
the person has taken the Oath of Allegiance prescribed in the Seventh Schedule
to the Nigerian Constitution. A person shall also be registered a citizen of
Nigeria if for a woman, is or has been married to a citizen of Nigeria.5
From this section, it is glaring then that a person, who has nothing to do with
a country such as Nigeria, would be registered a citizen of Nigeria simply
because the President feels the person is of good character, shows the desire
to be domiciled in Nigeria. The question then is, would this qualify a Dutch
man who simply decides to be domiciled in Nigeria and then the President in his
judgment finds him of good character be regarded as a Nigerian? Should a French
lady be regarded a Nigerian citizen simply because she finds her way to get
involved and married to a Nigerian? It is very easy to jump and answer in the
Negative to these questions, however, it would not be out of place to quickly
remind us of our definition of a citizen; as defined by the concise oxford
dictionary, a citizen is a legally recognized subject or national of a state or
commonwealth. From this, it is obvious that a citizen is not what we think, but
what has been decided by the state, which consequently guides the affairs of the
said state.
Under this law of citizenship by
naturalization, a person who wishes to be a citizen of Nigeria is consequently
adjoined to apply to the President for the grant of a certificate of
Naturalization. However, according to this section, the person must be
qualified before a person can apply. The criteria for this naturalization
include: that he/she is a person of full age and capacity, that he/she is a
person of good character, he or she has shown clear intentions of his/her
desire to be domiciled in Nigeria. He/she is in the opinion of the Governor of
the state where he is or he proposes to be resident, acceptable to the local
community in which he is to live permanently, and has been assimilated into the
way of Nigerians in that part of the federation. He is a person who has made or
is capable of making useful contributions to the advancements, progress and
well-being of Nigerians. He has taken Oath of Allegiance prescribed in the
seventh schedule in this Constitution. He has resided in Nigeria for a
continuous period of fifteen years or resided in Nigeria continuously for a
period of twelve months, and during the period of twenty years immediately
preceding that period of twelve months has resided in Nigeria for a period
amounting in the aggregate of not less than fifteen years.6
Clearly elaborated above is or are
the only three broad ways through which a person can acquire the citizenship of
Nigeria; either through Birth, Registration or through Naturalization. This fact brings to mind one single thing;
other countries also follow these criteria for citizenship in their own
countries. This fact comes from the basic truth that legal injunction is the
method through which a nation decides what citizenship is for them and the
method for acquiring it.
Hence, it would not be out of place
to say that other countries/nations possess similar legal injunctions as to the
question of citizenship as exposed above simply because no nation is an island.
So, nations are said to borrow ideas from the neighboring nation so as to have
a better and robust constitution. Therefore, we can categorically say here
that, all nations possess a similar definition of citizenship. However, there
might be some points of divergent, agreements and conflict simply because every
nation is a product of its history, and this help to fashion a nation’s
response to reality. Just as we cannot say the history of Nigeria is the same
with the history of South Africa, so too we cannot expect the laws and
constitution of these two nations to be exactly the same.
WHO IS AN AFRICAN?
The question of who an African is,
is usually divided into various perspectives. As stated in the introduction,
they include; territorial criterion, racial criterion and the consciousness of
being an African.
TERRITORIAL CRITERION
One seemingly easy escape route to
define who an African is would be to define an African using territoriality. By
this we imply, what one would do or what it takes to define an African would be
to locate the map of Africa on the world map and consequently categorize all
those born in the African continent as Africans. Better still, to categorize
all those who hold the citizenship of any of the countries that makes up the
African continent.7 By implication, all those who have ancestry in
the continent are thus Africans. But is this a sufficient criterion for
defining who an African is? Simply because the country of which a person
possesses a citizenship belongs to the continent of Africa, does that make one
an African? The obvious process to go about this is to first of all, inquire if
all those who possess the citizenship of a nation in Africa wish or accept to
be called Africans. As Jideofor Adibe would say, if we decide to use the
ancestry, how far back in time should we go?8 It is an obvious
truism that some countries especially within sub-Saharan Africa would prefer to
be regarded as Arabs and not Africans. Can we then reduce who an African is to
territoriality?
RACIAL CRITERION
In empirically delineating the
African person, some scholars decide to use the racial criterion. For them,
race should be the only category or criteria to say who an African is. Hence,
an African for them is a black man. But how far would this argument go? If a
white American says there are two black boys and three white ladies and in yet
another scenario, says “there are two white ladies and two African boys”. What
comes to our mind, especially in the use of “black” and the use of “Africans”?
Obviously, this white American is trying to make a distinction, because for
him, an African is not just a black man, hence they do not mean the same thing.
In the light of this, it is clear that speaking of using the racial category to
delineate an African raises more questions than it seeks to solve. Are we going
to say the Black Guyanese or African-American or even the Black Caribbean is an
African simply because he is black? This is not to say that racial categorizing
is not important in delineating who an African is, but in the light of our
definition, this criterion seems highly inadequate.9
Furthermore, yet another level of
issue raised by the virtue of using the racial category to define who an
African is rests on the shoulders of the question that arises from the
legitimacy of non-blacks with African citizenship. Are they Africans? For
example, the white South Africans who only know South Africa as their country,
are the Africans? Will the Egyptian and the Arab Africans be regarded as
Africans? From this, we would easily come to understand that using this racial
category or criterion to delineate an African would consequently erase a lot of
persons who are indeed Africans simply because they do not belong to the black
category, or better still, simply because they are unfortunately white.
CONSCIOUSNESS OF BEING AN AFRICAN
According to the proponents of this
school of thought, which according to Jideofor Adibe is more prominent and
popular with the remnants of the African ideological left and those eager to
wear the toga of universalism and cosmopolitanism, defines an African as a
person who possess the consciousness of being an African.10 Another
way of saying this would be that, this category claims that the defining
criterion for an African should be the commitment to the cause of African.
Consequently, any person, irrespective of the race, nationality and background,
could be classified an African if and only he/she genuinely express any sort of
interest in the African affairs. This criterion would seem very appealing to
many simply because it seems able to include criteria one and two above.
However, that seems highly unlikely as this criterion seems to be a dangerous
criterion to reckon with, since it has the capacity of including a number of
persons who neither by descent, geographical, race or ideology belong to
Africa, simply because they express some sort of interest in the African
affairs.11
The obvious question to ask at this
point is, who determines what level of interest is sufficient? Who or what body
determines the level of consciousness that would suffice for one to possess
before one is seen as an African and how do we measure this consciousness? On
the other hand, this criterion would de-Africanize a lot of people, for
example, the Idoma or Beron or Tiv man in Nigeria who perhaps possess no such
consciousness of being an African. This criterion consequently as well thus
seem highly insufficient in the definition of an African or better still, in
delineating who an African is.
We
shall then move further in our cause by providing a short but concise history
of the African state. To do this effectively, we shall begin from the 7th
Century BC in Cartage in North Africa, running through the European invasion
and exploration of Africa, the scramble for Africa and colonization, as well as
the independent states of Africa and end with the present day Africa.
HISTORY OF THE AFRICAN STATE
The Negroes of equatorial Africa and
the Berbers of the Mediterranean coastlands were said to be the two main races
that inhabited Africa in early times. While the Negroes included the
small-statured pigmies, the Berbers were of Hamitic stock-racially Caucasian, with
“European” facial characteristics.12 The Sahara was said to be a
fertile grassland before it started to dry up. The early inhabitants of the
Sahara were probably a mixture of Negroes and Berbers. Morocco, Algeria,
Tunisia and Libya are the countries that make up what we call North Africa. The
Berbers it is important to note, were largely nomadic and so never united into
a state. They engaged in trading activities with the people of Sudan, what was
referred to as the Trans-Saharan trade. These traders it is believed, often
settled in towns which consequently emerged to be kingdoms. One thing worthy of
note at this point is, since from 1000BC, the so called Africans, the Berbers
started engaging in trade activities with other people. These trading activities
often led to intermarriage relationship which implies that right from this time
or better still, dating back to this time, there has been what I call “African Citizenship Infiltration” in
what should have been originally African.13
North Africa was said to have
flourished during the Roman Period. There was massive development, roads were
built, towns emerged and Tunisia was said to have provided granary for the
sustenance of the Roman armies. At this point, the population of North Africa
was a mixture of the indigenous Berbers, the Phoenicians and the Roman
colonists, who intermarried with the Africans. North Africa at this time,
during 111 to 106 BC, became the capital of Roman Africa, consequently becoming
the Roman/African center of learning.
In the 7th Century, after
the birth and emergence of Islam, the armies of the Semitic Arabs conquered the
whole of the Middle East and Egypt inclusive. The Semitic Arabs went further to
the rest of North Africa, converting the Berbers; hence by the end of the 7th
century AD, the Arab empire had reached Morocco. The Berber trade was largely
for gold in exchange for salt and manufactured goods. During early times,
peoples in the western and central Sudan were subject to many outside
influences. The use of camel to facilitate this trade helped to cause a greater
degree of co-ordination between the Negro tribes and the creation of the first
large states, this led to the development of the states interior. These states
included ancient Ghana, which was rather confusing in present day Mali, Senegal
and Niger.14
The Bantu-speaking Africans who
lived along East Coast Africa were called Swahili by the visiting Arabs. They
adopted Islam and as this Muslim power grew, the trading city states arose on
the east coast of Africa from Somalia in the North to Mozambique in the South.
In the western part of Africa, the first known organized kingdoms were said to
have been formed around the 11th century AD by the Yoruba empire
which was powerful for over a hundred years included much of Nigeria.
In the South-Eastern part of
Nigeria, the Ibo tribes even though they never amalgamated into a single state,
were very prosperous and productive; hence they remained and organized into a
vast number of self governing villages. The Portuguese soon became the pioneers
in European exploration. They made exploits of the western coasts of Africa and
searched for a sea route round Africa to the east. And in the better half of
the 15th century, the Portuguese were said to have come across the
Atlantic island of Madeira as well as the Azores and Cape Verde Islands, since
all their places were already inhabited, they annexed them.15
Vasco da Gama a Portuguese, sailed
round the south of Africa and on to India, when he got to the coast of Africa,
he called the Ports Malindi and Mombasa. He consequently returned to Portugal
and while describing the great wealth of the Swahili cities, the kings of
Portugal decided to send fleets to capture and loot these cities. During this
capture, a lot of Swahili trading communities were ruined, and some of the
cities abandoned, though some survived so too the Swahili culture. The
Portuguese were consequently expelled from east African parts in the 17th
century. This invasion is usually marked as one of the major invasion of the
African continent.
The European colonies in America
were in serious need for imported labour to work on their sugar plantations. It
was first appropriated by the Spaniards; they started using Negro slave labour
in their West Indian colonies in the early part of the 16th century.
Portuguese resulted to sending slaves from Africa to Brazil. This soon became a
very lucrative trade; hence other European nations joined the business of slave
trade. This trade of sending Negro slaves from Africa to European countries
went on from the 16th century down to the 19th century
with key players in the business such as the French, British, Dutch, Danes,
Spaniards and Portuguese.16
Procurement of slaves was a serious
business that sometimes even causes raids into the interior or even actual wars
just to capture the slaves. Altogether, figures show that they were exporting
perhaps 70,000 to 80,000 slaves annually. It has then been estimated that the
total number of African slaves who reached America and the West Indies in the
course of the trade was about 9 to 10 million. This however does not include
those who died on the voyage or those who were killed in Africa in slaving
raids or wars. Aside the loss of manpower, this slave trade was said to have
inhibited the social, political and economic progress in the African regions
most affected.
Soon after the abolition of the
slave trade, the next face of the invasion of the African continent was from
1770-1870. This period is often regarded as the European exploration. This
exploration of the interior of Africa by Europeans was primarily in search of
geographical knowledge of the continent. But this was for the purpose of
knowledge and search for business possibilities. From the 1820s to 1880s, the
activities of the French and British was clear, they were now resolved to
settle. The first big step in European colonization was by the French in
Algeria. French rule was later extended into the Algerian Sahara, and a policy
of “assimilation” of Algeria to France adopted. In 1881, when there were nearly
400,000 European settlers, Algeria became politically part of metropolitan
France. Nigeria in the west became a British colony in 1861 (Lagos), the
British influence then spread in the Yoruba area of Nigeria, and the British made
efforts to stop the civil wars which had engulfed the country since the
breaking up of the Oyo empire. In the 1880s, Nigeria became a British
protectorate.17
Then came the Scramble for Africa,
which led to the Berlin conference of 1884-1885. In general, the period from
1885 to about 1920 was of invasion, conquest and/or negotiations with African
rulers by the European powers in their chosen and allotted areas as well as the
setting up of colonial rule. Altogether, some 40 colonies were formed. In some more
powerful and organized African countries, resistance was fierce and prolonged,
however, in the end; they succumbed to the superior weapons of the “strangers”. The period of the
colonization was not all rosy. There were the two world wars during this period.
There was good progress in industrial development, which later benefited the
Africans after independence. During this period however, they did not benefit
very much as all the profits went to European companies who relied on cheap
African labor. Although tribal conflicts and wars were eliminated to a great
extent during this time, we cannot suppose that Africans were entirely happy.
However, they did enjoy the benefits of education as well as the establishment
of medical services.18 Soon after independence of African states,
they faced series and varied problems, particularly those countries with no
recent experience of being a national state. One very obvious though awkward
problem was that the boundaries of the new states often bore little or no relation
to racial or tribal divisions. The boundaries had mainly come about as a result
of the scramble for Africa and had been drawn after bargaining between the
European powers concerned with little consideration for tribal organization.19
From our exposition of the history
of the African nation, the so called African nation and indeed the so called
Africans began to have contact with the external world, or better still the
strangers long back, dating back to 111-106 BC. Hence, it has been discussed
that there was inter marriage, migration, war and conquest of different African
nations at different times. So, dating back, we would find it difficult if not
impossible to be able to define who really an African is, or better still, who
is originally African, a person who has not been “diluted” and “adulterated” by
the influence of other cultures and other genes. It is thus possible that a
majority of the inhabitants of the present day Africa are a mixture of
different nations, from Arab to Europe.20
Undeniably,
we have also seen that in 1881, when nearly 400,000 Europeans settled in
Algeria, what later politically became part of metropolitan France.
During the slave trade as well and
as explicitly discussed above, about 9 to 10 million “Africans” were
expatriated and sold to European powers. They are said to have been a-cultured
to a different environment, and thus de-Africanized to an extent. This
exposition thus brings to fore the fact that, even what is most thought to be
Africa is really not African by a combination of divergent personalities coming
together to form a continent.
Consequently,
ordinarily, I would have been moved to propose that the question “who is an African” be extinct from the
intellectual parlance, since this question is a pseudo question and contributes
nothing to our knowledge of an African, it is thus an odd question and should
have never been asked in the first place. However, since this question has been
asked, we can do well to provide a “sufficient” criterion or criteria to
determine and know who an African is. I therefore propose a criterion which I
feel is sufficient as well as a method of confirmation, of which I propose the
use of Heidegger’s Existential Odyssey of departure and return.21
RESOLVING THE PROBLEM FACED WITH AS
A RESULT OF THE QUESTION OF CITIZENSHIP IN AFRICA USING THE STRANGER CRITERION.
According to the Oxford Advanced
Dictionary (11th Edition), a stranger is one who does not know or is
not known in a particular place.22 However, even though this
dictionary provides us with a stepping stone, this dictionary conception of
strangers does not say much as to the subject matter. According to Georg
Simmel, who in the sociological purview is regarded as the originator of the
word in the sociological realm, a
stranger; which is regarded as an ambiguous word because it means different
things in different nations; habitually apply to persons who, by reasons of
custom, language or social role, stand on the margin of society.23
In the light of this, it is
important to state right from the outset that, for me, a citizen of Africa is a
person who is not a stranger. This seem very simply, however, I would love to
define a stranger in this regard by adding one more criteria to this definition.
Hence, I regard a stranger as one who by reasons of custom, language, social
role or by virtue of ancestral lineage stands on the margin of society.
Consequently, one is a stranger if he is not linked by at least three of the
stranger criteria. A person must thus belong either by language, custom, social
role or by ancestry to be able to claim Africanness.
What do I mean by this? A citizen of Africa is first of all a person who is
associated in custom, language, social role or has an ancestral history to one
or more societies in the geographical location of the African continent.24
It might be argued that this would consequently include a lot of people
who are not “Africans” to become Africans. However, I do not seem to leave this
criterion hanging, for I believe there is something that makes an African an
African. The obvious question I would be faced herein would be, what makes an
African an African?
First and foremost, what makes one
to begin to become an African is first of all his not been a foreigner or
outsider to the African nation. Hence, one must as a matter of fact, belong to
a nation, society, village or clan/kindred which is located in the African
continent. Hence, one is not at all an African if he/she cannot claim to belong
to any society or kindred in Africa. Furthermore, aside one been able to claim,
he/she must as well not be an alien to the culture, customs, language or social
role of the society which he or she claims. By implication, our Africanness arises from the very fact that
we are not strangers to the African soil. Consequently, to ground this
knowledge of the recognition of the Africanness,
I propose the use of Heidegger’s existential odyssey of departure and return,
this which Iain Thomson calls the “revolutionary return to ourselves” and this
can be located in the truth event of Heidegger which is invariably the point
where in the personal and historical dimensions of transformation of Heidegger
intersect.
The entire discourse of Heidegger’s
philosophy is centered on the paradoxical question: How do we become what we
are? It is important to know that, how we become what we are is simply centered
on discovering the ground which we already stand, without having realized it.
Hence for Heidegger, we are “world-disclosing beings” (Dasein). A
world-disclosing being is that being who is concerned with making intelligible
the world in which he participates in: to recognize the role we always play in
constituting our intelligible world and to cultivate and develop our skills for
“poietic” world-disclosure, i.e. to continuously develop the possibility of
that dynamic intersection between the self and the world.25
This
simply is in short the personal transformation which involves the Dasein, i.e.
the human person making intelligible the world he finds himself. It is
important to note that, we only seem to realize what we already are, and to
realize this is to be transformed by coming full-circle back to ourselves. This
Thomson calls the “revolutionary return to ourselves” which is simply an
existential odyssey of departure and return.26 Simply put, this is a
situation which you come to a fuller understanding of the self. You leave
yourself to understand the world and society around you, then you return to
yourself and fully understand your being, when you achieve this, you are said
to have departed and returned to yourself.
The subconscious process through
which we render intelligible our world and ourselves brings to the fore the
fact that even our sensory uptake of reality is selective. Selective in the
sense that, the way the world shows up for us is very different. The way I make
intelligible, acknowledge and affirm that a said person is an African and to
what level a person’s Africanness
would be quite different from the way another person would go about making
intelligible, acknowledging and affirming the same person an African, this
Heidegger calls “Discursivity”.27
Furthermore, the way an informed person would make judgment of acclamation that
a person is indeed an African would be very different from the way an ignorant
person would. Hence, at this point, we can say that our knowledge and
interpretation is only but a slice of a slice of reality.
For Heidegger, the historical
transformation is a transformation that changes drastically and it is neither a
constantly shifting medium that we can alter at will not at unchanging monolith
over which humans have no influence. By implication, humans are the ones
causing and making this transformation, but we are not said to change it
drastically at will. Hence, our changing understanding of the world takes shape
as a series of the drastically different but internally and relatively coherent
historical epoch, the pre-Socratic, platonic, medieval, modern and late modern.
It is important to state here that these five distinguishable historical
intelligibility epochs are never the less overlapping.28 The
fundamental question to ask at this point is, how does this intelligibility
come about? Thomson provides us the answer, for him, it is through “Ontotheologies.”
“In
each of these ‘epochs’, the overwhelming floodwaters of being are temporality
dammed so that an island of historical intelligibly can arise out of the river
of time. Ontotheologies are what
build, undermine, and rebuild these dams.”29
For
Heidegger, we make intelligible our world through grasping the innermost
“ontology core” and the outermost theological expressions. These ontology and
theological we tend to grasp is what he called “Ontotheology”. It is thus this ontotheology
that brings together the ontological core and its theological expression
together and thus provide us with the historical age’s sense of reality from
inside out and outside in simultaneously. Ontotheologies
thus anchor’s every epoch’s historical understanding of being. We can therefore
talk of ontotheologies as that which
reshapes our senses of what and how things are.30 Like lens, we do
not see, but see through them.
From our exposition so far, we aim
to show how this Heidegger’s truth event, the moment whereby the personal and
historical transformation intersect which is in turn capable of giving us a
meaningful apprehension of the Africanness
in an African. We are thus encouraged to approach the question of citizenship
in Africa with openness and respect, consequently the Africanness inherent in the person would in turn push back on us
making us recognize whether or not the person in question is an African, if
yes, to what level is the persons Africanness?
By implication, using the criterion of a stranger and the phenomenological
lessons of Heidegger, we are then capable beyond any reasonable doubt to
respond effectively to the question of Africanness
of an African. One fact stares very glaring, since this ontotheologies of Heidegger anchor’s every epoch’s historical
understanding of being, it is very possible and be expected that sooner or
later, this conception and appreciation of Africanness
and who an African is should not be expected to last ad infinitum, this thus is
the understanding of being at the moment, it should be expected to be
changed/modified as time goes by or better still, as it becomes history.
From this, one would easily wish to
point out that this position presents a relativity of Africanness and what makes an African an African and who is or not
an African.
CONCLUSION
In this paper presentation, we were
able to engage ourselves in the discussion of “The Question of Citizenship in
Africa”. We therefore started with an introduction to the problem, which took
us round the central question inherent in the topic. We consequently started
our discussion with the topic of who a citizen is. Since various nations have
their different conception, rules and constitutions as to the making of a
citizen, we decided to limit ourselves to the discussion of citizenship in the
Nigerian constitution. This led us to the discussion of the three methods of
citizenship in Nigeria, which was by Birth, Registration and by Naturalization.
Who is an African? Is an African a
black person, a person who lives in the territorial district of Africa, or
simply possessing the consciousness of being an African? These were the
question s we tried to solve in trying to fathom the question revolving the
question of citizenship in Africa. Due to our intention of creating a solution
to the problem using the “stranger” criterion, we deemed it necessary to engage
in a short by critical historical review of the continent of Africa. This led
us to examine the various moments in the history of Africa from about 1000 BC
to the present day Africa.
This consequently set the grounds
for us to interrogate the question of citizenship in Africa using the stranger
criterion as well as a confirmatory procedure of engaging in the use of the
phenomenological lessons of Heidegger. In conclusion therefore, we have
resolved in the course of this presentation that, a citizen of Africa is one
who is not a stranger to the continent of Africa, by implication, belongs to a
society in Africa either by custom, language or social role, in fact, should belong
to an African environment in their way of life. Finally, the Africanness inherent in Africans can be
abstracted and apprehended using the discursivity of Heidegger which can be
found in the intersection between the two dimensions of transformation.
