Critical Individuality, Post-Coloniality, And The Future Of African State

Abstract

The years following the independence of many African nations have been marked by gross misrule, thus making development a mirage. This is because African political actors at this time failed to envisage what governance would be like and thus misconstrued self-governance for good governance, thereby resulting in condition of impoverishment against which Pan-Africanists were initially united in their agitations for political independence.

In addressing this condition, scholarship has considered issues relating to emergence of inclusive institutions, recognition of African agency involving the perception of the self as Afrocentric, development of an African intellectual consciousness involving the deployment of philosophical consciencism, redefining cultural and racial boundaries for Africa’s integration, dismantling the prevailing colonial structures, and many others.

However, in the pursuit of Africa’s growth and good governance, minimal consideration is being given to the idea of an individual who, in his ontological separateness, is critical of his condition with the capability to interrogate his environment involving traditions, institutions, and orientations. This paper therefore provides a basis for extending this debate in a thesis referred to as “Critical Individuality” which describes an individual laced with the rationalist attitude, and capable of rational dialogue.

Critical and reconstructionist methods of philosophy will be employed.