A philosophical investigaton into African values: towards ameliorating the African predicament

Abstract

To say that Africans have been termed inferior beings by the racist philosophy of some western Europeans is to say a known fact. To say that most Africans have consciously or unconsciously assimilated that inferiority label is equally a cleat fact. To argue that colonization and Christianization of Africans by western Europeans left negative effects on the psyche of Africans is to say nothing but the truth. Due to the combined forces of colonization, Christianization, Islamization and chiefly slave trade, etc., with their attendant ills resulting in the inferiority complex ofthe African, the African seems to have lost confidence and consequently, looked down on her traditional values, hence, devaluing those cherished and veritable autochthonous values that have the power to better her conditions. In this piece, through the method of philosophical investigation, a case is made to the effect that, in the devalued African values, among others, lie solutions to Africa’s predicament.