Falola proposes kingship, Ifa, witchcraft studies as autonomous disciplines in African varsities

Renowned professor of African history, Toyin Falola, has called for the establishment of African kingship studies, Ifa studies, and witchcraft studies as autonomous disciplines in African universities.
The erudite scholar asserted that there are enormous epistemologies and indigenous knowledge systems native to Africa that date back many centuries and are therefore worthy of scholarly inquiry. According to him, “I have made a suggestion repeated over and over again. Why can’t African universities create new disciplines based on what they have cumulated over the years? There are enormous epistemologies that they can convert to theories and re-train students differently. I have proposed three ideas. Why can’t they have a Department of Kingship? That is what we have had for centuries; when the late Alaafin of Oyo died and I went to give a keynote, I said, ‘Why couldn’t we have a discipline called Alaafinology of Obaship?’

This is because knowledge has depth and resources, and by converting it into a discipline, it would do precisely what others have done in other cultures: create theories that others can use. I have also said that why is Ifa, which is a body of knowledge, not standing alone as a discipline and awarding degrees from BA to PhD? I have also provoked people by saying, ‘Why don’t you have a Department of Witchcraft?’ Two universities now have them. In Britain, a university just started a programme on magic and occultism. The argument is, if you have all these established practices over centuries, why are they not operating at the university level? Why are they not their autonomous disciplines?”

He gave this thought-provoking sentiment while chairing a panel of eminent scholars at the last edition of the Toyin Falola Interview Series held on Sunday. The session had foremost scholars such as Professor Richard Joseph, Professor Kenneth Harrow, and Professor Ouissen Alidou.

With the theme woven around African Studies, Falola stressed the need to place primacy on the relevance of African Studies to the development of Africa and Africans in the diaspora. On the introduction of home-grown disciplines which highlight the autonomy of African indigenous knowledge systems in African universities, Professor Harrow noted that funding is very critical to the determination of programs and disciplines in universities. “It highlights the issue of private universities and public universities. Then, who is paying for this knowledge production? Who is paying for the candidate; who is paying for the work? Who is paying the teachers? When we answer the question of who is paying the salaries, then we know who is going to permit or not permit these fields of research. There are capitalist forces that control these things; they dominate and they are the ones who will determine what knowledge will be produced. So, I can’t say this is a good thing to have a department that studies witchcraft. All these questions come down to who is paying and under what conditions. Why would they pay for it? This gets tricky. When I say public, I am thinking of the state as opposed to private, and that difference is really tricky. Who makes the policy of state support for universities? It is a very big issue,” he said.

Similarly, Professor Alidou stated “If we are thinking of insularity in the university, we have to look at the global north where we are located. Insularity is a problem. Look at Niger, Senegal, or the entire Francophone areas of Africa, if the university system, in its conception, is not open to other modes of thinking the university, this paradigm that was inherited from the colonial legacy is just one system. This is the same way that I take the example that when the Department of Linguistics in Niger was created, there was a departure from how it is operated by the Department of Linguistics in America. This is noticed in the fact that the creation of the department of Linguistics in Niger allowed the possibility of all schools of thought to be part of the foundational training. Whereas if you come from the American setting where I have been, the generative model is predominant. So, it does not allow comparativeness to emerge and flourish. We must reclaim indigenous knowledge systems and put them in dialogue with other knowledge systems that were colonially inherited.

Witchcraft is indigenous knowledge. Having a department of witchcraft will help interrogate that knowledge system which is native to Africa and is parallel to another foreign knowledge system. Witchcraft is a knowledge system that exists in the same space where the university exists, but which the university wall does not allow. They claim it is in anthropology; therefore, it is witchcraft, and so it is primitive. Once it is understood in that mode of seeing or valuing, it becomes difficult since it is prescribed by the dominant university system.”
Speaking on the expansion of the canon of African literature through the use of indigenous languages, Professor Harrow asked “Whose canon are we talking about? Who decides what constitutes a canon? You may not have an idea of how absolutely difficult it is to bring scholars in African universities to the point where they are going to ground their work in indigenous language production. They are going to ask about where they would publish their books and articles. Do you know how difficult it will be to get departments of African literature to accept this?”

Reacting to the idea of canonicity, Professor Alidou stated, “One area by which canonicity is challenged is that the formal elicit schooling system is challenged. When Nollywood started, it resorted to African languages. It produced an opportunity for people who had emerged out of the formal schooling system to say ‘We are going to be cultural agents and producers who will value African cultures and languages and utilize the medium of filming to produce cheap films that are entertaining Africans, that allow the imaging of Africans for Africans to consume what is African’. At the earliest stage of Nollywood, I remember going to Niger and seeing in various neighbourhoods and communities and people being glued to their TVs because they were watching Nigerian Nollywood.

It started in one cultural area called Nigeria but it did spread. It built confidence in other African countries that ‘we too can produce with our cheap cameras locally consumable African contents that are very creative and bring African orality, literariness and dramaturgy.’ When we talk about the contributions of African cultural producers through the creative industry, African youths have shown that the canon can be challenged, but what about the will of the government? This is where the politicians who control resources should allow African youths to soar creatively. The creative industry placed Nigeria’s GDP very high; this was not made possible by petrol. There is no capitalist system that will empower anybody; it will only empower itself. Africa must look at itself and find out how economic systems can serve it. These systems must not be models that subordinate Africans.

This is where the crisis can be resolved. Our youths don’t have to migrate through the Mediterranean or the Sahara desert. Economists stated in the 1980s that Africa was a doomed continent. But why has the narrative changed? Niger used to be regarded as one of the poorest countries, but why is the country so important now that a major crisis has erupted? Do Africans have a sense of self-confidence to see the good in Africa? This is not about Africans on the continent, but Africans in the diaspora. The most important capital is not only money or extractive but also human capabilities. Are we developing the human capabilities enough to develop that self-confidence so that Africa and African Studies will make sense?”
The session had very prominent academics, culture enthusiasts, and university administrators in attendance.

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