Political Philosophy in Selected African Languages and Proverbs

This chapter distillates the political past values embedded in the language, wisdom sayings, and proverbs of the African peoples. This chapter diverts from the usual trend of looking for what our first-generation African political leaders did or said. It does not even focus on the present-day African political problems. On the contrary, the chapter asserts that Africans have well-placed political theories and principles embedded in their past political values, as can be traced from their languages, wisdom sayings, and proverbs. The African societies from which we intend to derive some of these political theories and values are decentralized, while others are centralized. Though centralized political system could still be of great value to African societies, but given the nature of present-day African societies, which is an aggregate of different African nations or ethnicities, a better leaf could be borrowed from the decentralized traditional African political systems. This chapter derives the following political principles: political authority is hierarchical; basis of political power is the popular support of the people; political power has limits; chief duty of political authority is to care for the welfare of the people; the rise and fall of political authority affects, positively or negatively, the entire political community; democracy is the regulation of power by power; political legitimacy is based on the political support of the people; political duty in the interest of all does not abdicate pursuance of self-interest; and females are equally important in political dispensations.