| The management of the National Open University of Nigeria has been tasked to build the institution around African knowledge system. An America scholar, Professor Horace G. Campbell, gave the challenge yesterday at the second Faculty of Social Sciences Public Lecture of the university, in Abuja. The lecture, titled “African University, PAN African Scholarship and African Liberation: Focus on Linkages Between Reparative Justice and the Educational System,” centred on looking at the important questions of liberation and linking the questions of reparation and reparation justice. In the lecture, Campbell, a teacher at University of Syracuse in the United States of America, gave two major examples to illustrate his position on the issue. First he cited the recent speech of President Emmanuel Macron of France, that all artefacts “stolen” from Africa should be returned back to Africa; and that of the University of Glasgow, Scotland, where it was stated recently that £200million will be given to the West Indies for taking part in the slavery that took place there. The don highlighted five major challenges universities in Africa needed to look into, to include; “the transition from a uni-polar system to a multi-polar system; the outcome of global warming and the impact that it’s having on the organisation of society; and the rise of new societies of the global south calling for a new international economic order.” Others, according to him, are the “emergence of new blocks (rise of China, new configurations and the global level); and the speeding up of the question of the economic integration of Africa and the unification and emancipation of Africa.” He stated that these five questions being asked in the global level cannot be kept out of the university, saying it can no longer be business as usual, “because students are not happy with what is happening.” Campbell further urged NOUN to be the centre of ICT when it comes to education because it delivers lectures through ICT. “You must get patriotic entrepreneurs and they must be advanced technologically. NOUN should be built on African knowledge system which is the understanding of African fractals (geometric of nature),” he said. The university teacher further called on Nigeria to be “at the forefront of African reparation and organise universities for the 21st century, by including African reparation in our curriculums.” He stressed the need for every African to be well informed about “the battle of Cuito Cuavanale, which was a military battle that happened between November 1987- January 1988, that changed Africa,” saying the battle has been intentionally kept away from the knowledge of Africans. |
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