An African palaver: The formal system, tribal worldviews, and postcolonial identity in Sub-Saharan Africa

This thesis explores the ramifications of the nation-state as a product of European imperial 'imagineering' in the diverse sub-Saharan African sociocultural sphere. Focusing on the structural and epistemic implications of the state, the thesis analyzes the ways in which this architecture has retained the hegemonic logic of imperialism as part of its overarching philosophy after decolonization, and how it continues to displace tribal worldviews from the national philosophical space. The thesis strives to demonstrate that the hegemonic philosophical or ideological orientation of the modern sub-Saharan African state is a major contributor to the postcolonial identity crisis that currently bedevils the region. The project draws on broad examples from the relationship between state ideology and tribal worldviews in Ghana and Nigeria to show that philosophical intercourse between the forces of tribalism and those of modern nationalism can play an integral role in generating viable solutions to the dilemmas of postcolonial identity in sub-Saharan Africa.