CAINE'S Memoirs

Our encounter with the Acting Dean of the Lagos State University School of Communication (LASUSOC), Dr. Sophie Oluwole, was one worthwhile experience. We were treated to an exclusive interview cum lecture, and were amazed at her in-depth knowledge of the subject “Philosophy”.

 Apart from the fact that we got what we wanted from her, we also grasped a little inspiration from her words and had the opportunity to sap from her fountain of knowledge.

This is a transcript of her revelation to our correspondent – EMMANUEL AMOLO 

 

As a scholar of Philosophy, could you explain why some scholars refuse to agree that African Philosophy (AP) exist?

 If you say something exists then you must have proof that it does, isn’t it?

 If you say there is African Philosophy (AP), I don’t need to contradict you, what I would say is for you to show me proof of its existence.

 My question is – those who say there is African Philosophy, what evidence do they have?

 Those who say there is none usually base their arguments on issues like; “Philosophy is always written – that there is no written African philosophy – so there is none in existence”. Also they claim that “African philosophy is not scientific, it is not critical, and not rational”. They say it is “not methodical” and so it cannot be a philosophy.

 They also presume that African Philosophy is anonymous, since most of the so-called philosophies are born out of the general beliefs of Africans, which is contrary to western philosophies like the Greeks who have the philosophies of individuals as Socrates and Plato.

 Scholars like Professor Otanji said that he believes that there must have been African Philosophers, but they did not establish the tradition of writing their ideas down for comparison.

 Some of my friends produce and write down their own philosophies, but what they are writing is present-day philosophy – contemporary ideas. What these differing scholars are looking for, is philosophy before the coming of the white men to Africa.

 They are not saying Africans today can not create philosophy, they are saying that our fore-fathers never produced the idea of philosophy.

 So to say that there are African philosophy(ies), you have to meet every question and argument laid by these opposing scholars.

 Yet, another twist to this question is that these scholars can not be asking for just one African philosophy. Is there only one western philosophy? Of course not! Then why do they ask for “An” African philosophy? The question should be “Are there African Philosophies?” and I don’t need to bring all of them as proof but I will use one as evidence and example – the philosophy of the Yoruba people.

 They claim African philosophy is “oral”, but I can translate it. I can write down what my father said in his mother tongue and translate it. It is not my writing it down that makes it philosophy, on the contrary, it had been philosophy prior to my writing it down.

 Socrates spent all his life (70 years) teaching philosophy and he never wrote any thing down. That is to say philosophy can exist in the oral tradition.

 Philosophy is the expression of ideas. People express their ideas in their own language. If there were African philosophies, they must have been expressed in African languages.

 Plato wrote in Greek, Socrates and Aristotle too, Immanuel Kant wrote in German, Antonio in Italian etcetera. If philosophy is indigenous, African philosophy should be found in African expressions, in their own languages, and we have 521 existing languages in Nigeria alone.

 If we take the Yoruba language as an example, and try to convince the white man that Yoruba philosophy exists, I will try to write it out – in the Yoruba language – but he can not read it. Then, I would have to translate it into English.

 The very moment I do that, I kill the philosophy, because you would be using the basics of a planned language to record another idea in another language.

 Scholars of philosophies should record, as evidence, oral traditions in the indigenous words and languages in which they were expressed. They must document African thoughts so as to have materials to discuss and analyse. It does not mean that every oral tradition is philosophy, there is what is called “draining”, identifying what is and what is not.

 To get these oral traditions they need to look into the popular forms of mass media, what serious-minded people have sat and thought about.

 Luckily the Yoruba’s have a group of people who are custodians of deep thoughts of knowledge of the culture. They never wrote these thoughts on paper; it was stored in their brains.  

 There are over 1,000 texts in Yoruba oral tradition, and if you go into these texts you are bound to find some philosophies which are similar anywhere in the world.

 For those who say African philosophies are not scientific, where are the document to prove their claim. It means they have seen it before, studied it, and concluded that it is not philosophy. Yet they say there is no evidence.

You were once quoted as saying “…99% of professors in Nigeria seem not to be intellectuals...” Explain?

 I sill maintain that! Who is an intellectual? An intellectual is not someone who can rehearse what some other intellectuals have said.

 I can read the whole works of Plato and Socrates and assume we are “learned”, but an intellectual is someone who sits, think about situations and makes proposals – listen to the lectures some professors give, their text books and inquires – it is devoid of their own ideas.

 We are practicing “Democracy” right? Is that an African idea? Where is our own idea if we have intellectuals? We are only repeating the ideas of Socrates of over 550 years before the birth of Jesus Christ.

 Some professors teach what has been written by others, including me – I am not exonerating myself. Education is – when we teach you about Socrates, we want to teach you (if you are a philosopher) how to think and apply your thoughts, not to repeat to us what Socrates said - we know that already.

 Immanuel Kant once said “I am not interested in teaching you philosophy, I want to teach you how to philosophise…”. How many professors are philosophising?

  So you see what I mean when I say 99 percent of professors are not intellectuals, they only repeat what has been earlier written by others.

Your philosophy about LASUSOC?

 LASUSOC is the first “faculty” of communication in Nigeria and that is a benchmark.

 When I first came to the school, I saw it as a school under stress, trying to accomplish a task of 20 years in two years.

 The school has a very good vision. They want to excel they want to make the school exemplary, although they went too far by starting with seven (7) departments. There is no way you can cope with that – even though it was an attempt to show they wanted as many as possible departments – the school should have started with few and then grow broader later.

 LASUSOC was swimming against the tide. It decided to carry a load too big for its feet, and that was why we had to streamline it and break it down.

 When I came to the school I did not meet a single senior lecturer, I didn’t see a professor, rather they were grooming lectures. How can you operate a faculty without a professor? You want to kill the lecturers?

 The conditions of the lecturers weren’t comfortable. I mean the accommodation and so on, not that they were bad but we could have made lecture rooms and offices of bigger size and many other inputs too.

 So, I saw LASUSOC as a very promising child if they could put things right and I think the university itself (LASU) believes that LASUSOC had potentials that was why they went ahead and gave them the finance to go ahead.

 The school is not doing badly, although we are not there yet.

Your challenges as the dean of the school?

 About a week ago, I was a year old here – what could I have achieved in a year, you might want to ask? I am sure there are evidences of change.

 I think one thing that impressed me when I came was the commitment of the lecturers and students to learning. They may not be the best; they may not know everything but they are always ready to learn, until they make those stupid mistakes. I call them “stupid mistakes”, like the recent students’ action over the mid-semester tests, because it created ripples where it shouldn’t.

 The issue was very interesting; ripples were high, people were shouting moving helter-skelter, but it settled without any fighting, and that is another sign of maturity.

 I see students now, and some laugh with me, while others run away, but one thing they have not done is to have the courage to face me again – I’m surprised because they should. If developments are to take place, we need to have that kind of dynamism, both the administration and the students. I don’t want idiotic students who would always affirm our actions and decisions, but because of the youthful exuberance, the students do not know how to channel their grievances.

 My challenge also includes putting the physical structures in place, and you can see we are doing that already. I am not the one doing it though, the university council and the Vice Chancellor (VC) provides the funds.  

 Check out the studio, I can promise you it is going to be one of the best in Nigeria, not just in Lagos. We have not finished, we still have our classrooms to rebuild, the lecturers rooms, relaxation spots and facilities for structures where we can eat, facilities for internet, and so on. All that would come.  

 We can safely say that we are a little better than what we were a year ago. Our academic programme has been reconstructed; the school’s Senate and ASUU have approved it, so we can say we are on the march.

The renovations in the school and development so far?

 Development is eternal – it is forever. There is no point at which you would say development is enough. The projects so far embarked upon would be completed in a few months. We would have a cause to smile – by December and January more things would happen.

The school’s accreditation?

 This school only started in 2001. It didn’t take off with LASU, and when you start a new school, you must tell the National University Commission (NUC) and they would give the authorisation for the go-ahead. That has not been done for this school.

 You cannot be accredited when they (NUC) don’t know you are existing, but I think the university (LASU) has done all it takes to get LASUSOC recognised.

 Left for me, an accreditation for LASUSOC is not a problem, I can assure you.

 I know schools of mass communication in this country of over 15 years that have not been accredited.

 If the NUC wishes that mass communication should happen in this school, by the time they come for assessment, we would satisfy their enquiries. I don’t want an interim accreditation, everything they want they would find.

 Accreditation is important quite alright, but what we want is to first produce students that would not lack jobs when they get into the labour market because of what they would have learnt from here.

 We know of our students who are held back by employers when they go for their Industrial Attachment (IT), because they know the school breeds first class-rated students.

 Accreditation is official – we must have it – we will have it – but let us make sure that our students are the best.

Comparison of LASUSOC with other schools?

 Let me share what someone told me last week. He said that by this time next week, by the grace of God, we would have and e-library for the school – which means we can access any book in the world via the internet library.

 There are universities in America who don’t have that, you can quote me. Most universities in America have e-libraries, but some don’t, which means we are better in that respect.

LASUSOC is been restructured.   In a way the Vice Chancellor calls “Decentralization”, where all departments are expected to take care of its student and have access to funds which has been allocated to them directly. It is better than when it was only a few persons who were spending for all the departments.

 The Heads of Departments would determine what to do with their funds. If they are allowed access to funds and they waste it, then it is their fault.

 This restructuring would create competition among departments, because when one department is progressing and the other is not then they have questions to answer.

 The school fees that some are fighting over is one of the best things that has happened to this school.

 There is a Yoruba proverb that says “any medicine which does not cost money you can throw away carelessly”. That is to say, if you come to a school and you don’t pay, what is education worth? It is the worth of the money you pay that you want to take back home.

 There are some universities that pay 300-400 thousand Naira as fees. What is LASU asking you to pay? I don’t think it exceeds N50,000, even for a mass communication programme, but there must be a sense of commitment from both parties – the school and its students. I know we are on the right path.

Background of you?

 I, Professor Sophie Oluwole, am a professor of African Philosophy. I trained at the University of Lagos (UNILAG), and the University of Ibadan (UI).

 Years before I came into the university, I was a teacher.

There is this rumour (rumours are part of life actually) that I spend the schools money to buy flowers. I give you an open invitation to my house – everything in there is a flower, I love flowers – that is why I put them here in the school with my own money.

 How I distinct myself is that I am for culture. I don’t defend African culture stupidly.

 When I see the strides of scholars or the mass media, trying to destroy African culture, I don’t let it happen – I fight to destroy the bad perception.

 Some principle, philosophies and ideas exist in African culture that can be proven and used better, than the ones in the West, why would you then throw away the baby and the bath water.

 To me, I studied “Ifa” because that is the compendium of African thought; because I want us to take a look at our culture, our beliefs and ideas, which has stood the test of time.

 When people write about African Culture sometimes I scream.  

 For example, they say Yoruba women are “Complacent”. Which Yoruba women? Is it a Yoruba woman who can fight and dethrone an Oba, or one who travels to as far as Senegal and Zimbabwe to trade and feed her family?

 Let these critics write about the truth; let them say what is reality.

 In Britain, if a woman marries a Knight she becomes a “Lady”, the day he divorces her, she loses her title, but in Nigeria, a woman is given a title on her own right despite that on her husband.

 I promote culture, I believe in culture; Culture means development, it doesn’t mean tradition. Tradition is “Static”, culture is “Dynamic”, and dynamism means dropping bad ideas and picking new and good ones.

What would you like to be remembered for?

 Well, you will remember me as someone who would say whatever she believes, without hurting anybody, without malice.

 You may be hurting; I might offend you, but not intentionally, because in telling the truth you hurt someone.

 I would want to be remembered as a woman who you may not like what she says, but know that she always says what she believes.