'Build NOUN on African knowledge system'

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.