Abosede Ipadeola

The African peoples’ colonial experience raises some fundamental existential questions that should not be ignored. There is no doubt that the process of decolonizing contemporary Africa is going to be difficult, if not outright impossible, without addressing those existential questions. It is worth noting that in addition to altering, distorting, and destroying part or all of the political, economic, relational, moral, and social structures that existed before colonialism, colonizers also imposed some existential ideals upon Africans, which have continued to affect how many contemporary Africans perceive and define themselves, their continent, and other Africans too. As colonizers, they endeavored to change the existing existential narratives and beliefs the colonized held about themselves for centuries to give way to a new narrative. Regarding human dignity and worth, colonialism was a system of control and dominance that relegated Africans and other colonized peoples to the lowest ebb of human existence. There was a common misconception that Africans were inferior to the ideal human being or subject in their society. As a result, it became pretty easy to rationalize their commodification (during the transatlantic slave trade) and dominance (during the colonization) of Africans during this period. However, colonialism did not give African women the existential identity of “the other,” but that of “the other of the other.” This chapter argues that many of the problems associated with underdevelopment, social inequality, and neocolonialism, many of which African states have battled for decades, will remain unsolved until the existential epistemology which reinforces the marginalization of African women is critiqued and deconstructed.

The continent of Africa has been striving to emancipate itself from the state of irrelevance, poverty, underdevelopment, squalor, infrastructural decay and political and economic fiasco, which it has occupied for many centuries. Colonization is significant among the plethora of problems which are responsible for the pitiable condition which Africa has been since the continent’s colonial experience began. Because of the significant role which colonization plays in keeping the continent of Africa down, many African scholars argue that decolonization is the only elixir that can cure Africa of the slew of ailments and ills. Since this proposal became popular, efforts have been made to define the semantics, scope, and structure of decolonization. Although decolonization is imperative for Africa’s self-retrieval and self-redefinition, and it is important for development, this paper faults the current decolonization project because of the lacuna of not mainstreaming gender considerations in the agitations for decolonizing Africa.