Honoured guests, esteemed academics, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, for the Anyiam-Osigwe Family and the Osigwe Anyiam-Osigwe Foundation, it is a matter of great joy and gratitude to God that we are gathered here at Nigeria’s premier university to evaluate the treatises and life of an original African mind with the purpose of locating, and effectively categorising the philosophical content of his dissertations on various spheres of enquiries on knowledge and existence.
Just as the in-house seminar which was held between the 12th and the 13th of August 2008 here at the University of Ibadan served as a precursor to this national workshop, this workshop is the forerunner to a proposed Pan-African Conference on the Development Philosophy of Emmanuel Onyechere Osigwe Anyiam-Osigwe that is planned for the third quarter of 2009.
The Anyiam-Osigwe Family and the Osigwe Anyiam-Osigwe Foundation are indeed very delighted and proud of the collaboration with the University of Ibadan and the Africa Institute for leadership, Research and Development in what clearly constitutes a seminal initiative that holds real promise of positive impact on development efforts, not only in the underdeveloped and developing regions of the world but also in the developed regions of the world.
In 1998, when Emmanuel Onyechere Osigwe Anyiam-Osigwe transcended from earthly existence into higher glory, his friends and colleagues who were beneficiaries of his discourses on various aspects of transcendence as well as the dermal and epidermal substantialism of existence thought it imperative to give a wider dissemination and further development to the views and perspectives which he enunciated in his broad-based treatises and practical life. It is for this purpose that the Osigwe Anyiam-Osigwe Foundation was established in 1998.
Since 1998, the Foundation has strived to ensure wider dissemination of Anyiam-Osigwe’s treatises on the spiritual, economic and socio-political perspectives of existence. I must also say that in line with his patterns while on earth, the approach of the Foundation has been to stimulate discourses with a theoretical insight as well as sustain the practical manifestations of the programmes to which he dedicated his life. To that effect, beyond the annual lecture series, the Foundation has been committed to the continued implementation of a number of initiatives, including the Mission for Democracy in Africa Project, coordinating the activities of the Nkwerre Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture by which it sustains the building of rural-based cooperative societies dedicated to facilitating the economic enhancement of the individual and groups within a community matrix. It need be said that Emmanuel Onyechere Osigwe Anyiam-Osigwe established the Nkwerre Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture as a rural-based institution of that dimension during the course of his earthly sojourn.
The Emanuel Onyechere Osigwe Anyiam-Osigwe Lecture series, has served as a veritable platform by which Anyiam-Osigwe’s treatises on the Three Constituents of Existence have been subjected to wider intellectual evaluation and critical appraisal. To that effect, the lecture series has examined aspects of Anyiam-Osigwe’s treatises on the spiritual, economic and socio-political integrals of existence. Since the inaugural session, which discussed the Onto-theistic Destiny of Creation: the Chi Dynamic in the Essential Determination of the Cosmos and Man, the lecture series has examined Anyiam-Osigwe’s treatises on gender and affirmative action in the topic Women as the Salt of the Earth: Towards an Improved Understanding of Womanhood. Equally discussed is Anyiam-Osigwe’s perspective on education under the theme, Youth and Education: Africa’s 21st Century Youth: Everyone a Fisherman. In the theme Introspectionism, it has also subjected to discussion Anyiam-Osigwe’s treatises on Man’s inherently limitless potentials for development. By introspecting, for Anyiam-Osigwe, you transcend the mundane into the energy sphere that constitutes the ether of creation; the domain wherein resides all knowledge from the beginning of time. It is by intuiting into this octave that all innovative discoveries for human development are apprehended. With the Group Mind Principle as its theme, the lecture series has examined Anyiam-Osigwe’s submissions on social organisation, society and societal values.
This year, which is the tenth session of the lecture series, the theme of the discourse is the Unity of the Absolute: the Oneness of all Religions. Anyiam-Osigwe’s espousal on the Unity of the Absolute: the Oneness of All Religions not only avers the validity and universality of the God phenomenon it also reveals that the essential truths of life are invariably embedded in the fundamental teachings of every known world faith, irrespective of the superficial differences they may showcase Anyiam-Osigwe’s interest in establishing the validity and universality of the God phenomenon, as well as the unity of the essence and message of all religions is premised on what he identifies as the vital role religion plays in shaping the basic believes, values and conduct of people as well as its intrinsic capacity to spread its influence far and wide.
He is of the conviction that if humanity can agree on the commonality of fundamental purpose of the many and varied religions and belief systems, and, in that regard, the sense of unity in the teachings of the Great Masters of these seemingly diverse religions, we might gain a vital insight into how we can institute a universal basis on which to evaluate and moderate man’s conduct in society with a view to enthroning Value Guided Conduct as a Universal Tenet and propriety as a way of life for the totality of the human community.
Two major developments evolved from the lecture series. First is that it drew intellectual attention and interest to the treatises of Emmanuel Onyechere Osigwe Anyiam-Osigwe establishing their academic substantiality. Through the Briefs on the Central Themes and Proceedings annually published by the Foundation as processes of the lecture series, academic authorities precisely from the University of Memphis, the University of Pretoria, and Tswane University began to take interest in the philosophical import of the treatises of Emmanuel Onyechere Osigwe Anyiam-Osigwe.
While the interest expressed by these institutions laid the basis for collaboration, the Board of Trustees of the Foundation subscribed to the position that the task of giving academic establishment to Anyiam-Osigwe’s philosophical perspectives should best begin from his country of origin. In pursuance of this objective, the Foundation has worked out collaboration with the Department of Philosophy of the University of Ibadan being the premier department of Philosophy in the country for the purpose of accentuating this project.
The second is the adoption of the Anyiam-Osigwe philosophical perspective as a development paradigm of universal application. In South Africa, the Department of Provincial and Local Government and the NORAD Institute, a funding agency of the Norwegian Government, in collaboration with the Africa Institute for Leadership, Research and Development have, using Anyiam-Osigwe’s three pillars of a holistic life as the paradigm, implemented a Local Government Capacity Building Programme aimed at establishing a regional structure for local governments in the SADC region. The programme, which featured Country and Regional Structure Development workshops, held in 14 Southern African counties
Further to the postulations of Anyiam-Osigwe on the spiritual integral – personal values and value guided conduct, the Africa Institute for Leadership, Research and Development in collaboration with experts from the University of Pretoria, in South Africa developed the Holistic Lifestyle Curriculum which serves to be adopted for moral instructions in primary and secondary levels of the educational system. The curriculum which has been researched and developed by academics across the African continent, has had its Nigerian version tailored to the provisions of the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) by a team of eighteen curriculum experts led by Professor A. Mkpa of the University of Nigeria Nsukka and Dr. Mrs. Jimimah Mbakwem.
AN ACADEMIC INSIGHT INTO ANYIAM-OSIGWE’S PHILOSOPHY
It is our submission that understanding Anyiam-Osigwe’s philosophical treatises and effectively situating his paradigms begins with his metaphysics. Anyiam-Osigwe’s metaphysics does not end with M. C. Anyanwu’s classification of metaphysics in African philosophical thoughts as mythologies. Therefore, it is not just a body of beliefs bordering on spirits, gods and ancillary agencies. Anyiam-Osigwe’s metaphysical perspective on these various dimensions of existence is to the extent that these sets of beliefs and practices convey fundamental insight towards our apprehending, understanding, and explanation of ultimate reality.
However, his ontological arguments convey another insight. In his apprehending of energy as the ether and radiating substance which permeates and animates all in being, Anyiam-osigwe’s metaphysics establishes a multi dimension of planes of existence in which all the planes can interpenetrate each other without displacement in spatial order. In the view of Anyiam-Osigwe, there is no empty space in the whole of the natural order. There is, rather, an electromagnetic flow of energy immanent in the universal order. It is the composition of the atomic and sub atomic forms in which all exist. It is the animating force even in thought.
It is in this context that his development paradigm is underscored. His ontology apprehends an electromagnetic wave – energy – ether – that is immanent in all atomic and subatomic dimensions, in all matter and antimatter. In a similar vein, he asserts that there are three or four major conditions or systems functioning simultaneously within the human person. He explains that only a few are aware that an emotional or astral world, less dense than the physical world we see, interpenetrates the physical world; that mental and spiritual worlds of still finer substance also interpenetrate the physical and emotional worlds. Man, he says, lives, simultaneously, in the physical body, an emotional body and a mental body. Man is a living intelligence, a spiritual being, who according to his ability to attune to these triple worlds develops the capacity which brings him gradually in to conscious awareness of them by means of which he materializes the qualities of his consciousness.
Thus, there is no limitation in our capacity to explore; and in our potentials to evolve paradigms and processes in an infinitely endowed universe. The path way to knowledge and discoveries is to intuit into this ether by actively engaging our realms of consciousness through thought and introspection. In his elaboration on the assertion that “thought is creation and creation is thought”, he argues that by introspecting, we attract the appropriate thought form relevant to the challenges we perceive, intend to explore or transcend.
He argues that the Big Bang is the electromagnetic wave of this animating force in sound; some form of divine pronouncement and the echo of that pronouncement by which coming into being was made manifest. This sound energy, in his view, is a resonating and ceaseless phenomenon, which continues to unfold in unending dimension of creation. In trying to give us an understanding of what has been classified as the Big Bang, Anyiam-Osigwe explains that both science and spirituality agree that the universe was created through sound. The Big Bang Theory postulates a cosmic explosion whose sound has been vibrating throughout the cosmos. In Anyiam-Osigwe’s view it is the Word (sound) of God; “In the beginning was the word….” the sound through which all things came into being. “If we were to hear the voice of God with our physical ear, he asks, how loud would it sound?”
It is in this context that he categorises the universe as an ever-expanding universe. In his view, the galactic bodies would continue to increase in the multidimensional re-echoing of the sound energy that remains ever active. Thus, the energy of creation, by his assertion, is an animating force in process; a flux of electromagnetic energy animating new galactic bodies in new dimensions of unfoldment of the universe. As creation is a continuum, so is life a continuum. It is in that dimension that the human capacity for progress, development and improvement assumes increasing dimension of elevated manifestation, qualitatively and quantitatively.
Let me state that the attempt at comprehending, realising or identifying the most fundamental and compelling spirit that keeps history in place is something metaphysical. But it is certainly not a metaphysical worldview that apprehends gods and deities that are applied to simplify the path to wealth and success through ritual killings for essential human parts. No. It is equally not just one that engenders human sacrifices to ensure, enthrone or guarantee social harmony. No. It is not, also, a mental construct arising from the awesome impact of the material universe.
It is a metaphysics that sensitises us to the limitless potentials that we have, our limitless capacity and the limitless array of resources in our natural endowment as integral parts of an infinite universe. It is a metaphysics that enthrones the qualitative and quantitative flow of knowledge into which we can intuit when we raise our standards in our existential realities as individuals, groups, communities or nations. In Anyiam-Osigwe’s ontology, it is energy – the ether of creation – the ether which is immanent in all that “is”; the animating force of creation. When mental consciousness activates this latent energy into creative activity, it is able to apprehend the subconscious and the super conscious to manifest what he calls the energy of integrated consciousness. In his assertion that Man is a manifestation of Divine Intelligence, Anyiam-Osigwe posits that we are not just a process in creation but active integrals of the ultimate animating force of an ever-unfolding universe with limitless dimensions of knowledgeability and sophistication.
It is in this comprehension of the limitlessness of potentials that the developed worlds have been able to attain intimidating dimensions of development in science and technology. It is in this realm of apprehending the self that Africa would be able to transcend her present limitations, stagnation and poverty. It is, in the final analysis, a mindset factor, which Anyiam-Osigwe exhaustively discussed in his treatises on “the Mindset Factor in Creative Transformation”.
Metaphysics of myths, mythologies and cosmologies is not likely going to be relevant to the pragmatism of science and its unbridled limitlessness. Anyiam-Osigwe’s metaphysics provides the trajectory or indicates the capacity of thoughts in Africa at its abstract or epidermal dimensions to apprehend “the missing link” rather than a “missing link” in our quest for development.
For the purpose of exhaustiveness, we would discuss briefly the religious underpinning to Anyiam-Osigwe’s treatises. In his attempt to identify the animating force behind this awesome universe Anyiam-Osigwe offers an exposition on the Divine Principle. In apprehending divinity in form and essence, he espouses on what he calls the quadrant principle of divinity.
In his quadrant principle in which he elucidates the various dimensions in which divinity manifests, Anyiam-Osigwe postulates a polytheistic monotheism. Anyiam-Osigwe’s quadrant principle argues that divinity is manifest as masculine principle, the feminine Principle, the corporeal principle and the ether (spirit) Principle. In his assertion that Man is a manifestation of Divine Intelligence, he apprehends the immanence and transcendence of divinity in an epidermal reality. It is not, therefore, a metaphysics that locates divinity in the awesome dimension of nature in its firmaments.
He had course, however, to respond to the classification of African traditional mode of worship as heathenish and a worship of ancestors or the dead. He argues that the African traditional mode of worship was an intercessory mode like in the Christian mode where Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost and in some denominations the Saints are intercessory media. In his view, Africans do have a deepened insight of Divinity in a monotheistic dimension. They also have a good comprehension of the immortality of the soul. It is their conception of the immortality of the soul that applies to the intercessory transcendent role, which they allude to their ancestors.
CONCLUSION: We will draw our conclusion from what Anyiam-Osigwe classifies as the ontological terminus. In the concept of the ontological terminus, Anyiam-Osigwe locates that end limit at which the human persons apprehends the limitless frontiers of an ever unfolding universe and the infinite dimension of the knowledge that it offers. The mindset in which the African resonates must transcend the limitations of capacity by the myths of predestination, designs of gods, ancestors and witches. The African mindset must apprehend his authenticity as a functional cosmic part of a universe whose process is endless, a universe whose dimensions is limitless and a universe whose resources are infinite.
In the ontological dimension of Anyiam-Osigwe’s metaphysics, we do not just have the mental resources to respond to immediately perceptible realities, but as functional aspects of an infinitely endowed universe, we are inherently endowed to pre-empt future occurrences and challenges. In the three constituents of existence by which he identifies the holistic lifestyle, we dare to say that Africa’s development and indeed human development is to the effect that we are able to comprehend and acknowledge our limitless potentials in spiritual development, economic enhancement, and socio-political advancement.
Anyiam-Osigwe without setting out to do so effectively exorcises Hegel notion on the capacity of Africans to apprehend from the planks of philosophical reflections and discourses in original authentic forms. Let me quickly argue that the phrase African Philosophy does not have the same etymological definition as African history. It came from the assault of the African psyche by the postulations of Hegel et al. In trying to capture and generate African philosophy we became the helpless victims of Hegel’s racist end game.
It is in this context that we aver that the Hegelian notion of Africa must not continue to intimidate us into the weird debate of whether there is or not an African philosophy. It is our position that the cultural background of their primordial origin might influence philosophy or the philosophical work of an individual or group; however, there are universal cannons of philosophical enquiry that transcend cultural definitions.
These universal cannons are as much in the works of the Ionians, the Milesians as they span the works of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Husserl and others. And essentially, these categories are fundamentally present in the works of the man we are here to reflect on today.
Anyiam-Osigwe’s categories are not ethnical categories but objective and absolute realms of enquiries and disputations. It is in this context that we subscribe to the argument that rather than be encircled in the racist dilemma of trying to argue for or unravel whether there is an African philosophy which Hegel and his post Hegelian cohorts have attempted to drag us into, we should rather be concerned with examining philosophical works in Africa.
We posit that our curriculum should focus on the subject title, philosophy in Africa. In that respect, we would be interpreting the various dimensions in which philosophy has taken form in Africa either on an historical basis or in some other processes of analysis. We argue that there are definitely other mindsets of rigorous philosophical depth whose works are rather not harnessed because they remained in the oblivion of their studies. We argue, also, that there are some others whose meditations could not find intellectual expression because they were not conveyed in the language into which our neo-colonial discourses intuit. Anyiam-Osigwe had the advantage of being able to document his thoughts in our neo-colonial linguistic, and also had advantage of an active family, students, friends and colleagues who subjected his ideas to wider dissemination and evaluation after his transition to higher glory. As we continue to interrogate the depth and dimension of philosophy in Africa, we will continue to make new revelations on authentic and original philosophical mindsets of African extraction.
When we do philosophy in Africa, we would not be doing anything of much difference from our curriculum in African Philosophy, but we would have transcended the ethnocentric racist dimensions, which have dogged the conceptions of Hegel and some others.
Once again, I thank you for giving me the opportunity to contribute to your debate today. For whatever shortcomings that have been apparent in my submission, I crave your indulgence and understanding knowing that, as a social anthropologist, I do not, in any wise, qualify in the category of philosophers and speak with a depth of externalist approximations. I thank you for finding the time to listen. Thank you
A speech delivered by Michael Anyiam-Osigwe, Coordinator General, Osigwe Anyiam-Osigwe Foundation, at the national workshop on Anyiam-Osigwe’s treatise on development philosophy coordinated by the department of philosophy of the University of Ibadan September 17 – 18, 2008