NNAMDI AZIKIWE AND THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF POLITICAL PAN-AFRICANISM

This study is as a follow up on earlier research which argued that Nnamdi Azikiwe was being accorded the position of a mere footnote in contemporary literature on Pan-Africanist thinking despite being one of the precursors in Negro Africa. The focus of this work is to further reveal that the historiography of political Pan-Africanism also has a scant mention of his contribution to the movement towards the establishment of an African union or what it refers to as ‘political Pan-Africanism’. It also attempted an explanation for the near extinction of Azikiwe in this regard. The study adopts a historiographical approach where it analyses and interprets the arguments and perspectives in literatures where mention is made of important personages who actively participated in the pan-African movement in Africa. In many of these texts, Azikiwe was either mentioned in passing or completely ignored. The paper concludes that although Azikiwe relaxed from the 1950s onward in attending pan-African conferences, his works in earlier decades cannot be overlooked especially as it concerns laying a strong foundation upon which political Pan-Africanism was built and this is a major contribution. It advocates for the need for further studies to be conducted on the dynamics of Azikiwe’s Pan-Africanism.