

























BOOK REVIEW

Title:    AFRICAN PHILOSOPHY: AN 

   INTRODUCTORY GUIDE

Author:   Gregory Ebalu OGBENIKA

Publisher:   Mindex Publishing Company Limited

Year of Publication:  2022

ISBN:    9789788548980

Pagination:   136 pages

Reviewer:   Patrick Sonayon Akotonayon

Man has been perpetually sentenced to eternal quest for knowledge in 
the court of nature, waiting to be liberated by the man who is desirous 
of learning. The insatiability of the mind yearning for revitalization of 
antiquities, and newness of existing corpus of “episteme” would keep 
residing on the chariots of improvement until creativity is made 
manifest and innovation thus become evident. This is exactly what 
happens in the recycling process of thoughts, ideas and knowledge; 
the essence of which is not to condemn that which is already done but 
rather to revisit keenly into the treasury of knowledge in order to make 
that which is good better, and that which is better, best.
 On this, we intend to embark on a humble academic sojourn 
by venturing into a review of the book “African Philosophy: An 
Introductory Guide”; a masterpiece of Gregory Ebalu Ogbenika, who 
is a priest of the Roman Catholic Church; an Associate Professor and 
Lecturer at the prestigious institution of the Seminary of All Saints, 
Uhiele, Ekpoma, Edo State. The work is simply divided into 11 
chapters, in 136 pages. 
 The rst chapter examines the concept “African Philosophy”, 
and presents it as a discourse that describes the life experiences of the 
African people. The author further expresses that the reality of 
African philosophy as an academic discipline is such that is often 



greeted with rebuttals and criticisms, leading to the Great Debate of 
whether or not there is an African Philosophy in the rst place. Be that 
as it may, the author subscribes to the position of African 
philosophers such as Placid Tempels and Maurice Makumba who 
both believe in the existence of African philosophy, since Africans are 
full-edged rational beings capable of thinking and engaging in 
sound reasoning geared towards problem solving as evident in their 
day to day encounter.
 Again, in the second chapter, the author denes a universal 
superset of knowledge called “philosophy”, and progresses into 
dening African philosophy which is a subset of the universal 
discipline. He exposes the different denitions of African philosophy 
as enunciated by different African philosophers. Very complete 
among them is the denition rendered by Maurice Makumba who 
denes African philosophy as “that which is written, propounded or 
created by a person born of African stock; a philosophy written, 
propounded or created on the African continent; and thirdly one that 
deals with African problems and culture.” 
 In the fth chapter, the author simplies the line of thoughts 
that make up for the discipline of African philosophy by dissecting 
their contents into periods namely: Ancient, Medieval, Modern, and 
the Contemporary period. Not only that, he states the distinguishing 
characteristics peculiar to each of the periods mentioned hitherto. 
Furthermore, he notes the periodization of African philosophy as 
spelt out by some notable African philosophers. While some lay 
claim to the classical, medieval and modern periods, others subscribe 
to the traditional classication namely the ancient, medieval, 
modern, and the contemporary which the author himself subscribes 
to. Irrespective of the various classications, the summation of both 
thoughts is that the birth of African philosophy follows a 
chronological, seasonal and progressive sequence in its gestational 
period of birth. 
 Language is the wheel by which thoughts are driven; the 
vehicle by which concepts are conveyed, and the means by which 
ideas are communicated and classied. In fact, language is the plate 
upon which ideas cooked as knowledge are served and eaten. The 
author in chapter six discusses the problems confronting the universal 

195Book Review



acceptance of African philosophy as a rigorous academic discipline, 
and presents language as one. 
 He drives home the point on the problem of language using 
the idea of Godwin Sogolo that “a native speaker of a language and a 
foreign speaker of that language could use the same words but with 
different connotations” being ascribed to them. This poses the danger 
of ambiguity and multiplicity of meaning on words that ordinarily 
would have one and same meaning. This further raises the question of 
the most suitable language to communicate the African idea, and the 
unied channel to express the African thought for the sake of clarity 
and dissolution of ambiguities. 
 Going further as we would see in the eight chapter, the author 
discusses the African concept of the human person. He says that the 
human person is congurative of two components: the body and soul. 
As such, the human person as conceived by Africans “does not have a 
split personality.” Taking a leap from this, the author states 
convincingly that what makes up a person in the African worldview is 
the fact that the individual is physically, spiritually and morally t. 
This by implication connotes the tripartite conception of the human 
person as against the dualistic view hinged on body and soul. 
 The penultimate chapter is pivoted on gender equality. Here, 
the author examines gender imbalance and its implication on national 
development.  In doing this, he discusses practical issues that bother 
on gender inequality as evident in many African countries ranging 
from the relegation of women to the background in policy making, 
more profoundly in matters of politics and governance; 
opportunities, and even in education. The author therefore stresses 
that need to realize that women are rational beings too with potentials 
embedded in them, and that depriving them the opportunity to put 
into practice their potentials would connote injustice. 
 Lastly, the ending chapter hits on the nature of ontology. Here, 
the ontology bothers on the metaphysical discourses as pertaining to 
the African thought pattern. 
 Identifying a problem would be of no importance when 
solutions to the problems are not proffered. To have discovered that a 
soul is dead would not be as much meaningful as bringing life to that 
soul which was realized to be dying or dead. This exactly is what has 

196 Ekpoma Review, Volume 9, 2022



been done in the book “African Philosophy: An Intoductory Guide”, 
by identifying the problems as pertaining to African philosophy and 
going further to attempt solutions to the identied problems. 
 By its nature, the book is holistic in scope in the sense that it 
touches almost every facet of issues bothering African people. More 
surprising is the variety of the thoughts of African philosophers 
presented and discussed by the author. This, I dare say, is not what one 
would easily come by in literatures that bother on the philosophy of 
the African people.  Hence, the need to store and preserve our 
treasury of knowledge by reading the book, having a copy, and also 
recommending the book to others for intellectual consumption. 

197Book Review


