ABSTRACT
Chapter 5 is critical because it investigates why and how Nigeria’s plurality could instigate the emergence of a tradition of philosophizing in Nigeria. Plurality is the most critical postcolonial national condition in Nigeria, which raises the specter of disunity. At the foundation of this chapter is the question of how the rubric of “Nigerian Philosophy” has to contend with the dilemma of a Nigeria without Nigerians. One of the essential components of the Nigerian condition is the inability of the Nigerian leadership, since independence, to facilitate a civic nationalism around which “Nigerians” will rally. On the contrary, ethnic loyalties supersede any sense of belonging to Nigeria. How then can a “Nigerian Philosophy” emerge within this cauldron of disunity in order to address the conditions necessary for unity? The chapter investigates the challenges of plurality for a nascent tradition of philosophy in Nigeria.
