The Political Philosophy of Zikism: A Re-Interpretation

Abstract

What is popularly known about Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe (Zik) is his genuine commitment to, and passion, for achieving decolonization and freedom in Africa. This is depicted by the nationalist cross which he painstakingly bore for Africans. With greater freedom, Zik believes, economic wealth could become fairly guaranteed for the people. Stricto sensus, his political ideas are the product of the authoritarian social and material contexts, which inspired, motivated and quickened his imagination, to which he responded with keen nationalist sensitivity and fully expressed in political erudition and sagacity. What this simply means is that the context of Azikiwe’s political ideas was woven around the prevailing and pervasive contradictions of the colonial state in Africa and Nigeria, characterized by servitude, economic dependency, political domination and colonial exploitation, mass illiteracy, mass poverty, ignorance, fear and superstition, culminating in inferiority complex, which characterized Africans of his early experience (Idike 2000). This essay explores the Zikist philosophy with which Azikiwe mobilized Africans to regain their independence.