THE HEGEMONY OF EUROCENTRISM AND DILEMMA OF AFRO-CENTRIC THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT: A SOCIO-POLITICAL ARGUMENT ON CULTURAL AUTHORITY

Abstract

The current paper is an African-centred supremacy of truth and dilemma of Afro-Centricity deification of authority, the idea of ‘good governance’; which since the 1990s, has been a prescription of the international development institutions for all development challenges facing developing countries. Despite almost two decades of implementation of good governance reforms in Africa, poverty, corruption and underdevelopment persist. The analysis showed that the limited involvement of local people in the design of donor-sponsored good governance reforms mainly produced a universal, donor-conceptualized good governance agenda, which did not fully capture local issues. Afrocentricity is the theoretical framework for this paper. Mainstream development theories have mainly guided the development efforts of African countries but these theories are based on the experience of the European countries and primarily seek their interests. Given the failure of Eurocentric development theories in Africa, this study deemed it fit to adopt a theoretical framework that is based on African experience and that seeks African interests. Afrocentricity is the only theory in which the centrality of African interests, principles, and perceptions predominate. This study’s Afrocentric approach to the understanding of good governance is an epistemological rupture against the Eurocentric idea of good governance.