REFLECTIONS ON OBAFEMI AWOLOWO AND KARL MARX’S SOCIOPOLITICAL PHILOSOPHIES TOWARDS AN EGALITARIAN SOCIETY IN AFRICA

Abstract

The question regarding the plausibility of practicing an egalitarian society has been one of the crucial issues in the field of socio-political philosophy in Africa. There is no doubt that clamouring for an egalitarian society is the cry of majority people in our contemporary period as the ideal form of society in Africa. Going by the rights of man as recorded in the National Assembly of France during the French Revolution and the America Declaration which affirm that man is born free and more so creates equality in respect of their rights, but there is a need to ask what an unrestricted society is like. Considering the inequality of men in terms of their bodily proportion, physical strength, and intellectual abilities, and so on, can there ever be a classless society as required by the populace most especially in this era that the Africans are divided into two classes: the rich and the poor class? Is the assertion that all men ought to be equalled not as absurd as that earth ought to be one vast plain? Taking cognizance of the uniqueness of man being rational and conscious of his environment, which separates him from the lower animals, is a man not meant to be treated equally?, why is there a class distinction in the society? On this premise, the work takes a philosophical look into what egalitarian theory asserts in accordance with African experience. Using a philosophical comparison approach, the paper critically and systematically compares two prominent philosophers; Awolowo and Karl Marx whose socio-political philosophies focus on the principle of egalitarianism with an attempt to analyze their areas of convergence and divergence and therefore synthesize their concept of egalitarian systems for a synthetic common goal of African society.