Who Is African? Reconceptualising Identity-Crisis as a Threat to African Unity : A Post-Colonial Analysis Approach

This article sought to re-define African identity from a post-colonial standpoint. Africa is one of the continents that experienced a shift of identities owing to the advent of colonialists in the continent. The colonialists invaded Africa between 1870s and 1900, and enforced Western identities upon African natives. This qualitative textual analysis study aimed to re-assert identity in the post-colonial Africa. It is purely theoretical and has collected data from critical essays, books and journal articles. The study is underpinned by post-colonial theory and its strand, Afrocentricity. It has found that, inter alia, identity is a determinative of inherent ideologies and hierarchies that uphold hegemony and recognition in a society. To restore Africa to her authentic identity without compromising modernity, the article recommends intense scholarship on the definition of African identity and conscientisation of Africans about their heritage as well as the determinatives of a stable socio-political and economic Africa for future generations.