Should African people be called tribes or nations? f
The word tribe is an English word that was imported into the vocabulary of the Africans. The use of the word tribe was deliberate when the British were referring to the people of Africa. When they talked about the tribe, it meant a group of people who share a common language and who in their view are natives and uncivilized. Therefore, they were reluctant to call the African people divided into tribes while theirs was a nation.
The nation of the English people; the Scottish, Irish, and Welsh are a nation but the Kikiyus, Igbos, Yorubas and many more are tribes. In this context, if the word tribe is used, we are now familiar with the word as related to the Africans. It is not necessarily that Africans are happy to be called a tribe. It must be remembered that when the colonialists came to Africa, their mode of operation was a divide-and-rule system, a system of administration that was characterized as an indirect rule. They quickly tried to identify the differences between and among the tribes and exploited them to good effect. Even within the tribes, they tried to find differences and also exploited them.
They incorporated some individuals to be the chieftains. The Kikiyus were made to believe that the Luos were their enemies and in that way, they planted the seed of suspicion and discord. When African countries and people started to struggle to gain their independence, it is important to note that in many African countries, emerging leaders recognized that ethnic animosity was artificial and that cultural and linguistic differences ought not to be a basis of conflict and whether you are talking about Kenya or Uganda, you can see in their struggle for independence, people worked in solidarity without paying due regard to their tribal affiliation. It was true both in Nigeria, Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania and across other African countries so
