Kenneth Onwuka Dike,Trade and Politics, and the Restoration of the African in History

Abstract

The removal from history follows logically from the loss of power which colonialism represented. The power to act independently is the guarantee to participate actively and consciously in history. To be colonized is to be removed from history except in the most passive sense.Kenneth Onwuka Dike (1917-1983) is a definite turning point in African historical scholarship.West Africa(28 September 1957) appropriately called him “The Pioneer Historian.” Robert July credits Dike with being “responsible for many of the advances in historical scholarship that marked the two decades following the conclusion of the Second World War.”Dike was born in Awka, Nigeria, on 17 December 1917. In 1933 he entered Dennis Memorial Grammar School (DMGS), Onitsha, Nigeria. After three years at DMGS, Dike spent another two years at Achimota College in the Gold Coast. From Achimota he moved on to Fourah Bay College, Sierra Leone. At the time, Fourah Bay was affiliated to, and awarding the degrees of, Durham University. This meant that through Fourah Bay, Dike took the B.A. (in English, Geography, and Latin) of Durham University. In 1943, he went home to Nigeria, but not to stay for long. In November 1944 he left, on a British Council scholarship, for the M.A. degree in History at University of Aberdeen. In June 1947 he graduated, taking a first-class honors (the best of his year) at Aberdeen. Four months later, Dike registered for his Ph.D. at King's College, University of London. Under the supervision of Vincent Harlow and Gerald S. Graham, he did a dissertation entitled “Trade and Politics in the Niger Delta, 1830-1879.” He earned his Ph.D. degree on 28 July 1950. With it he became the first African to “pass through professional training” in Western historical scholarship.