The Concept of Equality under the Indigenous and Western Legal Systems: Issues and Challenges on Sustainable Development of Africa

Abstract

Communities in Africa in the pre-colonial days lived with one another in a just and equitable manner, in love, on the principles of ubuntu. The way of life was further sustained by the communities’ perception and equation of the land with humanity, where everyone had equal access to the land as factor of production. The communal system which assured of equal treatment of everyone suffered a set-back, through centuries of slave trading and the colonization and the eventual imposition of western laws on indigenous peoples of Africa, these transformed the indigenous communities from their classlessness into stratified un-equal societies of those who have and those who do not have. Corruption evolves as a result of private property ownership and this further compounds in-equality, such that communal properties are unfairly taken over by few individuals, under non-transparent privatisation of public utilities. Access to factors of production and to justice in the post-colonial Africa is a myth on account of technicality and cost. The prospect of sustaining the pre-colonial equitable access to factors of production and to justice through oral tradition suffers a setback on account of the loss of cultural archives like the African traditional religion and the indigenous languages.