Two Renowned Nigerian Scholars: Ikenna Nzimiro and Victor Chikesie Uchendu

Abstract

The article honors two Nigerian anthropologists of Igbo background who recently passed away. Both scholars made major contributions to a broad range of scholarly thought in anthropology and in general social science to crucial issues in Nigerian politics, society and life. Nzimiro is considered in terms of his traditional anthropological training in Germany and England, through which he investigated four Niger River basin communities, and then his emergence as a Marxist anthropologist for the rest of his life in Nigeria, where he consistently critiqued neocolonialism in Nigeria. He explored issues of ethnicity, the Nigerian civil war, militarism, the state of the social sciences, the environment, Oguta culture, where he was born, ethnic conflicts, conditions at Nigerian universities, and other issues. Nzimiro generally rejected the post-colonial world, arguing that it was not revolutionary enough. Uchendu dealt with many of the same issues, but in contrast to Nzimiro he did so by accepting the existence of post-colonial Nigeria, though suggesting many ways to improve education, the environment, cultural and national transition, dependency theory, and to study urbanization and ethnicity, while also writing a major work on Igbo culture. Both authors are honored for their critiques of Nigerian society, as well as their contributions to Igbo ethnology.