Professor Dani Wadada Nabudere has just left us. A giant has fallen
The Late Nabudere was Minister of Culture and Community Development in
the post-Amin interim government in Uganda after the Uganda-Tanzanian
War of 1978-79 that overthrew him. The Professor spent six years in
exile, 1973- 79,during which time he met many of the liberation
movement activists, when he was an Associate Professor of Law at the
University of Dar es Salaam.
In the capacity of Executive Director and Senior Researcher he
established in 1993 the Afrika Study Centre, at Mbale, Uganda which
became the Marcus Garvey Pan-Afrikan Institute (MPAI), on the 16 April
2005, being officially launched on the 9th July 2005, also at Mbale,
dedicated to research and mainstreaming African indigenous knowledge
and wisdom, linking research to African sites of knowledge. He
believed profoundly in the need for unity between the African Diaspora
and Continental Africa, to ensure the development of Africa. As
regards the problems north of Uganda, Prof Nabudere saw the Afro-Arab
civilisation dialogue as the basis to move forward. These issues
impinged in northern Uganda, where he saw restorative justice as the
key to healing and peace.
In establishing the Marcus Garvey Pan-Afrikan University (MPAU) in
2008 Prof Nabudere sort an institution built on sound cultural and
spiritual basis that would highlight those aspects of African
spiritual life thaat enabled the Africans to survive as a human
community throughout the centuries. To achieve this the Late Professor
drew inspiration from Chancellor Williams, amongst others, making a
profound critique of neo-colonial elite mentality. MPAU is dedicated
to revitalising, generating and applying African knowledge and wisdom
systems for the benefit of humanity. This scientific endeavour he
called Afrikology. In it’s 2009-2024 Strategic Plan MPAU saw it’s role
as a Pan-Afrikan University as one of rejuvenating and retrieving
Africa from it’s predicament as the world’s most backward continent.
To achieve this MPAU sort to draw inspiration from the rich African
heritage embedded in the African people’s cultures and philosophies,
as well as their institutions.
Works undertaken by MPAU were :-
1. Reclaiming the Future: A Two-pronged research activity with the
themes: Locating African Sites of Knowledge and Wisdom; and Towards a
New Agenda for the 21st Century and Africa’s Role in it, being Joint
and Collaborative Research Project of the Marcus-Garvey Pan-African
Institute and the Department of Philosophy and Political Science,
University of South Africa-UNISA, Pretoria, South Africa.
2. Research on Restorative Justice and International Law in a Ford
Foundation funded two-year project in five countries of Uganda, Kenya,
Tanzania, Rwanda and Sudan. This project lead to the international
conference of August 2008 in Nairobi Kenya in which the attempt was
made to present a model of reconciliation between traditional systems
of justice and aspects of international humanitarian law.
3. A Two-year research project in collaboration with the Human
Sciences Research Council of South Africa on the theme: Knowledge for
Development: University Firm Interactions in sub-Saharan Africa
The Marcus Garvey Pan African Institute
1. MARITAL STATUS: MARRIED WITH SIX CHILDREN
2. ACADEMIC QUALIFICATIONS: LLB (LOND)-1963; BARRISTER-AT-
LAW, LINCOLN’S INN, LONDON, 1963.
3. ACADEMIC AND OTHER OCCUPATIONS:
(i) Advocate, High Court, Uganda (1963-1970);
(ii) Chairman, Board of Directors, East African Railways
Corporation, East African Community, Nairobi (1971-73);
(iii) Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Law, University of Dar es Salaam,
Tanzania; (1974-76);
(iv) Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Dar es Salaam,
Tanzania, (1976-79);
(v) Minister of Culture, Community Development and Rehabilitation,
Uganda Government, (1979-1980);
(vi) Visiting Associate Professor, University of Zimbabwe (1985);
(vii) Visiting Scholar, Africa Study Centre, Leiden, Holland;
(viii) Executive Director, Afrika Study Centre, Mbale (1993-present);
(ix) Professor Emeritus, Faculty of Social Sciences, Islamic
University in Uganda, Mbale (1998- 2005);
(x) Executive Director/Principal, Marcus-Garvey Pan-Afrikan Institute,
Mbale, Uganda (2005-……).
Publications:
(i) The Political Economy of Imperialism, 1976, Tanzania Publishing
House and Zed Press, London;
(ii) Essays on the theory and practice of Imperialism, 1979, Onyx Press,
London;
(iii) Imperialism in East Africa, 1980, Zed Press, London (in two volumes);
(iv) Imperialism and Revolution in Uganda, 1980, Onyx Press, London;
(v) The Crash of International Finance Capital and its implications
for the Third World, SAPES Trust, 1989, Harare, Zimbabwe;
(vi) The Rise and Fall if Money Capital, 1990, Afrika in Trust,
Harare/London;
(vii) Pan-Africanism and Integration in Africa, 2000, SAPES
Publications, Harare, co-edited with Ibbo Mandaza;
(viii) The Epistemological and Methodological Foundations for an
All-inclusive Research Paradigm in Search for Global Knowledge. 2002.
Occasional Paper Volume 6 Number 1, African Association of Political
Science, Pretoria, South Africa.
(ix) The Political Economy of Conflict and War in the Great Lakes
Region, Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, Cape Town, 2002
Occasional Paper.
(x) Africa’s First World War, Occasional Paper Series, Volume 8 Number
1, 2004. Association of African Political Science, Pretoria, South
Africa;
(xi) Afrika in the New Millennium: Towards a Post-Traditional
Renaissance, forth coming, now with the University of South Africa
Press, Pretoria, South Africa.
(xii)
(xiii) Globalization, Conflict and Pastoralist Transformation in East
Africa, in preparation.
In Namibia Pof Nabudere will be remembered for his keynote role at the
1999 Africa Day Conference, which lead to the formation of the
Pan-African Centre of Namibia (PACON),where he delivered a paper
entitled ‘Towards an African Renaissance : reclaiming the Pan-African
Heritage’.
The Late Professor was a participant in the First Preparatory meeting
for the 8th Pan-African Congress held in Johannesburg on the 7 January
2010.
On the 2 August 2010 Dani Nabudere stated :-
My view is that we must abandon this post-colonial (continentalist)
approach and begin the recognition of culture as the basis of our
self-organisation and self-knowledge by recognising our languages,
which constitute us as African communities. This must be the basis of
organisation and communication among ourselves.
Windhoek, Namibia, 9 November 2011
B.F.Bankie
Sudan Sensitisation Project (SSP)
www.bankie.info
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