Decolonization as Praxis: Yusuf Bala Usman on History, the Nation, and the Remaking of the Nigerian Constitution

This article examines the political thought of Nigerian historian Yusuf Bala Usman, a leading figure in the Ahmadu Bello University School of History, whose scholarship highlighted the significance of history for real-world political and economic transformation. Of particular interest is Usman's emphasis on conceptual frameworks and how received concepts stalled an understanding of the African past, unsettled nation-building projects, and derailed constitution-making processes. Highlighting the significance of unraveling the ideological presuppositions that animated conceptual frameworks as well as the political motives that impelled them, Usman called for their supersession by an independent perspective informed by the African historical experience. By linking the necessity of interrogating conceptual frameworks to the imperative for real-world change, this article argues that Usman's writings exemplify how to think of decolonization as praxis. Situating his writings in recent scholarship on decoloniality and decolonization, the article argues that Usman presaged this contemporary interest, particularly in the ways he illustrates how to think epistemological, political, and economic decolonization as a connected political move, as well as in his emphasis on how constitution-making processes offer creative moments in which these decolonial struggles can be consummated.