Odera Oruka on the beginnings of the philosophy department at the University of Nairobi:

“By 1969 University of Nairobi launched a new department of Philosophy and Religious Studies. Both at Makerere and Nairobi the majority and dominant staff of the departments were priests and lay theologians. At Nairobi the department was headed by the late Rt. Rev. Prof. Bishop Stephen C. Neill, an Anglican British scholar of much rhetorical persuasions. He often claimed to have been born on the same day and hour as King George the Sixth — midnight Dec. 31st 1899.

Neill had me recruited in the department as a temporary lecturer in October, 1970. With me was a Kenyan colleague, Dr. J. Nyasani, recruited as a tutorial assistant. Neill himself used to refer to both of us as “our two assistant African tutorial assistants.” There was no such rank in the university hierarchy, but it pleased the boss to lower us to such levels.

Neill had little time for ‘African Philosophy,’ and harbored doubt about the ability of Africans to think logically. Once in 1971 he inquired to know about the number of students I had in my ‘Introduction to Logic’ class.

“Not so many…only about ten or so,” I answered and added, “there is a belief among the students here that logic is a difficult subject, so quite a number steer off it.”

Neill responded with vigor: “The belief is well-founded and I completely agree with the students! I do not think that logic is really a subject for the African mind. We in the West are familiar with it right from the days of Aristotle. The African mind, I believe, is intuitive, not logical.”

There is no space here for going into details about the experience and conflict we had with persons of this frame of mind in the department. The long term solution I took was to work towards isolating the teaching of philosophy from the dominance by scholars of this type of attitude. But I had two to three main problems. First, I was too junior and temporary for this sort of task. Secondly, the theologians in the department were making sure that no more staff would be recruited for the sub-discipline of philosophy. And lastly, the majority of the relevant university authorities who could effect changes conceived of real distinction between philosophy and religion.”

(Odera Oruka, “African Philosophy: A Brief Personal History and Current Debate”).