'When ‘precolonial’ is used for describing African ideas, processes, institutions and practices, through time, it misrepresents them. When deployed to explain African experience and institutions, and characterise the logic of their evolution through history, it is worthless and theoretically vacuous. The concept of ‘precolonial’ anything hides, it never discloses; it obscures, it never illuminates; it does not aid understanding in any manner, shape or form.'

Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò @aeon_co

https://aeon.co/essays/the-idea-of-precolonial-africa-is-vacuous-and-wrong