PAWA felicitates Chinweizu @83, partners Busia Foundation on cultural matters

By Editor

THE celebrated Nigerian critic, essayist, poet, and journalist, Chinweizu Ibekwe (born 26 March 1943), known mononymously as Chinweizu, who was 83 years old today, March 26, 2026, played host to Pan African Writers Association ( PAWA), represented by its Secretary General, Dr. Wale Okediran, in the company of one of Chinweizu’s close associates, Albert Tetteh. The duo paid the celebrated writer a visit in his Accra, Ghana home to felicitate with him.

PAWA also entered into a strategic alliance with Busia Foundation Internationa (BFI) on a number of cultural activities tailored towards empowering AFrican creatives.

While studying in the United States during the Black Power movement, Chinweizu became influenced by the philosophy of the Black Arts Movement which led to his long term association with Black orientalism especially, Pan Africanism.

After a teaching spell in the United States, Chinweizu returned to Nigeria in the early 1980s, working over the years as a columnist for various newspapers in the country and also working to promote Black orientalism in Pan-Africanism.

Chinweizu’s notable intervention on this theme came in the essay The Decolonization of African Literature (later expanded into the 1983 book) Toward the Decolonization of African Literature.

Among Chinweizu’s other works is Anatomy of Female Power in which he discusses gender roles, masculinity and feminism. Chinweizu, who moved to Ghana about twenty years ago, has continued his to contribute to academic discourse through lectures and seminars despite his ill health.

Also, Pan African Writers Association (PAWA) and the Busia Foundation International (BFI) have agreed to work together on a number of cultural and literary activities on the contient. The decision was the outcome of a recent meeting in Accra between Okediran and the CEO of BFI, who is also Ghana’s immediate former Ambassador to Brazil, Prof. Abena Busia.

Some of the activities will include literary seminars and lectures as well as an International Writers Residency that will be based in Ghana. According to her, BFI is dedicated to advancing the legacy of Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busia, a visionary leader, father and former Prime Minister of the 2nd Republic of Ghana who was a firm believer in freedom and democracy and the rights of all peoples, man woman, black or white alike. It is for this reason that BFI’s mission is to promote in Ghana and elsewhere, human rights, civic education and good covernance.

Busia is also a retired professor in the Departments of English and Women and Gender Studies at Rutgers University, US, as well as a published poet (Testimonies of Exil and Traces of a Life). She has published widely, lectured extensively and taught workshops and master-classes for UNESCO and other bodies on curriculum transformation for gender, race and African-Diaspora Studies.

Dr. Chinweizu (middle) displaying birthday card presented to him by PAWA Secretary-General, Dr. Wale Okediran and Albert Tetteh