Introduction: The Deliberative Roots and Gender Complementarity in Igbo Political System

One of the most key facts about African political development is the autonomous character of Africa’s political organizations and the relative absence of large polities along Eurasian lines. African communities placed a high value on autonomy and independence. Most were particularly concerned about the abusive potential of centralized authority or consolidation of power within an individual or group of individuals. The Igbo represent a perfect example of how Africans organized themselves into autonomous and democratic political entities and resisted political centralization. This central feature of many African societies, including the Igbo, occurred even though they were surrounded by centralized states such as Benin in the west and the Igala in the north. The Igbo, as is the case with most central African communities, of which Jan Vansina (1990) had identified, innovated many types of institutions, including lineages, clans, and various types of associations, to maintain the “autonomy of the local community.” An outcome of this form of political organization gave rise to what George Ayittey (2006) confirms as the deep-rooted culture of participatory democracy in African political systems in his exploration of pre-colonial and post-colonial African institutions.