A lecturer at the Institute of African Studies in the University of Ghana, Dr. Edward Nangbine, says Africans must avoid referring to their ethnic groups as tribes.

According to the Coordinator for Language, Literature and Drama at the nation's premier university, calling one's ethnic group, a tribe, is primitive since it connotes that the African still lives in the prehistoric 'dark days', where there was no civilization.

Speaking on the Super Morning Show on Joy FM, Monday, Dr. Nangbine, said conditions that led to ethnic groups in Africa being referred to as tribes, no longer exist and therefore the description does not make sense in modern day society.

He was contributing to a discussion centered on ethnocentrism, culture and patriotism as Joy FM marks week two of the 'Patriotism Month ' (March).

"Tribes, we would say are more in line with the old anthropological writings about primitive people and tribes. They never referred to the European and Western cultures as tribes...

"We [Africans] were primitives; we had tribes and all of those other less civilized things that you would think about now," he pointed out.

He therefore urged people not to shy away from their ethnic identity but stick to norms that promote the development of the Ghanaian society as a whole.

He also encouraged people to adopt the positive traits in certain cultural practices deemed evil, such as the witches camps which sometimes "serve as sanctuaries for people to seek refuge in order to avoid being lynched".

"We must also accept that those kinds of places give refuge to these kinds of people in danger and help them to reintegrate into the society," Dr. Nangbine emphasized.