Those who oppose using the word "tribe" desire that African ethnic groups are understood as similar to those elsewhere.
They want the complexity of these groups paid attention to, and are attentive of the word "tribe's" associations with notions of backwardness, atavism and superstition - its roots in colonial policies aimed at defining African societies and making them legible for control.
They are attentive to the fact that the term is only used to describe their cultural formations, of the fact that Western societies' cleavages would never be defined as tribes.
They also reject the notions of fixity, of common ancestry that come with the term "tribe", preferring the looseness of the term ethnic group, and how this acknowledges internal differences of language, culture and descent, and permits accretion.
Conversely, this, along with constant media use, may explain why many African people continue to use the term "tribe".
Even with their fictive kinships, many Africans may prefer to establish the bonds between them as based on common descent, as biological, than to acknowledge the complex ways in which their present-day ethnic groups were formed.
By Basil Ibrahim, Nairobi-based political consultant
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-20465752
Why did they make Africans hate the word tribe? When you mention tribe then goes oh you are tribalistic. Isn't it ironic that we hate what we are? We are made of tribes and we hate everything to do with it. One thing wonder is how they made us hate what we are they are really good. Every body of every tribe should stand tall and love and feel secure in their own tribe because like it or not that is what you are.
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