Scholar faults Africa’s weak knowledge output, seeks intellectual overhaul

FILE: Dr Obi

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The Programme Director for the African Peacebuilding and Developmental Dynamics of the Social Science Research Council, New York, United States of America, Dr Cyril Obi, has urged African policymakers, academics, and researchers to rethink the continent’s approach to knowledge production and nation-building.

Speaking on Wednesday at the Day 3 session of the UN-OSSA 2025 Academic Conference on Africa, themed “Seizing the Moment: The African State and Its Promise”, and monitored by PUNCH Online, Obi posed fundamental questions about Africa’s developmental trajectory.

He asked, “What is the state of nation-building in Africa? What does it mean for Africans when we look into our state of becoming?”

He stressed that the struggle for Africa’s development must begin with the power to define the principles that shape knowledge creation.

“Freedom and liberation have to do with the power to define what principles will undergird knowledge production,” he added.

The former Senior Research Fellow at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, Lagos, described this process as “epistemic sovereignty” and challenged the audience with probing questions: “Who owns epistemic sovereignty? Whose property is it that we speak like somebody from West Africa?”

He argued that the battle for Africa’s intellectual freedom is not fought in courtrooms but within the systems that produce and validate knowledge.

“Epistemic justice is a kind of justice where you don’t go to court. It is born out of struggle — between dominant epistemological frameworks and those that have been marginalised or suppressed,” he said.

Although acknowledging the rise in university enrolment across the continent, Obi noted that African scholarship remains largely invisible in global knowledge ecosystems.

Citing UNESCO figures, he observed that Africa contributes only 2.2 per cent of global scientific publications despite the growing number of scholars and institutions.

He illustrated the challenge with a stark observation: “It’s either African scholars (are) sitting under a tree in the afternoon staying away from the hot sun, or what they are producing is either not counted or is invisible.”

The political scientist warned that Africa cannot continue to pursue development through epistemologies that deny the continent’s urgency.

“Africa wants to develop under epistemologies that deny it the urgency to dictate how it wants to govern and develop itself,” he said.

He argued that if Africa hopes to shape meaningful policies from its research output, universities must be intentionally decolonised.

“You have to disrupt that kind of epistemology. You have to decolonise higher education. The curriculum should address local realities and include indigenous knowledge.”

Obi also questioned the continent’s continued reliance on foreign models, urging scholars to rethink their engagement strategies and adopt “selective engagement and selective choice-making” when navigating systems that perpetuate intellectual inequality.

He asked, “Must all the models come from outside? How can we make our success stories, in their little corners, visible and compact?”

He concluded that Africa’s transformation must come from within, saying, “The answer does not lie anywhere. It lies within us, in the way we think, who we imitate, our experiences and what we want to accomplish in society.”

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