Pan-Africanism, Knowledge Production and the Third Liberation of Africa

Reflections on Programming in an Afrocentric Distance Education Certificate Programme: A Case Study

“…Its principles included the power of knowledge over ignorance, the power of order over disorder, and the power of science over superstition. The implication is that the African learner must forego his/her socio-cultural context as he/she is unable to draw freely from his/her African experience (Zulu, 2006;Ngara, 2007;Oloruntoba, 2015). This is alienation of an African person and enculturation into Westernisation, or the Trojan house to Westernisation.…”

Leadership for Africa’s Development

“…The late colleague argued that "the common denominator that runs through these three imperatives [i.e., thought leadership, thought liberation and critical consciousness] is a moral consciousness that we belong to despite our differences" (Achieng', 2014, p. 127). Interestingly, Samuel Oloruntoba (2015) argues that Africa needs a third liberation, the context of which must include freedom from the hegemony of imported knowledge, freedom from subservience to logic of global capitalism, freedom from the slavery of fake values and cultures, and freedom from the visionless and kleptocratic political elites. (p. 18) More fundamentally, as indicated earlier, the African continent remains at the periphery, to use Issa Shivji's formulation, largely because of the global power distribution (Shivji, 2009).…”

“…The notion of the colonial matrices of power that decolonial scholars have advanced speaks to a structure that ensures that the global south broadly remains at the bottom and the West remains at the top. Therefore, for Africa to achieve the third liberation that Oloruntoba (2015) has argued for and for the African leadership to be morally conscious, thought leadership as well as thought liberation and critical consciousness are critical in order that, at the very least, the African leadership, especially the African political leadership, is able to confront obtaining global power relations and change the status quo. Thought leadership, thought liberation, and critical consciousness are explained in detail later, and also in Gumede (2015).…”

“…Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2013) argues that “the idea of race was deployed to justify such inimical processes as slave trade, mercantilism, imperialism, colonialism, apartheid as well as authoritarian and brutal colonial governance systems and styles” (p. 388). It is in this context that Oloruntoba (2015) argues that “unless Africa secures knowledge and economic autonomies from the hegemony of Euro-American controlled global capitalist order, the continent and its over one billion people will continue to occupy a peripheral position in the global scheme of things” (p. 20).…”

“…So, although leaders in general have to have the attributes of proper listening skills, effective communication and so forth, thought leadership entails possession of the right kind of knowledge. Such knowledge—which is different from “imported knowledge” as Samuel Oloruntoba (2015, p. 18) puts it—is sought after; the endeavor may even entail a review of ancient manuscripts in Walata and Timbuktu, reading various African scholarships on Africa before colonialism, African societies, and their evolution. At minimum, there should be better understanding of those thought leaders, say Leo Africanus and Ibn Battuta, who have positively shaped narratives about Africa.…”