African Intellectuals, Universities and Africa’s Development by SMB Sesan Johnson
As a
product of the premier university of Nigeria, I am joining the world to
congratulate University of Ibadan as it celebrates 70 years of
University Education in Nigeria. Significantly, for me what come to mind
now is what has been the trajectory of the major contributions of the
intellectuals to Africa’s development? What has become the link between
the gowns and towns? No doubt, Africa is in dire need of development
since by 2030 urban populations in Africa are expected to increase by an
additional 350 million people. Can we really separate the contributions
of the intellectuals from resistance to colonialism and eventual
independence of the country? Africa’s political history had highlighted
the major contributions of intellectuals to political and constitutional
developments of the continent.
In
recent times, the African Development Bank Group (AfDB) opines that
African economies have sustained unprecedented rates of growth, driven
mainly by strong domestic demand, improved macroeconomic management, a
growing middle class, and increased political stability. However, the
bank (AfDB) holds that if the fight against poverty has to be won, there
must be improvements in the quality and quantity of statistical data on
all components of development. Hence, reliable data is critical to
setting goals and targets as well as evaluating project impact. For me,
this is where collaboration must be forged between universities and
policy makers. Government agencies and industries must make policies on
research based data.
Paradoxically,
the ideas that usually provoke revolutionary developments do not
originate with the masses — a people with the most reasons for revolt.
It is the intellectuals that usually orchestrate developmental
trajectory. Lenin agrees with this assertion, no wonder he opines that
the ‘armies of the proletariat would dissolve in purposeless confusion’.
However, intellectuals are usually considered trouble makers — for
example, Stalin considers historians as dangerous species.
Notwithstanding, intellectuals are useful to the society as a whole,
hence; intellectuals can render conservative as well as radical
services. Considering various strands of differentials, and dichotomies
in the world, intellectualism is the bedrock and benign engine of their
proliferation and authorisation. For instance, intellectualism or works
of intellectuals cannot be divulged from the following dichotomies:
conservatism versus liberalism, monarchism versus republicanism,
capitalism versus communism, First World states versus Third World
states, etc. Therefore, regardless who the protagonist or the antagonist
is, the intellectuals are regarded as useful but also dangerous. Take
for instance, the contributions of Keynes to world’s economies.
Keynes
was one of most famous world’s economists and a self-proclaimed liberal
intellectual. Evident were the trial runs of Keynes’s economic ideas in
Hitler’s Germany and its applicability in USA under the auspices of
Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. Consequently, governments (USA, Britain,
etc) started using ideas from Keynes’s economics. Invariably, Breton
Woods’s frameworks were premised on Keynes’s arguments against the
tyranny of gold, which crystallised into the establishment and
operationality of the International Bank for Reconstruction and
Development (IBRD) and International Monetary Fund (IMF). Likewise, the
Marshall Plan which contributed greatly to the revitalisation of the
post-WWII devastated European economy was financed by the kind of money
Keynes advocated for as a way out of economic recession. This became
Breton Woods’ financing architecture for governments. This thus ushered
in ‘the Age of Keynes’. The flaws in Keynesian ideologies manifested in
its ineffectiveness in solving economic problems of the Third World
states including Africa.
What
can we say of future contributions of intellectuals Africa’s
developments? What have become of the various thoughts developed by the
likes of Claude Ake, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Wole Soyinka, George Ayittey,
Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, Toyin Falola, etc. In Africa’s universities there’s a
great a need to provide intellectual archetype that will facilitate
flowery of ideas and postulations that will create future developmental
models for Africa. Africa needs ‘disruptive political theories’ premised
on indigenous African political systems particularly for inclusive
governance and security. Same goes for ‘disruptive economic theories’
that will be based on Africa’s realities and imperatives and which will
yield economic performance, inclusiveness, and structural
transformation, as well as necessitates diversifying African economies
away from dominant sectors such as agriculture and commodities.
Likewise, there is a great need for intellectuals to train their
protégés (students) using current realities and methodologies all in an
attempt to bringing lasting solutions to all societal problems.
What
can help shapes the development templates of Nigeria as 2019
approaches? What can intellectuals contribute to the utilities and
appropriation of the binaries of Buharism and Atikulation? What are the
variables and possibilities of the political and socio-economic graphs
of other presidential candidates like Sowore, Oby, Fela, Donald, Iroko,
etc. No doubt, Nigeria’s universities are having their challenges
particularly when you measure their qualities and performance within the
frameworks of global standards. Today, within the cycles of pervading
economic woes in the country and the preparedness towards 2019
elections, I believe the country’s intellectuals must rethink their
contributions towards the future of the nation.
