Renowned historian and global African studies scholar, Professor Toyin Falola, has challenged African universities to reinvent their knowledge systems by breaking away from entrenched Western epistemic dominance and embracing a future built on indigenous intellectual traditions.
Falola, the Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities and University Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas at Austin, issued the charge on Thursday while delivering the 17th Convocation Lecture of Ajayi Crowther University, Oyo, titled “The Future of Knowledge.” The event held at the Modupe and Folorunso Alakija Faculty of Law Auditorium.
Speaking before academics, students, and policymakers, Falola warned that Africa’s higher institutions remain trapped in colonial intellectual frameworks decades after independence, a situation he said continues to undermine the continent’s quest for true knowledge sovereignty.
“Africa can be intellectually free if it breaks away from the epistemic dominance of the West,” he declared.
“Our universities must foster knowledge ecosystems where indigenous philosophies coexist with global scientific traditions.”
Falola said African countries risk perpetuating a cycle of mental dependence unless universities adopt a pluriversal model—one that integrates multiple forms of knowledge rather than privileging Western frameworks alone.
He drew on the works of celebrated decolonial thinkers such as Paul Tiyambe Zeleza, Kwesi Prah and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, insisting that the future of knowledge transcends intellectualism and touches politics, morality, culture, and identity.
According to him, for too long, the validity of knowledge in Africa has been measured through Western lenses, relegating African intellectual traditions “to the fringes of history.”
Quoting Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Falola said the decolonisation of African knowledge must begin with a reclamation of language.
He noted that Ngũgĩ’s works — Decolonising the Mind, Moving the Centre, and Something Torn and New — demonstrate how colonialism conquered not only territories but African imaginations.
“He argues that Europe should be decentered from the world’s intellectual map while suppressed civilizations, including Africa’s, must be restored as producers of knowledge,” Falola said.
He also referenced Kwesi Prah’s advocacy for linguistic sovereignty, arguing that thinking in a foreign language constrains Africans within foreign mental frameworks.
“Language is the development of thought. Understanding diverse African languages is central to Africa’s contribution to global knowledge,” he added.
Falola, whose own work Decolonizing African Knowledge expands on these ideas, emphasized that African knowledge has a strong ethical foundation rooted in ecology, spirituality, communalism and generational continuity—values he said offer a moral balance in a world “that has become ethically unhinged.”
On technology, Falola warned that Africa risks a new form of intellectual servitude if indigenous knowledge is not embedded in digital systems.
“If Africa does not integrate cultural intelligence and linguistic diversity into modern technology, we will again become victims—this time of foreign algorithms,” he said.
He expressed optimism about Africa’s youth, whom he described as crucial to building a “hybrid epistemic generation” capable of merging local wisdom with global scientific innovation.
“Africa must assert its intellectual freedom without isolating itself,” he said.
“To move the centre is not to replace one power with another but to redraw the world’s knowledge map based on true human plurality.”
The lecture formed one of the major highlights of Ajayi Crowther University’s convocation ceremonies, drawing top scholars, government officials, technocrats, and students.
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