A former Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission, Emeritus Professor Peter Okebukola, is set to formally launch the African Scholarly Referencing Style, the first referencing style conceived, developed, and owned by Africa.
The official unveiling will put Africa on the brink of a groundbreaking intellectual milestone, with Okebukola as one of the continent’s most decorated higher education reformers.
ASRS is designed to fill a major gap in global scholarship.
Despite Africa’s deep intellectual heritage and thousands of universities, none of the world’s 29 major referencing styles originates from Africa. Checks revealed that existing systems such as APA, MLA, Chicago, Vancouver, Harvard, and IEEE are entirely Western in origin and structure.
Professor Olusola Oyewole, the Secretary-General of the Association of African Universities, headquartered in Accra, Ghana, said, “The proposal by Professor Peter Okebukola, who is AAU’s Ambassador for West Africa, is for the development of an African-origin referencing system.” According to him, this represents a groundbreaking and highly visionary contribution to Africa’s intellectual sovereignty.
“Professor Okebukola’s initiative rightly responds to longstanding concerns around epistemic colonialism, the marginalisation of African epistemologies, and the under-recognition of African scholarly traditions in global citation frameworks,” he added.
Speaking to newsmen in Abuja, Okebukola stated that “ASRS responds to a longstanding gap in global academic practice. Although Africa has produced centuries of scholarship and hosts thousands of universities, none of the twenty-nine internationally recognised referencing styles currently in use originates from the continent.”
“Systems such as APA, MLA, Chicago, Vancouver, Harvard, and IEEE were all created outside Africa and reflect Western epistemological traditions. ASRS offers Africa an unprecedented opportunity to assert its scholarly identity and intellectual sovereignty,” he said.
Okebukola confirmed that the initiative has already secured strong continental and international endorsement. The Association of African Universities has formally expressed its support and willingness to host its development and deployment, while senior UNESCO officials and leaders of Academies in Africa have commended the initiative as timely, transformative, and aligned with global efforts to diversify knowledge systems.
The ASRS proposal presents a referencing style grounded in Africa’s intellectual traditions while remaining fully compatible with global academic standards. It introduces a system that is approximately ninety-five per cent aligned with existing citation formats, ensuring ease of adoption, while the remaining five per cent introduces African-centred innovations.
These innovations include structured and respectful ways of citing oral knowledge, traditional custodians of wisdom, multilingual sources, folklore, community authorship, and indigenous knowledge systems.
The style also provides frameworks for citing African grey literature, institutional documents, local research reports, and works published in African languages.
Speaking further, Okebukola noted that ASRS offers ten specialised variants adapted from major global styles, including those inspired by APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, AMA, Vancouver, Turabian, IEEE, ACS, and Bluebook. Each variant introduces subtle yet meaningful African perspectives while preserving the familiar structures that scholars and publishers around the world already use.
Regarding its implementation, Okebukola stated that “the implementation strategy for ASRS is ambitious and pan-African in scope. It includes a ten-year roll-out that begins with the development of the style manual, training materials, and citation software tools, followed by piloting across selected African universities and journals.”
Subsequent years will see expansion across hundreds of institutions and integration into thesis guidelines, journal editorial policies, and university presses. The plan culminates in the establishment of ASRS as the standard referencing system across Africa and its recognition by global indexing services such as Scopus and Web of Science.
Okebukola emphasised that “ASRS is much more than a new citation format. It is a statement of Africa’s intellectual independence and a bold declaration that the continent is ready not only to produce knowledge but to determine the frameworks through which knowledge is organised, validated, and transmitted.”
“It strengthens the visibility of African scholarship, enhances the discoverability of African sources, and fosters a collective scholarly identity across the continent’s diverse linguistic and cultural regions,” he added.
Professor Okebukola brings decades of international scholarly leadership to these initiatives. His career includes serving as Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission, winning the UNESCO Kalinga Prize, chairing the governing councils of several universities, leading the Global University Network for Innovation (GUNi-Africa), and serving as Ambassador of the Association of African Universities for West Africa. His credibility and influence have helped galvanise widespread support for ASRS from institutions and scholars across continents.
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