Academic freedom, decolonization and the state in Africa

Intellectuals are in a strict sense a product of the societies in which they are historically located and from which they could not assume a sense of themselves as an independent social force. Nor could they have developed an intellectual trajectory entirely peculiar to them as exclusively autonomous of the state. Their challenges, compromises and failings therefore, cannot be objectively evaluated in absolute disregard of their realities and social options. Rather, these must all be measured in clear reference to the determinate circumstances in which they operate-bearing in mind the material conditions encountered and transmitted to them from their past traditions. Drawing on the role of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) in building and defending the academies and societies in Nigeria, this article discusses the engagement by African intellectuals with the decolonization project and their quest for academic freedom and institutional autonomy in their relations with the state. As an itinerary for future research, it shows that far from being democratically transformatory, given its character, namely, its lack of autonomy, its non-developmental orientations and other underlining problems endemic in its pathologies, the nature and role of the state in Africa in relation to decolonization, knowledge production and the universities, are subversive. Such subversion induces class conflict and socio-economic inequalities. It undermines ideational governance, institutional stability and respectful engagement with Africa as an autonomous location and original source of intellectual production, among other components of the pan-Africanist liberatory project.