I was honoured to attend the launch of Charles Mubita’s book, titled, ‘Symbiotic Relationship Between National Interest and Foreign Policy: The Nexus of Decision Making’, on 20 January 2024, which drew people from different spectrum of academicians, diplomats, politicians and rank and file. 

The book launch opened the way for all prospective authors to start conducting research and come up with books, which should be Namibia-relevant instead of depending on foreign literature.  The book launch has put the authorship fraternity on the map just from the beginning of the year.  

What caught the attention of many invitees was the remarks made by Professor David Namwandi, the chairman of the International University of Management, who gave the keynote address and launched the book. It is the deliberate process of frustrating and pulling down African intellectuals, who ultimately find themselves in diaspora, where their experts and skills are put to good use leaving Africa struggling with the shortage of labour. 

He equally reiterated that life started on the African continent which happens to have all the natural resources, which are being eyed by other nations. It is an impressive analysis though, likened to one held by Ali Mazrui (1986) in his documentary, ‘The Africans: The Triple Heritage’, in which he postulates that despite all resources, Africa still remains the continent inhabited by the poorest people. One wonders whether there are many academicians and politicians who entertain such views and what are they doing to mitigate such instances experienced by intellectuals. 

There is the Harambee Prosperity Plan currently running with the promises of inclusivity and bringing back all the intellectuals in the diaspora. 

It may be difficult to calculate the benefits and fruition thereof, as Namibia is a small population, but there are still intellectuals from this nation who are sojourning in foreign lands after having been frustrated and pulled down. Yes, politicians have their own personal interests and perhaps which are not in line with the national ones. If education is one of the national interests, the politicians could have nurtured intellectuals and find means which should encourage them to stay in the country. 

But the approach has been that any slightest misdemeanour the intellectual commits, is sent packing instead of reprimanding the person. In some countries, professors and other high-level intellectuals are held in high esteem as they are there to create knowledge. In fact, the difference between the Western world and perhaps the developing one is that, in the former world, intellectuals are made use of in conducting research which in turn assist in mitigating the challenges faced by these nations. Take the issue of Covid-19, which rampaged and took the lives of many people! The governments of the Western world stopped the virus in its track by summoning their intellectuals to come up with the vaccine, while African nations panicked and failed to call upon their own for intervention. 

Africa had to rely on the vaccine prepared by the West, which was in many cases not Africa-environmentally friendly. It is time that African politicians come out of their selfish cocoons and let their intellectuals venture into research and come up with solutions to mitigate some of the challenges facing the continent. 

In many African countries, politicians always interfere into the activities of institutions of higher learning, despite the constitutional provision which guarantees academic freedom. The politicians should know that in the world of academia, there are many ideas which might not favour their thinking. The other culprits in this scam are institutions of higher learning themselves, where fellow intellectuals are being pushed around by others. According to George Ayittey (2020) in his book, ‘African Scholars and Intellectuals in North American Academies’ African professors, intellectuals and scholars let Africa down by failing to speak out against flagrant human rights violations, tyrannical excesses of African dictators. 

This intellectual class must become a more proactive and effective agent of reform or change for the second liberation of Africa. Echoing Ayttey’s sentiments, Paul Tiyambe Zeleza in ‘The African Academic Diaspora in the United States and Africa: The Challenges of Productive Engagement’, states that since 1990 the African academic diaspora, on average of 20 000 including highly educated Africans, among them academics, have been migrating to the global North every year. The academic diaspora can be seen as either a liability depriving Africa of desperately needed professionals trained at enormous cost, or an asset providing the continent crucial connections to the global North that can facilitate transfers of capital (technological, financial, cultural and political), and help mediate, in terms of knowledge production, the globalization of African scholarship and the Africanization of global scholarship.  It cannot be overemphasized that the rising international migration of Africa’s professional elites and intellectuals may indeed be a curse if dismissed and ignored, but it can be turned into a blessing if embraced and utilized. It is generated by, and inserts Africa into, contemporary processes of transnationalization and globalization, which follow and reinforce the old trails of Pan-Africanism.

The challenge for Africa is how to rebuild the historic Pan-African project, spawned by the global dispersal and exploitation of African peoples over the centuries, by creatively using the current migratory flows of African peoples, cultures, capacities, and visions and the contemporary revolution in telecommunications and travel technologies. It is an old challenge in a new age that requires responses and solutions that are both old and new.

* Prof. Makala Lilemba is an academician, author, diplomat, motivational leader, researcher and scholar.