Obstacles to the African Intellectual in public policy making include limited access, limited space, external influence, limited choice, philosopher kings, incomprehensive ideologies, and national goal versus self-aggrandizement.

1. AFRICAN INTELLECTUALS IN PUBLIC
POLICYMAKING
Compiled by:
TANKO AHMED fwc
Senior Fellow (Security & Strategic Studies)
NIPSS, Kuru – Jos, NIGERIA

2. INTRODUCTION

3. Obstacles to the African Intellectual
Limited Access;
Limited Space;
External Influence;
Limited Choice;
Philosopher Kings;
Incomprehensive Ideologies; and
National Goals V. Self-aggrandizement

4. What are Intellectuals?
Intellectuals are defined by what they do as
they always sought to explain the context and
matrix of any situation within which they are
inserted, to its members, to itself, with a view
to preserving the status quo, or overthrowing
same, modifying or completely destroying it.
- Olufemi Taiwo (2004)

5. Who are Intellectuals?
Intellectuals form a body of people who are charged
with, who profess to, or are expected to perform the
task of explaining the society to itself, to its members,
constructing the metaphors and myths that constitute
the complex of significations that enable us to claim a
shared destiny or common membership of a polity; of
alerting the society to the shortcomings of the ways of
being human to which it may have become wedded;
of providing the justificatory or at least legitimating
ideologies for their polity’s patterns of governance; of
leading their society in formulating new ways of being
human.

6. The Role of Intellectuals
The problems that intellectuals are called upon
to help their society solve include those
exigencies that are fundamental purpose of
government; and to help meet them is a
principal reason for inviting intellectuals to
associate themselves with government,
especially in the policy making process.

7. African Intellectuals in Policymaking
Process
Mkandawire (2000) provides a number of
explanations as to why African intellectuals
played a limited role in the policy process
during the post-independence era, and
especially as governments became more
repressive:

8. Limited Access
The repressive politics that became
the norm simply left no room for
intellectuals to occupy public space.

9. Limited Space
Many spaces that were open (at least
theoretically) to intellectuals elsewhere were
erased, infested or occupied, sometimes
physically, so that neither “ivory towers” nor
“Olympian detachment” nor “self-imposed”
marginalization were meaningful options.

10. External Influence
In addition, most spaces over which we could
exercise our autonomy were funded by
outsiders who also sought to delimit our
intellectual spheres.

11. Limited Choice
Such were the constraints that in most cases
the choice was between exile, sullen self-
effacement and invisibility, or sycophantic and
fawning adulation of power. There were, of
course, those who heroically gave themselves
the option of standing up and fighting—who
ended up in jail or dead.

12. Philosopher Kings
The repressive politics was further fuelled by
the penchant of African leaders to assume the
role of Philosopher Kings and to reduce
intellectual work to the incantation of the
thought of the leader ‘ignorant leader’.

13. Incomprehensive Ideologies
In many cases most of the ideological schemes
propounded by African leaders were highly
idiosyncratic and often so incoherent as to be
beyond the comprehension of the propagators
themselves – and what more of the ‘blind
followers’.

14. National Goal Vs. Self-Aggrandizement
Adhesion to them was not only difficult but
also hazardous to those sycophants who
diligently sought to follow the leader through
infinite twists and turns as the leader sought to
bridge the cavernous gap between the rhetoric
of national goals and reality of predatory self-
aggrandizement.

15. Further Readings:
• Mkandawire, T. (2000), ‘Non-organic
Intellectuals and Learning in Policy-making
Africa’. Stockholm: Development Co-
operation EGDI Publication.
• Taiwo, Olufemi (2004), ‘Of Intellectuals,
Politics and Public Policy-Making in Nigeria’.
West African Review
http://www.westafricareview.com .