Intellectualizing Power

Toyin Falola

Over the past few years, I have had the intellectual experience of reflecting on various aspects and understandings of power from different angles, including cultural, political, historical, and epistemological perspectives. In my submissions to Yorùbá Identity and Power Politics (2006), I attempted to situate the power of traditional rulership from the angle of its institution and the social value and currency it has enjoyed and exercised over the years. I cautioned us not to sentimentalize chieftaincy and its trajectory, but to show how Africans have always had a complex relationship with power, creating it, resisting it, and readjusting it in subtle yet profound ways. In Decolonizing Nigeria, 1945–1960, I focused on the post-war political elites, mapping the scene where great individuals like Obafemi Awolowo, Nnamdi Azikiwe, and Ahmadu Bello wrestled for political power not only with the colonial state but among each other, as they placed themselves in strategic positions for the inheritance of postcolonial power.

In recent years, I have focused my argument more directly on the reconceptualization of power, especially in African contexts. In “Power, Privilege, and Philosophy in Africa,” I argued that power is not viewed from the perspective of conquest in indigenous philosophies, but rather as relational and communal, which is not a trophy to be won, but a trust to be held. In lectures I delivered at the University of Lagos and Benue State University, I argued that power struggles in Africa, whether political, cultural, or digital, all arise from epistemological misalignments. We must intellectualize power using our indigenous philosophical frameworks and stop imitating hegemonic templates.

In Africa, power has never been unchallenged. From resistance to colonial authorities to civil resistance in the postcolonial society, the African continent has developed an identity defined by a tradition of oppositional consciousness. In Africa, resistance is not just about reaction but a counterpower in any form and as a political agency. To intellectualize power, we must historicize our resistance. Let us take a keen look at the Aba Women’s War of 1929, or the Mau-Mau rebellion in Kenya, or the student uprisings in Soweto. These were not simple outbursts; they were responses engraved in history, socio-cultural logic, and an understanding of both injustice and possibility.

Even when faced by the most brutal regimes, Africans have been known to respond not only physically but also have launched knowledge-based resistance by refusing imposed meanings, by reexpressing their identities, and reclaiming their languages. These should be termed African philosophical interventions, rather than episodic rebellions, in the structure of power in Africa. Resistance intellectualizes power by exposing its limits, redirecting its movement, and creating new symbolic economies. Our failure to see resistance as a product of knowledge will reduce resistance to a rowdy affair instead of the beacon it is meant to be.

The present African state remains one of the most contradictory political contraptions of this era, as colonial ideas and systems shaped it. Therefore, many postcolonial African states inherited not only the territories left to them by the colonizers but also the forceful tools of their colonizers. This situation has made the African states sites of alienation or detachment when they should be sites of empowerment for Africans. However, we cannot abandon the African states; instead, we must reimagine, restructure, and redirect them.

To intellectualize state power, we must ask these questions: Who does the state serve, and what intellectual perspectives does it house? In the closing stages of colonial rule, as I have argued, African politicians’ perspective was that the state catalyzes nation-building and economic salvation. Those dreams, however, have been reduced to mere illusions by both internal conflicts and external pressures. In current climes, the challenge is not simply about seizing state power but about morally redirecting it. We need a state that is not just regulatory but regenerative—one that does not just have law at its nucleus, but also justice.

When reimagined, state power must be accountable to African ethics. The governance of African states must become participatory, responsibility must become communal, and legitimacy must be a matter of intellectual dialogue. We must build our states not as an imitation of Westerners in Westminster or Washington, but as a synthesis of traditions where councils of elders, digital technocrats, and grassroots voices come together to shape policies.

An adage states that “He who pays the piper dictates the tune.” Narrative power is one of the most effective and easiest ways to exert influence over people. Ironically, it is one of the most radical tools of liberation. For many decades, Africa has suffered from narrative disempowerment. Through colonial documentations to Hollywood stereotypes, African states and the continent have been misrepresented, silenced, or infantilized in global affairs. To intellectualize power, therefore, is to intervene in the storytelling industry and tell our history from our perspective.

Today, the tides have begun to shift through the movie industry, literature, and media outlets, including podcasts and social media. Africans have started to seize narrative power. Writers like Chimamanda Adichie have warned us of the “danger of a single story.” I go further to argue that we need a polyphony of African stories, situated within the context of African cosmologies. Let us not focus only on the stories of our pain and survival; let us tell stories of power, innovation, laughter, and traditions.

Narrative power is both internal and external. It explores how we, as Africans, communicate with each other, examining our myths, proverbs, and metaphors of selfhood. Language is a site of power. Oral traditions are our archives of knowledge. Our philosophies are hidden in our proverbs. Therefore, by reviving and reasserting our indigenous narrative, we can develop national and transnational discourses that we can claim as our own voices and visions.

Let us now shift our focus beyond the internal to the external or global. Recent global developments, such as the post-COVID world, the climate emergency, and the AI revolution, have exposed the fragility of the systems of the old order. Africa is no longer merely a recipient of global trends but also a shaper of the future. By demography, Africa is the youngest continent. By economy, it is a frontier. Its philosophical standing is a wellspring of resilience. And politically, Africa must now act.

Africa cannot be the architect of a new world order by imitation. It must negotiate for power on its terms through strategic alliances, a Pan-African ethos, and the decolonization of global institutions. Global organizations, such as the UN, IMF, and WTO, must not be exempt from criticism, and African scholars must engage in radical institutional imagination. African global representatives must be philosophers, and our youths must be mobilized not only for elections but for vision.

To intellectualize global power means rejecting dependency and embracing interdependence. The contribution of Africa to the current international order should not be limited to its mineral resources and markets. It must include a community of models, ethics of care, and visions of harmony that exist in our indigenous philosophies, with examples like Ubuntu and Ujamaa. Africa’s exports must not only include items like cocoa, but also its rich African cultural heritage and cosmology.

Finally, we turn to the newest addition: digital power. The digital realm is not neutral. Algorithms have ideas behind them. Platforms are not just tools; they govern the mind, and whoever controls this data controls destiny. If we allow others to define us digitally, we risk repeating the mistakes of colonial modernity and end up as consumers rather than producers, as spectators rather than as citizens.

The digital world gives us freedom. The digital age represents Africa’s second fight for freedom, as I said in my lecture on “Power, Education, and Change in Africa.” It provides us with a way to break down old barriers, learn, organize, and monetize knowledge. Digital platforms can help us share power, give a voice to people who have been ignored, and build communities of support across Africa.

However, we need to transition from being excited about digital things to being in control of them. Africa needs its websites, its own rules for moderating content, and its data infrastructure. Digital literacy should be a big part of our curriculum. Not only how to operate a phone, but also how to write, code, critique, and be innovative. The new power is both electrical and cerebral.

To intellectualize power is not to theorize about it at a distance: it is to insert, interrogate, and transform it. Africa’s power is not a utopia; it is a reality to be harnessed and exploited. We can define power everywhere, from the corridors of state to the intimacy of the storytelling hut, at the tables of global diplomacy, or the virtual nodes of digital networks. So let us rise, not out of rage. Let us not only tell the truth to power but also empower it to act. Let us think, act bravely, and lead with conviction.

I will be exposing the details on intellectualizing power in prominent academic spaces as follows:

“Power and Resistance in Africa,” Tuesday, July 15, 2025, The British Institute in Eastern Africa (BIEA).

“The Power of the State,” Wednesday, July 16, 2025, University of Nairobi

“Narrative Power in Africa,” Thursday, July 17, 2025, Kenyatta University, Nairobi.

“Digital Power,” July 22, the University of South Africa, Pretoria, July 22, Tuesday.

Source: toyinfalolanetwork