Africa Knows

Today we're listening to Dr. Wamuchiru, a lecturer at the University of Nairobi in Kenya and an urban and regional planner. In this episode, Dr. Wamuchiru tells us how to prevent research papers from accumulating dust and being left for referee points, why informality is a key research topic for the future, how to deal with classes with Kenyan undergraduates fresh from high school, why young peopl...

In this episode of Africa Knows , we speak with Dr. Musyimi Mbathi , Senior Lecturer in Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Nairobi. Drawing on over 20 years of experience across academia, government and the United Nations, Dr. Mbathi reflects on what it means to train the next generation of urban planners. He discusses the importance of exposing students to real-world urban complexit...

In this episode, Gaddafi is in Kano, Nigeria, speaking to Ibrahim Ado Kurawa, a prominent northern Nigerian writer, historian and Islamic scholar. Their conversation is about history, knowledge and power in northern Nigeria. And it gives us a glimpse of the rich tradition of scholarship and education in Islamic West Africa, what Kurawa calls the Sudanic tradition, and its interactions with colonia...

Charity is talking to Alice Menya. And Alice Menya is the Urban Program Coordinator at Nuvoni center, which is an independent research organization based in Nairobi, Kenya, that works together closely with local universities, but also international ones, including in the Netherlands. Alice is currently a doctoral candidate at the Ardhi University in Dar es Salaam, focusing on planning and governan...

In this episode you'll hear Paul Gadi, who is a faculty member in the Department of Business Administration and Management at Plateau State Polytechnic in Barkin Ladi, Nigeria. This week is about polytechnics, which sits at the intersection between vocational and academic education and could play a key role in upskilling Nigeria's working population. Dr. Gadi tells us about the bad and the good of...

Hajiya Halima Ben Umar is a Nigerian public intellectual and the Executive Director at Women in Media Communication Initiative. She is based in Kano, northern Nigeria, where she also co-anchors the popular TV programme Mata A Yau, Women Today in Hausa, that you will also hear discussed in the conversation. Ben Umar speaks with Gaddafi about fighting for the rights of women in Islam while being a w...

In this episode, Henry speaks with Dr Julie Sanda, a political scientist and the director general of the Plateau Peace Building Agency in Jos. In a very open and frank conversation, they explore the ethics of international partnerships, the impact of the difficulties of life on Nigerian academics, the importance of storytelling in science, being a “pocket psychologist”, and what the Nigerian acade...

This week, you will hear Dr Nzioka John Muthama, a professor at the University of Nairobi. Dr Muthama is an applied meteorologist with an interest in climate change and sustainability, and long experience teaching university students from the BA to the PhD. In this episode, he talks to Charity about the drastic changes in the University of Nairobi’s teaching methods after COVID, the impacts of his...

In this episode, Gaddafi is speaking to Ibrahim Sani Kankara, an associate professor and pioneer head of the department of anthropology, faculty of history and development studies at Bayero University Kano, northern Nigeria. In this conversation, Dr Kankara talks about historians always being afraid of numbers, teaching students to mould their character, the importance of collaboration when resear...

This week, we get to hear Dr Abdourahmane Idrissa, a Nigerien philosopher and political scientist based in Leiden but who has worked and lived all around the world. Idrissa’s areas of research expertise include the state, Islam, democracy, and security in the Sahel and West Africa more broadly. In this episode, he speaks with Henry and Gaddafi a truly wide range of subjects, from the impact of 9/1...

In this episode I'm speaking to Dr. Samuel Ntewusu, the director of the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana in Accra. Prof. Ntewusu is an expert in African history and politics and teaches African studies and specifically courses on chieftaincy and development in Africa. We talk about moral icons, chiefs, the impact of the display of wealth by Ghanaian politicians, how to be ap...

In this episode, you’ll hear Dr Mildred Ambani Songoro, a university lecturer and Land Use Planner, GIS Expert, and Cartographer with over ten years’ experience in Nairobi, Kenya. In this episode, Charity talks with her about why “planners come after God”, about what it means to teach urban planning in the aftermath of COVID, about her research on industrial gentrification in Nairobi, and how to p...

In this episode, we are introduced to Dr. Angela Adeoye, a senior lecturer at the University of Jos whose work sits at the intersection of gender, conflict management, and development. Drawing on her research in internally displaced persons (IDP) camps in Northern Nigeria, she reflects on how gender-based violence is shaped by conflict and displacement. Dr Adeoye also speaks candidly about the rea...

In this first episode of the brand new season, we are introduced to Dr. Zubairu Dagona, a professor at the University of Jos who specialises in Clinical Psychology at the University of Jos. In this conversation, he shares how engagement with qualitative methods has shaped his understanding of trauma and healing within the Nigerian context. Dr. Dagona also articulates a compelling argument against...

Abraham Dogo is a Professor of Veterinary Parasitology, Entomology and Public Health at the University of Jos, Nigeria. In this final episode of the season, he talks with Henry about phytomedicine, his directorship at the Africa Centre of Excellence in Phytomedicine Research and Development, and his work as a clergyman - all in the unusual times of COVID-19. They also touch on the potential o...

Gaddafi meets Aliyu Isa Aliyu, Senior Lecturer in Mathematics at Federal University Dutse, Nigeria, and Senior Research Associate at Sun-Yatsen University in China. Dr Aliyu speaks about his work and academic career, including his recipe for a successful PhD, the high quality of Nigerian undergraduate math courses, the role of complex mathematics in fixing hospital queueing, lie symmetry analysis,...

Gaddafi talks to Ibrahim Bello Kano ("IBK"), Professor of English Studies at Bayero University Kano and vocal critic and public intellectual. They talk about the romance of academia but also its (sometimes ugly) political economy, and also touch upon: the growing historical ignorance of students; the importance of the literary analysis of nonfiction writing; the place of non-African sources in a d...

Henry talks with Barira Mohammed, a historian and Director of Research at Plateau State University in Bokkos, central Nigeria. Henry and Dr. Mohammed touch on the impact of COVID on teaching and research in Nigeria, the importance of being a polyglot, Nigeria's school of historical championed by Prof. Bala Usman, the responsibility of African scholars to come together and assert themselves, the ne...

Gaddafi speaks to Yusuf M. Adamu: member of the Nigerian Academy of Letters, Social Science Academy of Nigeria Laureate, poet, novelist, critic, blogger and photographer, and a professor of medical geography at the Bayero University Kano. They discuss Prof. Adamu's work on maternal health and other academic matters, but also engage with his work as a poet and author - both in English and Hausa. Th...

Henry meets Joseph Lengman, an academic and practitioner of peacebuilding and conflict resolution, who is the Director General, Plateau Peace Building Agency (PPBA) in central Nigeria. They talk about the synergies between academia and practice in peacebuilding, but also about the challenges posed by, among others, peace spoilers, Western epistemic domination, the limited commitment to research in...

Gaddafi talks with Dr. Ismael Bala, a poet, writer, translator and scholar from northern Nigeria, who recently published the poetry collection  Line of Sight  (2020). Born and educated to the university level in Kano, Bala did his post-graduate studies at Oxford, and is a Fellow of the International Writing Programme of the University of Iowa. The discussion touches on African literature...

Gaddafi meets with Prof. Rabia Sa'id, professor of physics at Bayero University Kano, in northern Nigeria. Prof. Sa'id tells us about her career as a physicist; her mentoring of young students and scholars; her NGO work to promote the position of women in northern Nigeria; the practical implications of North-South inequality in global academia; and even the best ways of raising your daughters (and...

Henry talks with Dr. Jimam Lar, researcher on peace and security and Lecturer in History at the University of Jos in Nigeria. They delve into academic life under COVID; the complexities of security provision in contemporary Africa; plausible similarities between Nigerian vigilantes and Batman; the need for African scholars to study Hegel, and to contribute theses and syntheses as well as antithese...

Gaddafi meets Abdulganiyu Rufai Yakubu, a tech-preneur and civic technology activist as well as PhD researcher at Bayero University Kano in northern Nigeria. They talk about the importance of entrepreneurship and technology for development; the Nigerian diaspora in the Middle East; Nigeria's youth; the oligarchy in Nigeria's political economy, especially around land ownership; the history of colon...

Gaddafi talks with Dr. Ralia Maijama'a Abdullahi, lecturer at Bayero University Kano and fellow in the African Humanities Program of the ACLS in the United States. They discuss African feminism, women's writing in northern Nigeria, the insularity of Nigerian universities, the contemporary meaning of gender equality, and the future of the Nigerian federation.