ABSTRACT
The might of the state in Africa is paradoxically delicate and tenacious; precarious, yet formidable. Africa’s power is transitional, progressive, yet challenged. It can be perceived as a force of antithesis: a force of insistence for development and a recoil from its grasp on inequality. The conversations around Africa’s power must then consider how the power structure has come to be so: by broaching how the legacies of colonialism edited the state of power in Africa, how the struggles for independence amplified what it means to have and retain power in Africa, how Africa still holds its head high amidst the current world power play despite its resource economy and the constant change in state authority. In this lecture, the dynamism and the transformative force of power in Africa are discussed. It draws on the historical strength of Africa, while broaching the applicability and the challenges of the Eurocentric understanding of power and authority, especially in the 21st century, where it appears that power has not only changed its toga, but it is being reinvented.
