Adewale Ajadi’s new book calls for Africans to shape their own future

Nigerian author and leadership educator Adewale Ajadi has launched Afrilition: 21st Century African Manifesto, a book that challenges negative portrayals of Africa and calls on Africans to take a more deliberate role in shaping the continent’s future. The book was launched virtually on Wednesday at an event attended by journalists, media practitioners, researchers and readers from different parts of the world. Ajadi said the idea was partly influenced by his experience of what he called Afro-pessimism, which he described as a tendency to view Africa mainly through its crises and difficulties.

Ajadi said the answer was not simply to replace pessimistic accounts with the slogan “Africa Rising”. Instead, he said, Africans should think more deliberately about the future they want to build. The book, he added, was not framed as a competition between Africa and the West or other regions.

Afrilition examines how Africans on the continent and in the diaspora can define their values and contribute to a changing global order. Its focus extends to people of African heritage in the Caribbean, South America, North America and Europe, and considers choices that could influence Africa’s place in the world over the next two generations. Reviewer Oje Aboyade said the book’s emphasis on Pan-Africanism resonated with him.

He said it encouraged Africans to question the acceptance of Eurocentric agendas, exploitative economic systems and social structures, while pursuing excellence without relying on external validation. Bolatito Kolawole, a researcher at the University of Lagos Institute of African and Diaspora Studies, said the book offered another way to assess Africa’s progress rather than measuring it only against Western models or material gains. Martin Banda, a leadership educator, highlighted its partly epistolary form, in which Ajadi writes as a grandfather addressing his grandchildren.

The book also promotes a wider understanding of prosperity, emphasising humanity, humility, service and community. In its foreword, Funmi Olonisakin said it made a case for African excellence that could contribute to a more balanced world, while the afterword said Africa’s future must be actively shaped through choices, relationships and responsibilities.