Africa cannot modernize while it worships inherited power. Five centuries of failure are enough.
African scholars must get creative to chart a new paradigm shift. The institution of chieftaincy has exhausted its moral and political relevance. It is time for African scholars to design a new social organization of leadership rooted in the modern realities of the continent—one capable of meeting the industrial ambitions of a growing population. Scholars must now do what chiefs once did best: lead. They must imagine a future beyond inherited power, one that meets the challenges of a twenty-first-century Africa.
Although the roots of chieftaincy run deep—perhaps as deep as Africa itself—which often invokes sacredness or godliness, the task of uprooting the continent’s commitment to this ancient social order will be difficult and arduous. Still, it is crucial to examine the nature of these roots with perspective. They are often soaked in blood—bad blood.
The institution of chieftaincy did not succeed against the European occupation of African lands. It did not succeed against the human exploitation and colonialism that followed. In West Africa, for three centuries, chieftaincy failed to meet the challenge posed by the transatlantic slave trade—the systematic kidnapping of African men, women, and children by European states and merchants. In certain cases, one might argue, it even exacerbated that tragedy.
Chieftaincy has not worked in five centuries, and it is not working now. It has not stopped neocolonialism. It has not halted the relentless exploitation of African resources by foreign nations. It has not stopped galamsey. And it has not provided a meaningful future for the youth. There was no benefit in keeping chieftaincy then, and there is certainly none in keeping it now—nor any foresight in retaining it for the future. In an increasingly predatory world, where not only European states but also new global powers seek to plunder Africa’s resources, it is even more incumbent on scholars of the world’s oldest civilizations to rethink and rebuild a new paradigm.
Let’s be honest: the institution of chieftaincy has, for more than five centuries and counting, ceased to be a mechanism for order or cultural cohesion. It has become a decorative relic, preserved by a few who confuse ancestral nostalgia with political relevance. Chiefs today are rarely mediators of custom or morality. In fact, they sell off traditional state assets—land, gold, oil, and salt mines—often in collusion with government elites, and they preside over land disputes they themselves have ignited. They perform at state ceremonies like museum pieces from a feudal, self-destructive past.
This is not a call to imitate any foreign system. Africa deserves a homegrown, organic model of leadership—one that recoups the advantages of our past, corrects its failures, and builds upon the strengths of our convictions about the future. African scholars must abandon the lazy romanticism that shields chieftaincy from scrutiny and begin designing systems of governance suited to modern economies, global competition, sovereignty, freedom, survival, and structural accountability.
To cling to the old order is not heritage—it is paralysis.
