The Dakar-based continental research institution, Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), has a new Executive Secretary. He is Prof Zubairu Wai, a Sierra Leonean political scientist who teaches Political Science and Global Development Studies at the University of Toronto Scarborough, Canada.
Prof Ossome, CODESRIA president
A statement by Prof. Lyn Ossome, CODESRIA President to this effect, said Prof Wai is taking over from Kenya-born Dr. Godwin Murunga who has been in the saddle since 2017 as the seventh Executive Secretary of the continental research institution. Prof Wai will formally assume the office in November 2026 and, in doing so, enter into intertextual dialogue with a long list of predecessors spanning Samir Amin, Abdalla Bujra, Thandika Mkandawire, Achille Mbembe, Adebayo Olukoshi, Ebrima Sall and, lately, Dr Murunga, the last four of whom are still very much active.
The statement shows that Prof. Wai holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts in History from the University of Sierra Leone, an MA in International Relations from the International University of Japan in 2004 and a PhD in Political Science from York University, Canada in 2010. His specialisation is indicated as international relations and comparative politics, with a focus on Africa.
Currently an Associate Professor of Political Science in Canada’s front-rank University of Toronto, his scholarship is said to engage the politics of knowledge production and the epistemological foundations of International Relations, Development Studies, Conflict and Security Studies, and African Studies. “His work examines how the intersections of power and coloniality shape the discourses and political economy of knowledge, violence, conflict, development, and state formation in the Global South, with particular focus on Africa”, said Ossome who is herself a Professor at the University of Makerere in Uganda.
Additional information on Prof. Wai credits him with being a well-known member of the CODESRIA intellectual community, a participant in the Council’s Institutes and contributor to the Council’s publications, including the CODESRIA Bulletin. “His decolonial and pan-African scholarship resonates strongly with CODESRIA’s mission to advance and lead independent social science and humanities research on the continent, as is evident in the keynote address he delivered at the launch of the Council’s African Fellowships for Research in Indigenous and Alternative Knowledges (AFRIAK) programme in Dakar in November 2024, titled “Indigenous African Knowledge and the Challenge of Epistemic Translation”, the statement added.
CODESRIA’s Executive Committee is expressing its appreciation to the Selection Committee for its commitment and hard work in the rigorous, competitive and pan African search and selection process, which concluded with Prof Wai’s appointment at the Executive Committee’s 105th Meeting held in Cotonou, Benin Republic. “In appointing him, the Executive Committee considered Prof. Wai eminently qualified for the office, citing his distinguished record of scholarship, his intellectual leadership on questions central to CODESRIA’s mission, and his clear vision for the Council’s future”.
The statement reports CODESRIA President as specifically emphasising that “the new ES enters the Council with the backing of a robust record in scientific leadership and focus on Africa, a thorough knowledge of and historical commitment to the Council, a keen awareness of the legacy he is inheriting, and a dynamic vision which we are confident he shall ably fulfil for the posterity of CODESRIA” while speaking on behalf of the CODESRIA Executive Committee.
With Prof Wai having already accepted the appointment, the transition has rightly been declared as successfully completed. The statement reports Prof. Wai accepting the appointment with the declaration that “CODESRIA has long been the intellectual conscience of Africa, nurturing generations of scholars committed to understanding and transforming the continent on its own terms”. He has also said that to be entrusted with the role of Executive Secretary is both an immense honour and a profound responsibility.
This leadership transition is the seventh in CODESRIA’s over five decades of existence. The Council is beating its chest on extending the frontiers of social research across Africa – from higher education and academic freedom to democratic governance and development – including major and transformative work on the politics of development spanning structural adjustment to the land and agrarian questions and indigenous knowledge. What is more, CODESRIA is saying these achievements were also while it has been strengthening and revitalising its own governance and internal controls and charting the Council’s strategic direction.
This is the legacy it is confident Prof. Wai will work with the Council’s Executive and Scientific Committees not only to build on but also consolidate, particularly what the statement calls CODESRIA’s agenda-setting role in the advancement of the social sciences and humanities in Africa.
Although Intervention does not know those who also contested for the position, CODESRIA’s obvious elation over Prof WAI would seem to be informed and understandable: it would be difficult to beat an African scholar whose research interests include knowledge production; Political economy of violence, conflicts, and development; Postcolonial and decolonial approaches and African politics and systems of thought and then who has taught modules such as “International Relations of Africa”, “Confronting Development’s Racist Past and Present” and “Political Economy of International Development”, particularly the structure and reading list of these modules that Intervention has seen on the University of Toronto Scarborough website.
There are those who would say that Africa cannot turn the social transformation corner without naming its ontological bearing and the corresponding epistemological gaze. African philosophers, its members of the literati, the continent’s anthropologists, International Relations scholars, political theorists and cultural geographers have produced the raw materials but pluriversity has not put a stamp of authority on an ontological lens, with its own logic of how the world works. Some observers are wondering if the selection of Prof Wai is about the ES whose tenure will sort out that continental challenge and sound the trumpet.
CODESRIA’s understandable excitement on this transition also brings out a puzzle that has not attracted adequate attention: how is it possible for CODESRIA to run so smoothly without distractions such as an agentian challenge to institutional coherence, a tenure extension attempt, any reports of large scale corruption or destabilising struggle for power on a continent (and a world) awash with such features? When is CODESRIA going to infect the continent with its exceptionalism before the continent infects it with its own share of these stuff?
