Paper short abstract:

How does the materiality of intellectual labour trouble the discourse of academic freedom in Africa? I situate current academic unfreedom in Nigerian public universities within the history of precarisation of intellectual elite by the political class through the weaponisation of poverty.

Paper long abstract:

How does the materiality of intellectual labour, socio-economic lack and precarity trouble the discourse of academic freedom in Africa? This contribution adopts an autoethnographic approach to amplify conversations around the materiality and precariousness of intellectual labour and academic un/freedom in Africa. Based on my experience as an early career academic in Nigeria, I situate current academic unfreedom within the history of precarisation of intellectual elite by the political class through the weaponisation of poverty. This history reveals the intention of the political class to dispossess and prevent academics from thriving economically and socially. Consequently, Nigerian academics desire and search for more freedom through knowledge migration with younger academics under more pressure to japa – an ongoing country-wide and intense need to abandon Nigeria/Nigerian higher institutions of learning for the metaphoric “greener pastures” in Europe and North America. Further, I claim that academic japa is not reducible to brain drain as such conceptualisation submits the struggles driving the precarisation of Nigeria’s intellectual class to push and pull framework. I argue instead that the japa wave, among early career especially, is a form of “brain force-away” as the state intensifies precarity and entrench poverty to transform public universities into “captured institution.” I call attention to the entrenched alienation and unfreedom that shape academic life, which, in turn, force out early-career academics from African universities. In conclusion, I argue that the bread and butter of intellectual life must take centre stage to appreciate the intricacy of unfreedom in African higher institutions of learning.