ABSTRACT
Over the years the relationship between the State and African academia has been a complex one and has gone through a number of phases. Post-independence Africa has been characterized by a wide range of authoritarian rule which has encompassed a tantalizing spectrum of ideologies. This rule has either been of the ‘one party state’ type or military. In all its guises it has severely limited academic freedom in Africa through outright elimination of certain themes or views from national intellectual life, by forcing people into exile, by relegating intellectuals to a realm of numbing silences, by sowing fear through ceaseless intimidation and physical elimination of individuals. Closure of universities has become a regular feature of the African educational landscape.
