There is this twin concept of danran and gbafe in the rich oral tradition of Oyo monarchy that is told to successive kings, right from the days of the Old Oyo Empire. They are two very complex phenomena famous in the Old Oyo Empire and which undergirded its governance and administration. The concepts were the cement that moulded the success of the famous separation of powers between the Alaafin and the Oyomesi (7 hereditary kingmakers). As you are well aware, Oyo Empire was Africa’s reply to Eurocentric analysts who claim that democracy as a system of government was a white…

Scientific knowledge and technological innovation, as Yuval Noah Harari emphasizes in his book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, are among the key drivers of economic progress. Yet there is remarkably little reflection taking place about the state of science today, despite significant challenges, rooted in globalization, the digitization of knowledge, and the growing number of scientists. At first glance, all of these seem to be positive trends. Globalization connects scientists worldwide, enabling them to avoid duplication and facilitating the development of universal standards and best practices. The creation of digital databases allows for systematic mining of scientific output and…