Just before sunrise in Kigali, 32-year-old economic modeler Thabo Mokoena stood on the rooftop of his apartment building, watching the amber glow spread across the hills. His laptop, always a companion, was open beside him, running simulations on debt sustainability and regional trade flows.
Only a few years earlier, he had been one of the many young Africans studying abroad, convinced that the continent offered too little room for ambition. But something shifted. Perhaps it was the velocity of Kigali’s transformation, or the soft insistence of a continent refusing the limitations once placed upon it. He often remembered his father’s words, spoken the day he boarded a plane to London: “Do not let the world teach you to doubt the genius you were born into.”
- The Longevity Revolution: Africa’s Ancient Foods vs. Modern Diseases
- Why Education, Skill, and Vision Remain the Blueprint for Africa’s Young Workforce
Today, Thabo works on modelling frameworks being used by several African finance ministries to strengthen AfCFTA implementation and anticipate currency shocks. He is one of thousands of young professionals quietly shaping Africa’s policy, technology, finance, climate, and cultural landscapes. His journey reflects a much bigger story, a movement arriving not with fanfare but with competence, conviction, and clarity. A New African Intelligentsia has emerged, and they are not merely participating in the continent’s next chapter; they are writing it.
From Post-Colonial Elite to Post-Independence Architects
Africa’s earlier intelligentsia carried the weight of liberation. They were the first post-colonial thinkers, charismatic, courageous, often tragic, born into a world that demanded resistance before it permitted imagination. They negotiated with colonial administrators, fought authoritarian regimes, and attempted to build democratic institutions under the pressure of structural adjustment and Cold War geopolitics. Many of their brightest voices were exiled, silenced, or absorbed into systems they once opposed.
The new intelligentsia comes from a different world. They were raised during the mobile-money revolution, the rapid spread of multiparty democracy, and the rise of globalised African cities. They consumed the Arab Spring in real time on Twitter. They witnessed the Ebola response evolve from chaos to competence. They saw Nairobi become a fintech capital, Lagos a creative powerhouse, and Rwanda expand its GDP per capita eightfold within one generation. For them, progress is neither theoretical nor exceptional, it is normal. Where their predecessors inherited the anxiety of survival, this generation has inherited the audacity of acceleration.
Seated at the Commanding Heights of 2025
Across the continent, a quiet but unmistakable shift in authority is visible. Africa’s commanding heights, the spaces where capital, policy, ideas, and influence converge, are increasingly led by a cohort of thinkers between the ages of 28 and 45.
In finance and technology, founders like Ham Serunjogi and Olugbenga Agboola redefined what African unicorns could be, while scientists like Abasi Ene-Obong proved that Africa’s biotech future need not be outsourced. Economists and central bankers such as Nigeria’s Olayemi Cardoso and Kenya’s Kamau Thugge speak the language of global financial diplomacy while fiercely guarding domestic priorities.
In climate and energy, African leaders now shape global conversations. Damilola Ogunbiyi influences global energy policy from her UN post, while African green-bond teams demonstrate that the continent can be a climate financier, not simply a climate victim. In governance, jurists like Fatou Bensouda and trade diplomats like Wamkele Mene transform African legal and trade architecture with a sophistication that commands global respect.
In the world of storytelling, African writers and filmmakers no longer wait for Western approval. Their narratives, platforms, and media ecosystems, from Stears to The Continent, shape how Africa sees itself and how the world must now learn to see Africa.
These professionals are not anomalies. They are symptoms of a generational shift.
Pragmatic, Competent, and Quietly Relentless
If this cohort could be defined by a single idea, it would be pragmatic ambition. They do not obsess over ideological slogans; they care about outputs. Their pan-Africanism is practical and measurable. The AfCFTA is not a political ideal to them but an operational mandate. The Lagos–Abidjan corridor is not an aspirational integration dream but a logistics pipeline requiring efficient customs systems, interoperable payment rails, and investor alignment. They speak in methods, not manifestos.
What distinguishes them most is radical competence. They benchmark against Singapore, Vietnam, and Estonia, not abstract “African standards.” They refuse the culture of lowered expectations. Engineers in Kigali build blood-delivery drones. Lagos-based developers design carbon-capture tech that attracts Middle Eastern licensing deals. Policy teams in Accra and Nairobi model currency reforms that international lenders quietly adopt.
Their anger, because they are angry, is not chaotic. It is controlled, precise, and strategic. They are furious at stolen wealth, at climate injustice, at patronage politics, at Northern institutions that pretend to speak for Africans while ignoring African research. But they channel that fury into boardrooms, courtrooms, labs, and negotiation tables. Their rebellion is competence. Their protest is excellence.
A New Architecture of Institutions
Behind the rise of this intelligentsia lies a new ecosystem of African institutions intentionally designed to produce world-class thinkers. The African Leadership University trains graduates to think across systems rather than within silos; Ashesi University instills ethics and design thinking into every discipline; the African School of Economics is building rigorous, Africa-centered social science scholarship; and universities such as Botswana International University of Science & Technology bring STEM research back to African soil.
Policy think tanks, from IEA Ghana to Nigeria’s NESG, now out-research several global institutions on African economic questions. Meanwhile, diaspora return programmes in Ghana, Rwanda, and Kenya have turned brain drain into brain gain. Between 2019 and 2024, Africa saw a 25% rise in returning high-skilled professionals, many of whom now anchor critical sectors across the continent.
This institutional evolution is what makes the rise of the new intelligentsia sustainable. It is no longer dependent on individual brilliance; it is becoming systemic.
The Unspoken 2035 Project
In private conversations, in Nairobi co-working lofts, in Cape Town beach houses, in Addis Ababa diplomatic circles, in WhatsApp groups made up of continent-makers, there is a shared vision of Africa in 2035. It is rarely stated publicly, but deeply believed: a continent with three of the world’s ten fastest-growing economies; a fully implemented AfCFTA creating the planet’s largest integrated market; five African cities ranked among the world’s top 50 financial centres; sovereign wealth funds that can compete with Singapore and Norway; one or more permanent African seats on a reformed UN Security Council; and a decisive African voice in global climate finance.
They are not waiting for permission to build this future. They are already rehearsing it.
A Fragile Decade, But Not a Defeated One
The old order remains powerful. Gerontocratic presidents, entrenched elites, and nervous foreign governments still wield armies, energy resources, central bank influence, and political patronage. They shut down the internet when threatened, manipulate constitutions, and deploy the familiar tools of judicial captures, arrests, and targeted intimidation.
But something is different about this moment. For the first time since 1960, the most brilliant Africans are neither in exile nor imprisoned. They are seated at the decision-making tables. They are the advisors writing the memos. They are the analysts running the numbers. They are the regulators designing the frameworks. They are the storytellers shaping public consciousness. They are not outside the system, they are quietly infiltrating and re-engineering it.
This is not a story about Africa’s potential. It is a story about Africa’s takeover.
A Call to Action: Betting on the Minds That Will Shape the Century
If Africa is to complete this transformation, it must bet on its thinkers with the same ferocity that the world bets on its natural resources. Governments must invest in research, protect academic freedom, and build robust digital infrastructure. The private sector must trust African talent not only to execute but to lead. Philanthropic institutions must shift from donor-driven agendas to African-led visions. And everyday citizens must insist that leadership be measured not by age or charisma, but by competence and integrity.
The new intelligentsia has already begun the work. The question is whether the continent’s institutions, leadership, and citizens will rise to meet them.
Conclusion: The Continent Will Never Be Underestimated Again
As the sun rose over Kigali, Thabo closed his laptop, satisfied with the models he would present to regional policymakers later that day. His work, like that of thousands across Africa, is reshaping how the world must now understand the continent. These are not the children of dependency or the heirs of disappointment. They are the children of structural adjustment who have become the architects of structural transformation.
A new African intelligentsia is here, focused, fearless, competent, and unbought. They are coding the continent’s software, negotiating its treaties, financing its transitions, rewriting its narratives, and defining its place in the world.
Welcome to the age of the New African Intelligentsia. Africa will never be underestimated again.