ESG
Brace For Impact
By Soyinka Witness
I don’ t quite know how this article will land. Depending on the audience, it may ruffle feathers, or it may be received as a thoughtful, even insightful, piece. Whatever the case- brace for impact.
Kwa usalama wako na abiria wenzako, tunawaomba mtulie vitini. For your safety and that of your fellow passengers, please remain seated. Because what follows is a flight through what in my years of work, I have learnt that is perceived as African culture vs what I think should be the case: sometimes smooth, sometimes turbulent, always alive with crosswinds of history, humor, and humanity.
Two Lessons from the African Runway
In my years of work across markets from Senegal to Kenya, Nigeria to Zimbabwe, two enduring lessons have been etched into my logbook.
First, Africa is not monolithic. To speak of“ African culture” as though it were a single, unbroken story is a gross simplification. The continent is a tapestry- vivid, contradictory, and infinitely nuanced.
That is not to say one does not encounter familiar patterns across the flight path. Indeed, there are quirks that feel almost universal. Two common scenarios I have encountered across Africa:
The Counterbook Phenomenon. I have lost count of the number of times I have seen security guards holding those thick-paged counterbooks, apparently standard issue from Lagos to Nairobi to Harare to Accra. Their ubiquity borders on magical. One wonders why stationery firms have never seized upon the opportunity for a pan-African campaign:“ Counterbooks- Keeping Africa Safe Since Forever.” And here’ s the irony: many African communities once prayed near mountains and sacred trees, believing the spirit of God dwelt there. These counterbooks, after all, are made of trees. Perhaps we are, quite literally, going back to our roots.
Proverbs as Social Currency. Equally, there is our continental fondness for proverbs. Someone will drop one into conversation, not necessarily because it is germane, but because it lends authority. I recall a project kick-off meeting in Nigeria where, without warning, a client leaned forward and intoned:“ The day a mosquito lands on your testicles is the day you learn to deal with things peacefully.”
The room froze. This was not a project concerning bed nets, malaria, or indeed urology. Yet the proverb had landed hard( pun intended)- and with it the aura of unexpected wisdom.
P. S.- if you read that proverb in a Nigerian accent, and we are not yet friends, we should be.
Impact in Africa is earned through cultural resonance. To brace for impact, then, is not to brace for disaster. It is to brace for reality- the reality that in Africa, culture is not soft, not secondary, not symbolic. It is the runway on which every other ambition must safely land.
These are not trivial curiosities. They reveal something fundamental: African culture is carried in humour, storytelling, idiom, and shared practice- not in colonial-era labels.
Second, there is no such thing as Anglophone or Francophone culture. Colonial languages and systems have undoubtedly influenced administration, education, and certain habits. But they are not culture. They are overlays. They explain why one might find French legal codes in Dakar or English curricula in Nairobi, but they do not explain how families deliberate, how elders arbitrate, or how communities remember.
Rethinking African Culture- Beyond Borders
It is tempting- especially for those outside the continent- to imagine“ African culture” as something that maps neatly onto the modern political atlas: Ghana versus Côte d’ Ivoire, Anglophone versus Francophone, North versus Sub- Saharan. I once worked with a client who approached West Africa exactly this way, eager to divide insights along colonial fault lines.
But here’ s the problem: those borders are not cultural markers; they are artefacts of colonial treaties, imposed with little regard for kingdoms, clans, languages, and trade corridors that had long defined the region. To start from the map is to start from the wrong lens. If you want to understand African culture, you must begin not with flags but with the deeper tapestries of history and influence.
I remember pointing this out in that client meeting. The reaction was telling: a sudden shift in the room, unease at being corrected, even a flicker of annoyance. And yet, that very discomfort revealed the blind spot. Too often, Africa is expected to be explained to Africans
104 MAL68 / 24 ISSUE