The harassment and intimidation of intellectuals, the closure of universities, the banning of academic staff and student unions and the arrest of journalists are almost daily occurrences in Nigeria. Within the academic community itself, certain academics indulge in practices that violate the academic freedom of female lecturers and students, junior lecturers and union officials. The report goes beyond the simple listing of violations of academic freedom in individual countries. Instead it consists of articles that place the state of academic freedom in the selected countries in the broader context of domestic and global socio-political processes. The authors highlight not only difficulties that intellectuals, particularly academics, encounter but also their struggle for freedom and their determination to continue to read and interpret the world from an African perspective, and to produce knowledge in and about Africa.
Freedom is indivisible but the sites of struggle for freedom are many and varied.
The report shows that the struggle for academic and intellectual freedom is one more site for the struggle for democratization, the respect for human rights and the rule of law in Africa.