By Dwomoh-Doyen Benjamin
For centuries, the narrative of Africa has been shaped by outsiders—its vast history reduced to colonialism, its wealth mistaken for poverty, and its people often seen through a lens of struggle rather than triumph.
But beneath these layers lies a continent rich with untold legends and bold innovations, a land where kingdoms once stood as beacons of knowledge, power, and ingenuity.
Today, the challenge before us is not merely to remember these histories but to reconnect with them—to rediscover who we are through the journeys of our ancestors and forge a path that redefines how Africa is seen by the world, and most importantly, by Africans themselves.
By unearthing the brilliance of those who came before, Africans can dismantle tired stereotypes and build a world where the continent isn’t seen as “rising” but as remembering.
Original disruptor
Let’s start with a truth rarely taught: Africa was the original disruptor. Take the Kingdom of Aksum, straddling modern Ethiopia and Eritrea.
By the 4th century, Aksumites were carving 90-foot obelisks from single blocks of stone—no lasers, no cranes.
Their coins, stamped with kings’ faces, circulated from Rome to India. They didn’t wait for outsiders to define greatness; they built it.
Then there’s the Mali Empire. When Mansa Musa trekked to Mecca in 1324, his caravan didn’t just carry gold; it carried audacity and elegance. Historians say his spending spree in Cairo crashed gold prices for a decade.
But Mali’s real wealth was Timbuktu, where scholars penned thousands of manuscripts on law, astronomy, and medicine. These weren’t dusty scrolls—they were radical ideas.
A 15th-century Timbuktu text on malaria urged doctors to “listen to the patient’s breath, not just the gods,” challenging superstitions of the time.
In southern Africa, Great Zimbabwe’s stone walls—stacked without mortar—defied logic. For 300 years, this city thrived on trade and farming, its people growing sorghum in drought-prone land using methods agronomists still study.
Our ancestors were civilized Africans engineering miracles.
Stolen memory
Colonialism did not just steal the resources of Africa, it also stole it’s memory.
An old grandfather of blessed memory, once told me British schools taught him his history began in 1471, “when the Portuguese arrived.”
They never mentioned Queen Amanirenas (60 BC – 10 BC), a warrior queen of the Kingdom of Kush who led her people in resisting Roman invasion, or the Benin bronzes—masterpieces melted down for scrap, or life in Ile Ife and the migration of Africans to occupy unclaimed lands.
This erasure left scars.
In Kampala last year, I met a 19-year-old app developer who confessed he’d never heard of the Maasai’s ancient water-harvesting systems.
“They taught us about Roman aqueducts instead,” he shrugged.
When you’re told your grandparents were primitive, you start doubting your own genius.
But long before European contact, the Kingdom of Benin (modern-day Nigeria) built Earthworks of Benin, a network of walls and moats stretching over 16,000 kilometers—longer than the Great Wall of China.
These structures, constructed between 800–1400 CE, protected a thriving metropolis of artisans, astronomers, and lawmakers.
Benin’s brass plaques, looted by British colonizers in 1897, depict a society where women held judicial power and metallurgists pioneered lost-wax casting techniques.
Today, Nigerian architects like Olajumoke Adenowo draw inspiration from these designs, blending fractal patterns from Benin art into eco-friendly housing projects.
Then from Mogadishu to Sofala, Swahili city-states like Kilwa (Tanzania) and Gedi (Kenya) thrived on trade, diplomacy, and tech.
Kilwa’s Husuni Kubwa palace had flush toilets and piped water in the 13th century. Its coral stone architecture mirrors modern Lamu Island homes.
Today, Mombasa’s tech hubs borrow from Swahili cosmopolitanism: startups like Ushahidi (“testimony” in Swahili) use open-source software to map crises globally, just as Swahili merchants once mapped monsoon winds.
Sudan’s Kushite kings ruled Egypt for a century (744–656 BCE), building more pyramids than their northern neighbors.
Queen Amanirenas famously defeated Roman forces in 24 BCE, negotiating a treaty that spared her people from tribute.
Modern Sudanese activists cite her as a symbol of resistance during the 2019 revolution.
Details
Also, around 1500 BCE, the Nok people of central Nigeria crafted terracotta sculptures so detailed they revealed societal hierarchies, hairstyles, and even medical practices.
Their art influenced later Yoruba and Igbo cultures. Today, Lagos street artists like Laolu Senbanjo (“The Sacred Art of the Ori”) revive Nok motifs, using body paint and murals to protest political corruption.
Ghana’s Asante (1701–1957) governed through a constitutional monarchy where citizens could impeach corrupt leaders.
Their Kente cloth, woven with symbols of unity and justice, became a Pan-African emblem.
Today, Ghana’s “Year of Return” campaign, and the Africa Diaspora initiative’s Re-Africanization of the Diaspora programs—which reconnects diaspora Africans to their roots—use Kente patterns in their branding, a nod to ancestral governance.
This takes us far back to Libya’s deserts, where the Garamantes (500 BCE–700 CE) built a civilization atop underground waterways called foggaras.
These tunnels, some stretching 50 kilometers, turned the Sahara into a breadbasket.
Modern Saharan farmers, battling climate change, are reviving these methods to combat drought.
In Agadez, Niger, engineers use satellite imaging to map ancient foggaras—proof that Africa’s driest regions once fed millions.
Blended heritage
Africa’s hidden kingdoms were never isolated. The Bantu migrations (3000 BCE–500 CE), originating in Cameroon, spread ironworking and language across 20 countries.
Today, 350 million Africans speak Bantu languages. In Johannesburg, a Xhosa nurse and a Kikuyu engineer might debate politics, unaware their ancestors collaborated to forge the first iron tools.
The Zulu Kingdom’s 19th-century Mfecane migrations reshaped southern Africa, scattering Sotho, Ndebele, and Swazi communities.
Modern South Africa’s “Rainbow Nation” mirrors this blended heritage. When Cape Town chef Nthati Moshesh fuses Zulu umleqwa (free-range chicken) with Malay spices, she’s echoing a culinary unity forged by ancient migrations.
Even the enslaved carried kingdoms in their bones.
In Bahia, Brazil, Yoruba descendants of the Oyo Empire still crown Ayaba’s (queen mothers) to preserve Egungun masquerades.
Haitian Vodou priests invoke the Dahomey Kingdom’s warrior spirits during protests.
Today, Jamaica’s Accompong Maroons still celebrate their Akan heritage with annual festivals featuring Kete drumming and rituals honoring ancestors like Nanny.
In Suriname, the Ndyuka people use Akan day names—Kwasi (Sunday) or Afia (Friday)—preserving a calendar system from their ancestors.
Even the Trinidadian phrase “kai kai” (to chat) echoes the Akan kɔkɔ (to speak).
These diasporas are living proof: Africa’s kingdoms never fell—they multiplied.
When Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate speaks at U.N. summits, she invokes Buganda Kingdom’s 18th-century land stewardship laws.
When Somaliland’s Edna Adan Ismail builds maternity hospitals, she cites the medieval Adal Sultanate’s trailblazing midwives.
Exposing truth
These women aren’t just honoring history. they’re exposing a truth: Africa’s 54 nations are branches of the same family tree.
The Kingdom of Kongo (1390–1914) spanned Angola, Congo, and Gabon. Today, those nations share the Kikongo language and matrilineal kinship systems.
When Angolan rapper Ikonoklasta samples Kongo ntadi stone carvings in his beats, he’s telling his generation: “Our borders are fake. Our blood is real.”
Even climate change is being tackled with ancestral wisdom. In drought-ravaged Niger, farmers revived the zai technique—burying compost in pits to trap rainwater, a method their great-grandparents used.
Crop yields doubled. “White NGOs kept pushing expensive irrigation systems,” one farmer told me. “But our dirt holds answers.”
This isn’t just Africa’s fight. When Burkina Faso’s architect Diébédo Francis Kéré won the Pritzker Prize (architecture’s Nobel), he credited his grandfather’s mud huts for teaching him cooling design.
Now, his clay schools in Germany and Kenya are blueprints for sustainable living.
Or consider Masi Mamombe, a Zimbabwean activist who quotes Nehanda Nyakasikana—a spiritual leader hanged by colonizers in 1898—during protests.
“Nehanda didn’t die so we could beg for democracy,” Mamombe told me. “She died so we’d remember our power.”
‘Remember our power’
I’ll leave you with a moment I can’t forget. In a Nairobi slum, a group of teens hacked a broken projector to screen films about Mau Mau rebels.
Afterward, they debated how to code apps for land rights. One girl said, “If Wangu wa Makeri could lead the Kikuyu in 1900, why can’t I lead a tech team?”
For too long, Africa’s story has been written by those who sought to exploit its wealth while dismissing its wisdom. But that era is coming to an end.
The responsibility now falls upon Africans—especially the youth—to take ownership of their history and shape their future.
This means rejecting the notion that Africa is defined by its hardships and instead embracing the reality that it is a continent of creators, thinkers, and leaders.
How can this be done? Education is key. Schools across Africa must integrate indigenous knowledge systems, celebrating African history as a central narrative.
The arts must play a role too—films, literature, and music should draw inspiration from African legends, ensuring that future generations see themselves reflected in their own stories.
Businesses must invest in local talent, recognizing that the solutions to Africa’s challenges lie within its borders, not beyond them.
African leaders must also recognize that true sovereignty is not just political, it is cultural, intellectual, and economic.
Reclaiming Africa’s place on the global stage requires a shift from dependency to self-sufficiency, from foreign aid to strategic partnerships, and from borrowed systems to homegrown models that honor African values and traditions.
The world is watching, but more importantly, Africans are awakening.
The time has come to unveil the hidden kingdoms, to tell the untold stories, and to walk boldly into a future that honors the legacy of our ancestors while forging a new path for generations to come.
The author, Amb Dwomoh-Doyen Benjamin, is the Executive Director of African Chamber of Content Producers.
Disclaimer: The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect the opinions, viewpoints and editorial policies of TRT Afrika.
