Okebukola Unveils First African Scholarly Referencing Style

A former executive secretary of National Universities Commission (NUC) and professor emeritus Peter Okebukola, will launch the African Scholarly Referencing Style (ASRS), the first referencing style conceived, developed and owned by Africa.

The unveiling will put Africa on a groundbreaking intellectual milestone with Okebukola as one of the continent’s most decorated higher education reformers.

ASRS is designed to fill a major gap in global scholarship. Despite Africa’s deep intellectual heritage and thousands of universities, none of the world’s 29 major referencing styles originates from Africa.

Checks revealed that existing systems such as APA, MLA, Chicago, Vancouver, Harvard and IEEE are entirely Western in origin and structure.

Professor Olusola Oyewole, the secretary-general of the Association of African Universities (AAU) headquartered in Accra, Ghana, said “The proposal by Professor Peter Okebukola who is AAU’s Ambassador for West Africa, is for the development of an African-origin referencing system.

According to him, this represents a groundbreaking and highly visionary contribution to Africa’s intellectual sovereignty.

“Professor Okebukola’s initiative rightly responds to longstanding concerns around epistemic colonialism, the marginalisation of African epistemologies, and the under-recognition of African scholarly traditions in global citation frameworks.”

Speaking to newsmen in Abuja, Okebukola stated that “ASRS responds to a longstanding gap in global academic practice. Although Africa has produced centuries of scholarship and hosts thousands of universities, none of the twenty-nine internationally recognised referencing styles currently in use originates from the continent.

Systems such as APA, MLA, Chicago, Vancouver, Harvard, and IEEE were all created outside Africa and reflect Western epistemological traditions. ASRS offers Africa an unprecedented opportunity to assert its scholarly identity and intellectual sovereignty.

Okebukola confirmed that the initiative has already secured strong continental and international endorsement.

The Association of African Universities has formally expressed its support and willingness to host its development and deployment while Senior UNESCO officials and leaders of Academies in Africa have commended the initiative as timely, transformative and aligned with global efforts to diversify knowledge systems.

In addition, more than over 500 leading scholars from universities and research institutions both within and outside Africa have endorsed ASRS, underscoring its relevance and global credibility.

Among the over 500 scholars who expressed delight at the emergence of ASRS as proposed by Okebukola are Professor Jibrila D. Amin, former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Maiduguri; Professor Eyitope Ogunbodede, former Vice-Chancellor of the Obafemi Awolowo University; Professor Sola Akinrinade, former Vice-Chancellor of Osun State University and past President of the Nigerian Academy of Letters among others.

The ASRS proposal presents a referencing style grounded in Africa’s intellectual traditions while remaining fully compatible with global academic standards. It introduces a system that is approximately ninety-five percent aligned with existing citation formats, ensuring ease of adoption, while the remaining five percent introduces African-centred innovations.

According to Okebukola, these innovations include structured and respectful ways of citing oral knowledge, traditional custodians of wisdom, multilingual sources, folklore, community authorship, and indigenous knowledge systems. The style also provides frameworks for citing African grey literature, institutional documents, local research reports and works published in African languages.

Speaking further, Okebukola noted that ASRS offers ten specialised variants adapted from major global styles, including those inspired by APA, MLA, Chicago, Harvard, AMA, Vancouver, Turabian, IEEE, ACS and Bluebook. Each variant introduces subtle yet meaningful African perspectives while preserving the familiar structures that scholars and publishers around the world already use.

Regarding its implementation, Okebukola stated that “the implementation strategy for ASRS is ambitious and pan-African in scope. It includes a ten-year roll-out that begins with the development of the style manual, training materials and citation software tools, followed by piloting across selected African universities and journals.

Subsequent years will see expansion across hundreds of institutions and integration into thesis guidelines, journal editorial policies and university presses.

The plan culminates in the establishment of ASRS as the standard referencing system across Africa and its recognition by global indexing services such as Scopus and Web of Science. This phased implementation ensures that ASRS is not only adopted but sustained across generations of scholars.”

Okebukola emphasised that “ASRS is much more than a new citation format. It is a statement of Africa’s intellectual independence and a bold declaration that the continent is ready not only to produce knowledge but to determine the frameworks through which knowledge is organised, validated and transmitted.

“It strengthens the visibility of African scholarship, enhances the discoverability of African sources, and fosters a collective scholarly identity across the continent’s diverse linguistic and cultural regions.”