**8. Conclusion and recommendations**

Conclusively, the chapter wrestled with the issues pertaining to reclaiming and defending Afro-centered knowledge through the application of Afrocentric leadership in higher education. Afrocentric leadership was used as a framework to champion African scholarship based on intersectionality of knowledge systems for the development of the African continent and its people. Discourses on African scholarship and decolonized African university were infused into the debate to repurpose knowledge and knowledge production for the development of Africa. Considering that African higher education lacks behind on issues of integrative transformation with issues of access, leadership, equality, equity, and staffing, collaborative leadership with other progressively universities within the continent and abroad is necessary.

Internationalization of higher education cannot be repudiated, hence African universities to advance African and decolonized knowledge, leaders in higher education should thrive to develop exchange academic programmes with their counterparts across the globe. Given the throes of Africa socioeconomic underdevelopment, higher education leadership, universities included owes to be developmental. The application of Afrocentric leadership as deliberated in this chapter could revitalize higher education based on African values, principles, and philosophies for the development of the African continent. In conclusion, Africa development should be centered on African scholarship and intellectuals radically pursuing Afrocentric culture, history, and leadership.

For African higher education to reclaim rigor in developing competitive scholarship and to be counted as agents of knowledge producers, academic leaders should build a strategic foundation based on open dialog pertaining to both challenges and alternative solution to challenges facing higher education sector. Such leadership should avoid the rebellious rhetoric of transformation, decolonized knowledge, and university without robust engagement with stakeholders. Prevailing socioeconomic
