I studied architectural design in Cameroon and every architect they taught me was European. Every movement, every theory, every name on the required reading list. The Great Mosque of Djenné, the Moorish arch, Great Zimbabwe never appeared on any syllabus.
Now I am studying management and every economist is Western. George Ayittey, a Ghanaian who built an entire economic framework for African development, has never appeared in a single lecture. Dambisa Moyo, a Zambian economist who argued that Western aid is destroying African economies, same.
Two disciplines. Not one African name in the required reading.
This is not only an architecture problem. It is medicine, law, economics, history. Every field is taught through a foreign lens and when a student tries to think beyond it they are disciplined for it.
We are not behind because we lack knowledge. We are behind because we were taught that ours does not count.