Ibrahim Traore is one of the most popular leaders in Africa. In a continent led by leaders who are, for the most part, long on tooth, it’s no surprise that Traore has, in a relatively short time, become so popular. While there is clear evidence of a determined young leader with a fresh approach, there are also worrying signs of blind belief amongst many of his followers. For instance, there is evidence of false claims of coup d’état, that even the Burkinabe government information seems to dispel.
In many ways, the story of Traore shows how easily emotion outruns evidence.
Africa’s youth are the world’s largest rising generation — more than 400 million under 25. That scale is either our superpower or our slow crisis, depending on how we think. The continent is awash with information, influence, and ideology, but without critical reasoning, noise becomes manipulation.
Critical thinking is how we move from reacting to shaping.
Low levels of critical thinking among youth stem from systems that reward compliance over curiosity and survival over reflection. Globally, rote-based education, digital distraction due to deluge of information on social media further exacerbate this issue. Social media collapses attention spans, privileging emotion over evidence. Furthermore, the polarised discourse that often characterises social media has weakened the habit of questioning.
In Africa, these challenges are compounded by under-resourced schools, cultural deference to authority, economic precarity, and limited access to trustworthy information. Together, these forces produce bright, adaptive young people who can improvise, but rarely feel empowered to interrogate systems or evidence. Reversing this requires shifting education, culture, and media from memorisation to reasoning — making inquiry, not obedience, the measure of intelligence.
The next revolution won’t be military or political — it will be cognitive.
Colonialism controlled resources; postcolonial dysfunction controls narratives.
Algorithms now amplify propaganda, religious extremism, scams, and performative populism. The young person who can pause, question, analyse, and connect dots will own the future.
Critical thinking turns data into insight and emotion into judgment — the currency of leadership in a continent rewriting itself. Importantly, these skills will also be important in navigating the AI dominated world that beckons.
Africa has no shortage of potential — many bright young leaders, artists, coders, farmers, engineers (although it could do with more of these.)
What’s missing is the collective ability to interrogate systems:
Critical thinkers don’t just “fit into” jobs — they redesign how those jobs serve people.
When citizens can’t tell rhetoric from reasoning, politics becomes theatre.
Critical thinking inoculates societies against manipulation — whether by leaders, influencers, or foreign powers.
It teaches youth to demand evidence, fairness, and accountability — the basic tools of freedom.
Every African invention that mattered — from M-Pesa to Nollywood to solar micro-grids — came from questioning norms. Critical thinkers don’t wait for permission; they experiment intelligently.
That mindset is the difference between survival and sovereignty. With exponential growth of AI technologies, investing in the critical thinking skills of young people will also pay dividends because AI doesn’t level the playing field; it amplifies whoever knows how to ask good questions.
Degrees don’t guarantee development. The real test of education is not memorisation, but interpretation — can you link what you know to what your community needs? Critical thinking turns learning into leadership.
The rest of the world often bets on Africa’s resources or numbers. The real bet should be on its reasoning capacity.
Imagine 200 million youth who can deconstruct propaganda, evaluate policy, build ethical enterprises, and design with context — that’s not a demographic dividend; that’s civilisational leverage.
Critical thinking is not an academic skill; it’s a liberation technology.It’s how Africa stops being a case study and starts being a strategy.
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