African Solutions to African Problems” was coined by George Ayittey, Ghanaian political economist, author, and president of the Free Africa Foundation in Washington DC in 1993. He used the concept to galvanise Africans to reject the imposition of several unworkable foreign templates in Africa and urge African elites to take charge of the crisis on the continent. Thabiso Kotane was in conversation with Dr Adeoye O Akinola, Head of Research and Teaching, University of Johannesburg’s Institute for Pan-African Thought and Conversation.