Akom Stephan Ngam
What happens when a continent built on 'We' is forced to live by technology built for 'I'?In the same compound in Bamenda where elders once gathered under the kola tree to share wisdom and resolve disputes through dialogue, children now sit side by side, silent, each absorbed in a separate digital universe. The community is physically together, yet ethically and emotionally apart. This powerful image captures the defining crisis of contemporary Africa.African societies today are grappling with a profound and silent emergency: the systematic degradation of socio-cultural values under the relentless pressure of rapid technological advancement. We have embraced the smartphone, the algorithm, and artificial intelligence with enthusiasm, but have we asked what these tools are doing to our soul?In this landmark, deeply philosophical and urgently relevant dissertation, Akom Stephan Ngam provides the most compelling analysis yet of this crisis in the Cameroonian context.At the center of this study is a critical engagement with the work of Beatrice Okyere-Manu, one of Africa’s most brilliant ethical thinkers. Okyere-Manu has issued a warning that Africa cannot afford to ignore: Technology is never neutral. The digital tools flooding our markets - Facebook, TikTok, WhatsApp, AI systems - were conceived, designed, and coded within a Western philosophical paradigm that glorifies radical individualism, personal autonomy, and relentless competition. When these tools are adopted uncritically in African societies whose moral DNA is woven from Ubuntu, communal solidarity, interdependence, and relational personhood, a violent clash of values is inevitable.
