By Ishmael Junourgh 
Prof.Emeritus Owusu (left) donating a few copies from the collection to Mr. Twum at the Institute of African Studies Library. Looking on is Professor Samuel Aniegye Ntewusu, Director of the Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana.
Maxwell Owusu’s donation strengthens African scholarship, renews Ghana–US academic ties
by Emmanuel Amo-Otu
ACCRA, GHANA — In a significant gesture aimed at strengthening African scholarship and restoring critical academic resources to Ghana’s higher education system, Distinguished Professor Emeritus Maxwell Owusu has donated approximately 6,000 academic books and journals to the Institute of African Studies (IAS) of the University of Ghana, Legon.
The collection, shipped from the United States to Ghana, covers a wide range of disciplines, including African Studies, history, political science, anthropology, sociology and economics, and is expected to significantly expand the Institute’s research and teaching resources.
The donation represents more than an academic contribution. It is also a powerful demonstration of the enduring intellectual links between Ghana and the global Africanist scholarly community, particularly the United States.
Professor Owusu, a distinguished Ghanaian scholar based in the United States, is Professor Emeritus in Anthropology and was formerly a Research Scientist at the Center for Research on Economic Development at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
His decision to return a substantial portion of his scholarly resources to Ghana comes at a time when universities across Africa continue to grapple with inadequate access to current and diverse academic literature.
A lifetime of scholarship returns to Ghana
Professor Owusu has maintained a longstanding relationship with the University of Ghana.
During the 1980–1981 academic year, he served as a Visiting Professor of Political Science at the University, where he taught Comparative Politics and team-taught Politics in Ghana with Professor K. A. Ninsin, now retired.
His academic journey spans some of the world’s leading institutions. He was educated at the London School of Economics and Political Science, Harvard University and the University of Chicago in the United States.
Beyond the classroom, Professor Owusu has contributed to Ghana’s constitutional and democratic development. He was a consulting member of the Constitutional Experts Committee chaired by Dr S. K. B. Asante, which prepared proposals that contributed to the drafting of Ghana’s 1992 Constitution.
A recipient of several prestigious pre-doctoral and post-doctoral research awards, including a United States Institute of Peace Grant, Professor Owusu has produced numerous scholarly works on African societies and cultures, democratisation and development.
Among his best-known works is the groundbreaking study, Uses and Abuses of Political Power: A Case Study of Continuity and Change in the Politics of Ghana, which has become an important contribution to scholarship on Ghanaian politics.
From Michigan to Legon
The shipment of the books from the United States to Ghana was made possible through a generous grant from the School of Literature, Science and the Arts (LSA) at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, to the Department of Anthropology.
The support was facilitated at the request of Professor Kelly Askew, Chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Michigan and a distinguished Africanist and former Director of the university’s Institute for International Studies.
The collaboration demonstrates how international academic networks can be mobilised to address resource gaps in African universities while strengthening intellectual exchanges between institutions on both sides of the Atlantic.
‘Advancing Inter-disciplinary African Studies’
At a ceremony organised to formally hand over the collection to the Institute of African Studies, Professor Owusu delivered a lecture titled:
“Advancing Inter-disciplinary African Studies in Ghana’s Higher Education through Resource Donations.”
In his remarks, Professor Owusu expressed the hope that the donation would contribute meaningfully to teaching, research and publication at the University of Ghana.
“I hope that this unprecedented personal gift to the Institute of African Studies, and the University of Ghana’s bibliographical resources helps improve the local and often unavailable wide-ranging academic publications sorely needed for students and faculty study, research and publication often missing on our campuses,” he said.
His remarks underscored a broader challenge confronting African higher education: the persistent difficulty students and researchers face in accessing specialised scholarly literature.
For students of African history, politics, culture, development and society, access to books and journals is not simply a matter of convenience. It can determine the quality of research, the depth of scholarship and the ability of African universities to produce knowledge about Africa from within the continent.
‘The reading culture needs to be revived’
Receiving the donation on behalf of the Institute, the Director of the Institute of African Studies, Professor Samuel Aniegye Ntewusu, expressed appreciation to Professor Owusu and all those who contributed to the cost of transporting the collection to Ghana.
Professor Ntewusu described the donation as timely, extraordinary, unprecedented, generous and thoughtful, stressing its importance to the Institute and the wider University of Ghana.
He also used the occasion to raise concerns about the state of Ghana’s educational system and the need to rebuild a strong culture of reading and scholarship.
“For a country whose education system some time in history was considered the best in tropical Africa, academic resources such as those donated by Professor Owusu play a very critical role,” Professor Ntewusu said.
He noted concerns about declining educational standards and added:
“The reading culture needs to be revived.”
Both Professors Owusu and Ntewusu agreed that books remain powerful instruments for transforming higher education and strengthening the intellectual capacity of Ghana’s next generation.
An international lesson in giving back
Professor Owusu’s donation carries significance beyond the physical books now joining the shelves of the Institute of African Studies.
It highlights the potential of the African academic diaspora to contribute to knowledge development on the continent and demonstrates how universities, scholars and institutions across international borders can work together to address structural challenges facing African higher education.
From the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor to the University of Ghana in Legon, the journey of these 6,000 books represents an intellectual bridge between Ghana and the United States.
At a time when African universities are seeking to strengthen research capacity and produce scholarship capable of influencing global debates, such initiatives offer a practical model: knowledge generated and accumulated within global academic networks can be returned to African institutions to empower students, researchers and future generations of scholars.
For the Institute of African Studies, the collection is therefore not merely a donation of books. It is an investment in African knowledge production, interdisciplinary scholarship and the future of higher education in Ghana.
Mudasiru Techi Dari