Senior research fellow at the Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship and professor of international relations, Professor Adekeye Adebajo, sat down with journalist Thembekile Mrototo from SABC News' programme Unwrap Africa to discuss one of his recent publications, "The Splendid Tapestry of African Life: Essays on a Resilient Continent, Its Diaspora, and the World. The book was also reviewed in the Mail & Guardian on 29 May 2025. 

In the episode of Unwrap Africa, which aired on 1 June 2025, Professor Adebajo reflects on the personal and professional expereiences that impacted the essays and the publication of the book. While Nigeria and South Africa are centrally featured in the essays, the book broadly encompases perspective on various Africa countries, institutions, regional bodies and personalities and extends to the African diaspora in the America's, Caribbean and Europe. With an extensive focus on politics, history, culture and the African intellectual tradition, Professor Adebajo expressed his intention to "capture the zeitgeist [and] the spirit of age" to weave together a narrative on the complexities of Africa's history, its ongoing challenges, its numerous success and its unrealised potential. Professor Adebajo further highlighted the imperative of "the continent telling and reclaiming its own story". While Africa is often excluded and disparaged in global politics and by powerful global powers, he reiterated the importance of building "strong countries and strong regional organisations like the African Union, ECOWAS [and] SADC" alongside efforts to stregthen African instituions "to be able to both develop and achieve strong regional intergration" to combat negative sterotypes and enhance the visibility of the continent's successes that are often overshadowed by the enduring socio-economic and political issues. 

The full episode is available on the SABC News YouTube Channel. Professor Adebajo's interview is featured at 11:40. 

On 29 May 2025, the Mail & Guardian published a review of "The Splendid Tapestry of African Life", authored by Ahmet Sait Akay. The review, titled "Writing Against the Grain: Adekeye Adebajo's Africa" is a positive assessment of Professor Adebajo's collection of essays, praising the balanced perspective provided in the book that provides a strategic and critical analysis of political and socio-economic issues within Africa while providing an optimisic and venerative view on the continent's success and impact of the political, cultural and intellectural icons that have emerged from Africa. 

He aptly challenges the prevailing eurocentric and discursive representations of Africa foregrounded in the mainstream media, as well as the Western military and political interventions across the continent. 

"The Splendid Tapestry of African Life: Essays on a Resilient Continent, Its Diaspora, and the World" is a collection of 145 essays penned over three decades by Professor Adekeye Adebajo. The essasy reflect on the history, regional integration, politics, military rule, foreign policy, international relations, geo-politics, culture, film, sports, and travel of Africa and its diaspora. The book encapsulates Pan-African efforts to overcome a history of exploitation, discrimination and oppression to proclaim a renewed narrative of African histories, cultures and identitied. The book can be purchased from Jacana Media, or at any major literature retailers.