Focusing on African ways of knowing and expertise is necessary to disrupt the typical frameworks and narratives that pose Africa as the recipient of technologies from the West. Such frameworks have led many to even posit that any evidence of advanced technologies in Africa must have come from outside. Such biases become entrenched and require intentional effort to uproot. 

Ben Okri's focus on the role of storytelling and narrative in various forms of knowing and human imagination, including science and technology, helps push back against simplistic notions of scientific knowledge as "objective fact" that is somehow insulated from the sociopolitical or cultural realm. 

In my history classroom, such content can enrich our study by allowing us to focus on scientific knowledge and the development of technology in African societies in a way that is relevant to the present day, not simply regarding such information as historical curiosities.