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During a state visit by H.E John Dramani Mahamma to Zambia ahead of a Ghana-Zambia Visa Free Treaty, social media erupted in a viral banter between netizens of Zambia and Ghana. The banter emanated from light-hearted comments about the president’s traditional attire, which the Zambians confused for a blouse. Days later, the Ghana-Zambian ‘blouse wars,’ in which netizens of both countries engaged in light-hearted but critical sartorial discourse crisscrossing traditional and formal wear into sartorial politics, decolonisation, cultural knowledge, leadership, and bilateral trade.
In the aftermath of the heated debate, a new model of cultural appreciation and bilateral relationship emerged between Ghana and Zambia offering potent lessons for leadership, diplomacy, and development policy. This event led by Mr Kenneth Appiah Nimo and Mr Farouk Ahmed PhD candidates of the African Leadership Centre, and Ms Sandra Adu - Founder of Black Girls in Design, advances the debate offline to explore how viral memes in the age of social media can foster distributed leadership, cultural diplomacy, and the development of creative economies in Africa.
About the speakers
Sandra Adu
Sandra Adu is a Digital Learning Lead, Communications Strategist, and Founder of Black Girls In Design (UK & Ghana) — a future-focused platform equipping Black women and girls with creative, digital, and leadership skills to shape the global creative economy. She is also Director of Lavrenti Agency, a research-led creative consultancy advising organisations on brand positioning, cultural intelligence, and future-readiness.
She has designed and delivered programmes in partnership with Canva, BrainStation, the Mayor of London, and cross-continental education partners, and has lectured in Media and Marketing at leading UK institutions including UAL. Her work explores soft power, Africa’s creative economy, and the future of work through a lens she calls Hybrid Futures — a framework bridging identity, technology, and global opportunity.
Kenneth Appiah Nimo
Kenneth is a PhD candidate researching the intersections of leadership, sustainability, and development in the work of West African fashion brands. He is the author of Africa in Fashion: Luxury, Craft and Textile heritage, a defining volume on African fashion and evolving material culture. He has published extensively on African fashion semiotics, indigenous craft heritage, and African designers as sustainability leaders in global fashion and local economic development.
Farouk Ahmed ENAPE III
Farouk is a PhD Candidate whose research focuses on contemporary youth protest movements and public order disruptions globally. The 21st century has witnessed a global surge in Youth-led Protest movements, often characterized by their decentralized structures, heavy reliance on digital communication, and rapid mobilization capabilities. He has written on the role of social media as a catalyst for change in developing countries, all of which interrogate the nuances of distributed leadership theory within contentious politics.
Farouk has a working knowledge of government processes and private-sector initiatives, with international exposure across sub-Saharan Africa (Nigeria & Ghana), East Africa (Uganda & Kenya), the USA, Europe, and the UK.
About King's Africa Week
Hosted by the African Leadership Centre and Africa research group, Africa Week is an annual celebration of research, education and outreach activities on Africa.
King's Africa Week brings together academics, researchers and students from across King's – and offers the opportunity to hear from African scholars, leaders and thinkers. It also showcases King's collaboration with African universities and partners.