The coronavirus outbreak significantly disrupted human life, including education, where in-person classes were cancelled, with online-only instruction the only feasible option. The crisis offered previously disadvantaged communities opportunities to leap into a new digital trajectory. The study aimed to analyse higher education institutions' responses (HEI) in Africa during COVID-19 and evaluate their navigation into remote-based learning alternatives through a bibliometric and visualisation analysis. We used 238 articles published in the Scopus database between 2020 and 2022. VOSviewer extracted bibliometric indicators showing network diagrams and heat maps for keywords, affiliated institutions, and countries. African-based scholars contributed almost two-thirds of the publications. South Africa contributed almost half of the publications, with Egypt, Nigeria, and Ghana making other notable contributions. South Africa contributed to seven of the top ten leading universities in publications. Most African students lost learning time and failed to write examinations, thus disrupting semesters. The most common strategies employed were online learning and emergency remote learning. African educational institutions faced barriers such as a lack of access to electricity, the Internet, technological devices, technology-driven pedagogies, and deficient curricula. Across Africa, the crisis widened the digital divide and exposed inherent inadequacies and inequalities. These findings offer reflection points for academics, practitioners, and governments and advocate for policy reviews to support online learning. The study proposes a research agenda for African HEIs that incorporates artificial intelligence.