So I'm not sure fully understand what you are trying to ask but I can comment on what I'll refer to as traditional authority, as "tribal governments" are often referred to poli sci literature, and how the colonial era changed them.

First things first, similar to what you stated earlier, this is going to be very broad and doesn't apply everywhere. Africa is far too diverse. Also, I'm excluding North Africa from the conversation as I know little about the region.

ANYWAYS. Traditional authority never went away, even in the colonial era. Large cities and the surrounding areas might be directly administered by the colonial government but often times in the rural parts of Africa traditional authorities "ruled." I use quotation marks because ruled somewhat implies a position of absolute authority which is usually not the case. Traditional authority, as the name sort of implies, was based off of tradition. There were no written texts or documents that served as the basis of how society is organized like in Europe. Personally, I think in some ways this allowed for a more democratic society or least a more community based society. How can one person remember all of a societies norms, expectations, laws, etc.? They can't. Its too much. So, well, it takes a village as they say (or at least a group of people) to run things.

Purposely allowing traditional authorities to run the rural parts of a colony allowed countries like France to colonize a huge portion of the continent with very few colonial officials and settlers (at least very few relative to other French holdings like Algeria or Vietnam). It also helped them from a PR perspective. They could argue most of the African subjects were actually ruled by Africans. The system is good for them! But, one thing every European country wanted of their colony was efficiency. An inefficient colony loses money. So let's say you are a colonial administrator and you need to do some road repairs in a given area. You don't want to talk to the "board of elders" as it were in every village to round up some laborers. You'd rather just talk to a chief. Even better if the region had a regional chief who could just tell the village chiefs what to do. So guess what, even if the people of that region didn't traditionally have what they would refer to as a chief, boom, now they do. And even if they did what a position somewhat similar to what we think of as chief its possible that their powers did not extend to ordering village members to work for free a few days week on the colonial road. Well, now they do because France said so. Africans may have resisted attempts by Europeans to reorganize their society but they didn't really have a choice. One, resisting their overall authority risks a military retaliation. Two, to get any benefits from the new colonial government, manufactured goods, schools, healthcare, etc., they had to play by the rules of the colonial government. The change was going to happen whether they got the stick or the carrot. Might as well just get the carrot.

I'll also point out not only did Europeans give more power to chiefs than was normal (and in other cases just straight up invented them) they almost always ensured the chiefs were men. I don't want to give off the impression that pre-colonization Africans were noble savages. Like most societies on Earth men were in a dominate position relative to women. But there is a lot evidence that women had a large say in how society functioned. I would say probably a larger role than their European counterparts (Somebody correct me if I'm wrong). When Europe began setting up their colonial systems across Africa they brought with them their ideas on gender norms.

Wrapping this up, I'm not sure which country you are referring to as revitalizing their past but many would argue that this system is still being used widely across Africa. In major cities the central government rules through various organizations of the state which are very similar to what we see in states elsewhere in the world. But in the rural areas traditional authority is what organizes life.

Books I recommend on the subject: Catherine Boone's Property and Political Order in Africa. It deals more with land rights and how the state or traditional authorities settle disputes but still is interesting. Mahmood Mamdani's Citizen and Subject. It is a bear of book but it deals directly with how the state (or colonial govt) controls the population in both urban and rural Africa and discusses European influences on traditional authority. Finally, Kate Baldwin's The Paradox of Traditional Chiefs in Democratic Africa. This one is about how can elected leaders work with traditional leaders (unelected leaders) to influence/provide services to the rural population.