Abstract

A brief overview of the work of the philosopher, theologian and economist Nimi Wariboko in terms of his themes and expressive strategies, the text vivified by correlative painting, sculpture and photographic art accompanied by commentary.

The essay explicates this body of work to the general public and specialist readers in a way that highlights the significance of its themes and the adventurousness of its expressive styles, communicating these through conceptual power, beauty of expressive force and the evocative potency of striking images.

                                                                                                 Contents

Thematic Spirals    

Image and commentary : Victor Ekpuk's Good Morning, Sunrise

Dynamic Expression   

Image and commentary: Olu Amoda's Corner Eye II  

Biophilia, Cosmopophilia, Cosmophila and Awephilia  

Image and commentary: Gasson Hall spires, Boston College   

 Image and commentary: Experiencing the Charismatic City

Intimate Advocacy    

     Living Thought Speaking to Live Human Experience 

Image and commentary: Busy Boston Street by Toyin Falola

Thematic Spirals

I find exciting and illuminating the efforts of philosopher, theologian and economist Nimi Wariboko in wrestling with ideas. One of the reasons I delight in these ventures is his pervasive development of various themes across several books and essays in the manner of a musical polyphony. This strategy emerges in particular books as well as defines a good part of his total body of work.  A unifying motif across Wariboko's texts is what may be described as a principle of transformation understood as constitutive of cosmic dynamism and of humanity's insertion within this transformative flow. Within this central theme, he develops others that reinforce and amplify it.

The Wikipedia essay on polyphony, a musical strategy in terms of which I describe Wariboko's weaving of his thematic universe, defines it this way:

In music, polyphony is one type of musical texture, where a texture is, generally speaking, the way that melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic aspects of a musical composition are combined to shape the overall sound and quality of the work. In particular, polyphony consists of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice, monophony, or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords, which is called homophony.

Each book by Wariboko demonstrates a central theme. That primary focus is at times accompanied by the introduction of other ideas that enrich the dominant orientation of the work without being an intimate part of it.  They may also be integral to the texts where they are presented as they help expand the fundamental thrust of those texts. In both cases, these ancillary conceptions achieve centrality in other books where they are fully developed.

A masterly depiction of Wariboko's relationship with nature, for example, framed in terms of an idyllic conception of scholarship facilitated by nature's beauty, is presented in the first paragraph of the acknowledgements pages of Nigerian Pentecostalism, but biophilia, identification with nature, as a central element of urban life, is discussed at some length, not in that work, but in The Charismatic City and the Public Resurgence of Religion: A Pentecostal Social Ethics of Cosmopolitan Urban Life.

A comprehensive grasp of Wariboko's  development of a principle of transformation as a central value of existence is reachable only by an understanding of the full scope of sources he marshals, across various texts,  in developing this as a universalist conception emerging from but reaching beyond Pentecostalism. This expansionist cultivation is built through his engagement with a number of inspirational sources. These include Paul Tillich's characterization of the Catholic and Protestant principles, an abstraction and universalization of historical institutions and movements, as described in Wariboko's The Pentecostal Principle: Ethical Methodology in New Spirit.

This idea is also a development from his personal experience as a Pentecostal, as evident in that book. From these and other inspirational matrices Wariboko constructs what he names the Pentecostal principle. A conception sharing the same qualities as this principle is developed in various books, such as The Principles of Excellence: A Framework for Social Ethics, without its being identified with the Pentecostal principle, which itself is described as emerging from but as transcending Pentecostalism, a movement that, at best, approximates the essence of what is a cosmic principle manifest in individual human life and in history. Thus, one may see Wariboko as building a conception of transformation as a central theme of his thought.

His construction of an idea of  creatively transformative potential in the intersection between the human being and the cosmos,  "the womblike chaos of the creative process", as Wariboko describes his own creativity in The Pentecostal Principle, is a cosmological conception also  evident in classical African thought, best known in terms of the Yoruba concept "ase", and, exemplified in Wariboko's oeuvre particularly by related ideations in Kalabari philosophy, which he discusses in detail in The Depth and Destiny of Work:: An African Theological Interpretation and Ethics and Time: Ethos of Temporal Orientation in Politics and Religion in the Niger Delta.

                                                                         
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"Good Morning, Sunrise (detail)
Victor Ekpuk, b. 1964, Nigeria
2001
Acrylic on canvas
Collection of the artist

Victor Ekpuk's art is dedicated to manipulating scripts and graphic symbols.

His drawings, paintings and digital images are abuzz with language. The artist

employs invented script as well as signs from Nigeria's ideographic system

nsibidi to create richly textured works. In this painting, the spiral is an nsibidi

sign meaning journey, but it also suggests the sun and eternity. Ekpuk's strong

palette of warm reds, deep blacks, cool blues and whites contributes to the

overall sense of animation".

Text and image source :  "Nsibidi" at the website Inscribing Meaning : Writing

and Graphic Systems in African Art  by the  Smithsonian National Museum of African Art .

The thematic landscape of Wariboko's work constitutes a spiral, an enfolding and unfolding of ideas in pursuit of infinity, alive with a keen sensitivity to the joy of living and its transformative potential, a creative force dramatized in the dialogue between the human being and nature in its vibrant colours.

Recurring across various books of Wariboko's is the understanding of Kalabari philosophy as providing a graphic cartography of relationships between human potential and its actualization within the framework of time and space, experienced in relation to an overarching divine plenitude of possibility, conceptions also imperative in the conception of the opening of ever unfolding creative possibility which Wariboko understands as the Pentecostal principle.

Using this polyphonic strategy, a unity of vision across multiple themes is developed. There emerges a unified complexity of perception demonstrating the simplicity and beauty of an eyeball, qualities enabled by an underlying, miraculous intricacy reaching deep into the evolutionary history of humanity that enabled such a wonderful organ of observation, qualities provoking questions about the implications of awareness and the developmental routes through which it has grown in its distinctive human form, enquiries that could be taken further in terms of investigations of how perception could further develop in the unfolding maturation of the human race, in a world in which the synthetic human, a combination of organic and inorganic forms, is described as a growing reality, as highlighted  by  scientific cosmologist  Martin Rees.

Consonant with this depiction of the body of knowledge built by Wariboko's work in terms of the intricate power of the primary human organ of perception, the eye, a conjunction evocative of the complex network of ideational roots related to this association, illuminating the intricacies of human development as a distinctive species,  navigating the cognitive terrain defined by Wariboko's polyphonic construction of themes, his enfolding and unfolding of ideations within dynamic networks, to adapt his self-description on his Amazon page, thus becomes a voyage of exploration in which new and previously discussed ideas emerge in spiral constellations.

The recurrent discovery of preceding ideas in a new light and new ideas presented in relation to previously elaborated conceptions is like J.R.R. Tolkien's evocation of the delights of adventurous walking in The Lord of the Rings, in which "round the corner there may wait/A new road or a secret gate", vistas delightfully opening into new themes in the context of recapitulation, in new perspectives, of themes encountered in other works.

The entire ideational ensemble takes on the form of a great river leading to a magnificent destination, a journey all the more sublime for having begun, for example, from a brief but profoundly evocative encounter with Wariboko's visualisation of the inspirational convergence of natural beauty and scholarship through the image of himself working in the voluptuous naturescape of his home in Massachusetts, as in the beginning of Nigerian Pentecostalism, an expedition taking one through his foundational, transformative worship experience with the people of the displaced Maroko community in Lagos, as described in The Pentecostal Principle and The Split God,  to engaging with loftily powerful ideas about creating beauty and the possibility of awe in urban planning in The Charismatic City  to seeking a principle that unifies all creative possibility in The Pentecostal Principle and The Depth and Destiny of Work, to reflecting on the role and potential of money and the global economic  mechanisms that sustain it in God and Money, the voyager constantly drinking of the sweet waters of the great river, as, from time to time, the enabling intelligence of that aquatic body  gestures to the effect that the river is flowing towards a sea, the sea of infinity, in the spirit of Isaac Newton, discoverer of the law of universal  gravitation and the laws of motion, co-creator of the mathematical field of calculus, a pioneer in optics, among other foundational achievements enabling modern science, one of, if not the greatest scientist in history,  describing  himself as like a child picking pebbles on the seashore,  and from time to time finding one shinier than the others, "while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me", a perspective, which,  incidentally, Wariboko resonates with in The Charismatic City:

Truth is ultimately about the existence of Absolute Infinity. All that a truth procedure … can do is to put us on a path between potential infinities and actual infinities as we approach the rationally unknowable, unconceivable Absolute Infinity.

                                                               
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Olu Amoda's amazing Corner Eye II made in 2016 of repurposed welded nails, 200-x-200-x-25-cm. Its inclusion in this essay is inspired by the sculpture's intricate meshing of thousands of metal fibres in reflecting the complexity of the human eye in the latter's ordering of thousands of nerves activating the effectiveness of the three concentric circles, the pupil, the iris and the cornea, that make up the eye.

The intricacy of the eye and the elaborate processes through which it interprets light signals are paralleled by the ideational systems constructed by thinkers through interaction with phenomena, demonstrating what they have learnt and the procedures through which they hope to gain more knowledge.

The dense mesh of wires constructed by Olu Amoda may be understood in relation to Wariboko's adventurous navigation amongst richly intricate webs of ideas, fashioning something unique out of diverse materials, as Amoda has created an image of a central organ of perception through refashioning nails, a parable of perception as physical and imaginative, the physical eye visualised in terms of an imaginative construct.

Wariboko is an imaginative thinker, a person who strives to construct knowledge through the integration and distillation of diverse bodies of thought filtered through a dense network of scholarly interlocutors, in the understanding of knowledge as generated through the creative activity of people rather than being a given of reality.

Amoda's constellation of perception hangs in space, wires running from centre to circumference and from circumference to centre in a demonstration of the ubiquity of concentric circles in nature and symbolic expression, these referential conjunctions in this instance evocative of the expansion and contraction of awareness that enables the rhythm of being as understood in some schools of Hinduism, such as the thought of Abhinavagupta on the Twelve Kalis, exploring how the permutations of the  Goddess Kali dramatize the various phases of cosmic being and becoming, discussed in my "Unifying Empirical and Mythic Thought: Human Consciousness and the Twelve Kalis in Hinduism".

Religious and philosophical thought is at times an effort to peer into the self-consciousness of an ultimate divine identity. Is success in such an initiative possible? The effort of the time bound human mind to perceive eternity with the eye of God, Michael Knowles remarks of the limitations of an aspect of St. Augustine of Hippo's conception of human/divine relations in an Encyclopaedia Britannica article on Augustine.

May the divine intelligence see itself through the creative work of a Wariboko? To what degree can the human effort represented by such an oeuvre integrate the scope of divine intelligence? Are such efforts no more than grass beside the reality of the transcendent Other they seek to probe, as is stated of Thomas Aquinas' final vision, upon which he left his monumental Summa Theologica, Summation of Theology, unfinished?

The human being is directed towards that which cannot be contained in knowledge, the consummation of knowing that comes to itself when it is with the unknowable One, declares Karl Rahner on being asked "what is theology?",  concluding "theology is the system of what cannot be systematized", in S.J.Donovan's edited  Karl Rahner in Dialogue.

"Truth is ultimately about the existence of Absolute Infinity. All that a truth procedure … can do is to put us on a path between potential infinities and actual infinities as we approach the rationally unknowable, unconceivable Absolute Infinity. But … we can only find partial truths that satisfy the truth of the Absolute Infinity"-Nimi Wariboko. The Charismatic City.

Religious and philosophical thought is at times an effort to peer into the self-consciousness of an ultimate divine identity. Is success in such an initiative possible? The effort of the time bound human mind to perceive eternity with the eye of God, Michael Knowles remarks of the limitations of an aspect of St. Augustine of Hippo's conception of human/divine relations in an Encyclopaedia Britannica article on Augustine.

May the divine intelligence see itself through the creative work of a Wariboko? To what degree can the human effort represented by such an oeuvre integrate the scope of divine intelligence? Are such efforts no more than grass beside the reality of the transcendent Other they seek to probe, as is stated of Thomas Aquinas' final vision, upon which he left his monumental Summa Theologica, Summation of Theology, unfinished?                                                                         

The human being is directed towards that which cannot be controlled in knowledge, the consummation of knowing that comes to itself when it is with the unknowable One, declares Karl Rahner on being asked what is "the centre of your theology?",  concluding "the true system of thought...is the system of what cannot be systematized", in S.J.Donovan's interview  "Living into Mystery: Karl Rahner's Reflections at Seventy-five."

"Truth is ultimately about the existence of Absolute Infinity. All that a truth procedure … can do is to put us on a path between potential infinities and actual infinities as we approach the rationally unknowable, unconceivable Absolute Infinity. But … we can only find partial truths that satisfy the truth of the Absolute Infinity"-Nimi Wariboko. The Charismatic City.

The great writer Giambattista Marino in Jorge Louis Borges'"The Yellow Rose", looking at a rose  as he lay on his deathbed:

"saw the rose , as Adam had seen it in Paradise, and he realized that it lay within its own eternity, not within his words, and that we might speak about the rose, allude to it, but never truly express it, and that the tall, haughty volumes that made a golden dimness in the corner of his room were not (as his vanity had dreamed them)  a mirror of the world, but just another thing added to the world's contents.

Marino achieved that epiphany on the eve of his death, and Homer and Dante may have achieved it as well.

Homer and Dante, two of the greatest writers in the Western tradition, are referenced here in terms that suggest  their works, Homer's Illiad and Odyssey and Dante's Divine Comedy, as individualistic dramatizations of  a comprehensive vision of the world as perceived in their societies, the ancient Greece of Homer and the medieval Europe of Dante.

Themes within themes, unfolding, refolding, enfolding and energizing, as Wariboko describes his exploratory strategy in his late 2017 CV.

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Dynamic Expression

Another quality of Wariboko's work I find inspiring is the fact that it operates in terms of different but complementary expressive registers, at times combining the celebratory and playful with the sublime.  His philosophy often demonstrates the prose, and, at times, the poetic version of John Milton's depiction of the poet "soaring in the high regions of his [creations] with his garlands and singing robes about him".

His writings  operate at times in terms of an imagistically robust exuberance of language and often in an elevated purity of expression bristling with luminous ideas projected through muscularity of logic,  as if seeking to develop, at the apex of the mind,  a version of the divine intelligence that is the core of his vocation and his life, vocation understood as "The orientation of a person's life and work in terms of their ultimate sense of mission"as defined by Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language.

As I immerse myself within the river generated by his grappling with powerful ideas, there emerge flashes of lightning illuminating the magnificent conceptual landscape, chains of ideation stretching into a distance where they disappear into the depths of the horizon even as they illuminate connections between large masses of cerebration, facilitating the development of even more expansive structures through the reconfiguring illumination, cognitive constructs stretching into the joining together of massive land masses, integrating those I have been carrying with me for years with the shapes generated by the thinker who has travelled from Abonnema, in Nigeria's Niger Delta, to reside in Massachusetts, in the United States.

Wariboko's writing can be powerfully imagistic, celebrating the beauty of nature in vivid images strikingly appealing to the senses. His expression can also be richly conceptual, but often without immersion in language so specialized it is beyond the non-specialist. In engaging with his writing in that tenor, close attention enables attunement with the rhythm of his exposition and the topography of the conceptual world in which he is operating in and contributing to. In trying to explain what one finds appealing about such a writer, then, one has to be careful not to substitute an opaque sophistication for an effort to bring closer to one's readers the ideas one is dealing with.

Wariboko's writing can be playful and sublime at the same time. Rich in the use of paradox which yet proves deeply stimulating of understanding when one appreciates his style of thinking and expression. A lot of the time he delights in creatively playing with ideas. His joy, his food, is in engaging with ideations, teasing out their possibilities, wrestling with them, matching mental strength for mental strength in dialogue with the cognitive currents represented by conceptions others have created as well as the sheer joy in constructing and expressing his own mental engineering in superbly crafted sentences often rich with twisting ideational roots emerging from a monstrosity of reading demonstrated by dynamically busy footnotes or end-notes.

I used the expression "monstrosity of reading", indicating something significantly or far outside the pale of the conventional, such as encountering a 10 foot tall person in the street. I ask myself where and how is he finding all these books to read? How does one get to be so learned?

Nimi Wariboko's galaxy of ideations created through years of relentless thought, study and expression are a monument of scholarly possibility, a pointer to the discipline and consistency, the interdisciplinary cross-fertilization, and the striving after perfection of expression, vital to great scholarship.

Gasson Hall spires, Boston College in Massachusetts, Wariboko's home, photographed by Caitlin Mann, in majestic balance with the radiance of the sky aflame with the  fires of the setting sun.  Biophilia, sensitivity to the beauty of nature, is central to the philosophy of Nimi Wariboko, as demonstrated by his accounts of his intimate experiences with nature in the magnificent first paragraph of the acknowledgements pages of his book Nigerian Pentecostalism and the acknowledgements pages of The Split God and in his extensive development of this theme as a central value of urban design in The Charismatic City.

His manner of demonstrating this orientation suggests affinities with the Christocentric nature spirituality of St. Francis of Assisi, as represented by his "Canticle of Creatures", where he salutes all primary elements of existence, from the sun to death, as brothers and sisters, to the depiction of delight in the senses as portals for entry into the source of existence by the Hindu school of  Trika Shaivism exemplified by Ksemaraja and Abhinavagupta to Western nature spirituality, from the Neoplatonism of Plotinus to the theology of St. Bonaventura in his Journey of the Mind to God and Western Romantic and Symbolist movements, to the animistic spiritualities represented by modern Western Paganism and classical African, Native and  South American thought, among others. Wariboko's understandings may be positioned in relation to these differing but correlative approaches to nature sensitivity, thereby highlighting the distinctiveness of his own awareness in relation to these biophilic brethren.

The Trika Shaivite confluence is particularly relevant because it resonates with Wariboko's work at the double levels represented, first, by a shared biophilia.  The second is an incidental conjunction between both cognitive schemes in terms of forms of recognition of concealed possibilities of reality.  Trika Shaivism describes biophilia, among other sensory perceptions,  as a means of realizing the goal of  the school's philosophy of Pratyabhijna, the Doctrine of Recognition of the human self and the Self at the heart of being as a unified identity.  Wariboko adapts, in the biophilic opening of the acknowledgments pages of Nigerian Pentecostalism,  Paul's development of a hermeneutic of recognition between the human and the divine self in his Biblical "Letter to the Corinthians".   I shall examine these correlations in a later essay, an expanded form of the forthcoming shorter version named "Imaginative Thought and Expression in the Philosophy of Nimi Wariboko : The Garden of Transformation".

Biophilia, Cosmopophilia, Cosmophilia, Awephilia

In addition to the emergence of a principle of transformation at the conjunction of cosmic and human reality, four other themes I find particularly engaging emerging from the musical rhythm of Wariboko's thematic patterning are  biophilia, love of nature, what I name cosmopophilia, identification with  the extensive demographic, cultural economic and technological concentrations and  networks represented by the cosmopolis,  cosmophilia, love of the totality of being, understood in a cosmic context, and awephilia, a term developed by Wariboko summing up his understanding of an ideal in urban design, the creation of environments that inspire awe at the miracle of being, the conjunction of myriads of seemingly accidental factors in enabling the fact of existence and its expression in consciousness within the materiality represented by space, time, embodiment and the orientation towards aspects of being that transcend these categorizations, a dynamism giving birth to the creative restlessness that defines humanity.

These concepts are particularly prominent in The Charismatic City, but they resonate, at various levels of intensity, across his work. This metropolitan thematic is Wariboko's contribution to the motif of the human density and social dynamism of the city as evocative of the unity and development of the human species, an idea introduced to Western  thought by Augustine of Hippo's 5^th century The City of God and resonating in relation to Harvey Cox's 20th century The Secular City, the latter work having influenced Wariboko, his own 21^st century book being a counterpoint to that by Cox.

Biophilia was popularized by the work of biologist Edward Wilson, whose focus was on living forms. It seems to have been expanded to refer to human identification  with nature in general, and rightly so, since  organic existence is impossible without the inorganic and some of humanity's greatest expressions of identification with nature are not centred in the organic, or on systems that support life, such as the centrality of sand and rocks in creating a sense of numinous peace in Japanese rock gardening, even when organic forms, such as plants or life supporting systems, such as water, may also feature in the composition, key examples of this being the garden of Ryōan-ji,in which "rock formations arranged amidst a sweep of smooth pebbles [are]  raked into linear patterns that facilitate meditation",  the garden of Daisen-in in which a "river" of gravel flowing into an "ocean" constituted by a sequence of white gravel "takes visitors on a metaphorical journey through life" and the garden of Ginkaku-ji which "features a replica of Mount Fuji [ the most famous in Japan]  made of gravel, in a gravel sea", as stated at the Wikipedia essays on these subjects hyperlinked above.

Cosmopophilia is the love of cosmopolitan environments, environments described by Wikipedia on the cosmopolitanism as an urban community "where people of various ethnic, cultural and/or religious backgrounds live in proximity and interact with each other". This love is demonstrated in identification with the qualities that define cosmopolitan existence as a distinctive development of humanity.

From his history as an economist who has worked in the global financial centre, New York's  Wall Street, and in the financial nexus of Lagos, the commercial hub of the most highly populated African country and one of the most dynamic African economies, as well as being educated and working across international contexts in the cosmopolitan cities of Port Harcourt, New York, Princeton and Boston, doing a lot of his writing in airports and in flight between cities where he gives lectures, Wariboko has developed a rich affinity for the implications of these demographic aggregations as demonstrations of human potential through their large concentrations of creatively busy people, their maximization of division of labour and the high level development of commercial and cultural activity in such locations.  He engages in depth with the characteristics of consciousness exemplified by the cosmopolis particularly as this relates to globalization and the correlation between the dynamism suggested by the cosmopolis and the dynamism manifest in the cosmos, a human/nature/divine conjunction of which the human being is a focus, perspectives evident in his oeuvre from The Charismatic City to God and Money.

In Cosmopolitanism, Anthony Appiah recalls the origin of the term "cosmopolitan" in the notion of "cosmos", in which "cosmopolitan" meant "a citizen of the cosmos", in contrast to the current narrowing of the term to indicate the expansive but earth bound conception of intercultural and international networks. Along similar lines, Wariboko's cosmopophilia expands into cosmophilia, which Duane Elgin describes this way at Gritfish.com: Materials to Create a Sustainable Future:

We can expand the feeling of connection and appreciation of life (biophilia) to the entire cosmos—a word that was first used by the Greek philosopher Pythagoras to describe our universe as a living embodiment of nature's order, harmony, and beauty.  Building on the concept of biophilia, we can create the word cosmophilia.  Cosmophilia describes the kinship and affiliation we feel with the totality of nature and our experience of felt connection with the harmony and beauty of our universe.

Wariboko's imagistic summation of the character of the city in The Charismatic City suggests this cosmicising impetus:

…the hieroglyphic symbol for the city is a cross within a circle. The cross represents flows and convergences of people, ideas, products, and roads. The circle represents the borders/boundaries within which human lives can flourish. Together they represent communication and togetherness, as Robert S. Lopez interprets the symbol. 

Placing this image within a global map of symbols, it may be seen as mobilizing Christian and non-Christian contexts where the same visual form occurs, deployed to serve symbolic ends similar to those of Wariboko's. The central point of conjunction between these diverse but correlative expressions is the idea of convergence represented by the intersection of horizontal and vertical lines, an intersection that may represent various orders of reality, from the material and mental dimensions highlighted by Wariboko to the convergence of matter and spirit evident in Benin Olokun cosmography as described by Norma Rosen in "Chalk Iconography in Olokun Worship", Ifa iconography as presented in John Pemberton et al's Yoruba: Nine Centuries of African Art and Thought, and the classical cosmologies of Dahomey and of the Diaspora African religion Voodoo as discussed in Leslie Desmangles'"African Interpretations of theChristian Cross in Vodun ", to the symbolism of the Christian cross and the native American Medicine Wheel, the circle bounding the intersecting lines suggestive of the zone of enablement of the possibilities represented by the lines, a ground of possibility ranging from Lopez' descriptions of borders as referenced by Wariboko to a cosmic and eternal context, as described, for example,  by Ifalaloa Sanchez on the symbolism of the Yoruba origin cognitive system, Ifa, at his blog Ifa Today, Ifa Yesterday, Ifa Tomorrow.

​The conception of the Charismatic City developed by Wariboko is a creation inspired by cosmopophilia, integrating biophilia, awephilia, and cosmophilia. This understanding privileges the potential of the demographic density of the city as a place to meet new people and form friendships, ideally across economic borders, even as the city, through striving after economic justice by those who run it, facilitates human self-development and enablement regardless of the initial capacity of the individuals and groups that constitute its community, thereby opening one to new experiences, new possibilities of fulfilment and self-actualisation.

Such an environment is enhanced by the cultivation of inspiring natural spaces that facilitate relaxation, promote interaction by providing convenient and stimulating places for people to meet and stimulate deep sensitivity to the beauty and power of existence. The natural and social connectedness facilitated by the structuring of these spaces could be amplified through architectural and artistic forms that provoke a sense of the potent force of human creativity, perhaps even evoking a sense of the numinous, a very rich concept, defined by Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, in the spirit of the elaboration of this idea by Rudolph  Otto in The Idea of the Holy, as " an invisible but majestic presence that inspires both dread and fascination and constitutes the non-rational element of vital religion".

Wariboko's summation of the cosmophilic potential of this ideal in The Charismatic City is rhapsodic and exhilarating, a majestic statement on being and becoming:

The truth of a city is the working out of possibilities [the link between potentialities and actuality, Wariboko states] that forever cannot arrive at the ultimate possibility, the possibility of all possibilities, the ultimate truth.

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Truth is ultimately about the existence of Absolute Infinity. All that a truth procedure…can do is to put us on a path … as we approach the rationally unknowable, unconceivable Absolute Infinity. But … we can only find partial truths that satisfy the truth of the Absolute Infinity.  The city is a place to quest for the truth of human existence.

Many cities demonstrate some of the qualities highlighted by Wariboko. When the pursuit of these goals in their totality across all sectors of the city becomes the central motive force of urban planning, we are moving towards the actualization of the Charismatic City, that space through which the spirit that enables existence may be more keenly felt, an ideal that may be transposed across all human communities, even beyond the urban.

                                            
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                                                                              Experiencing the Charismatic City

Image above: Joseph Ohomina, my Benin teacher of the Yoruba cognitive system, Ifa and his wife, against the background of St. Benet's  church, Cambridge, England.

"The Charismatic City…is not one city, it is a thousand or more cities…scattered across the world from London to Buenos Aires, from New York to New Delhi, and Rome to Lagos.

 It is a merging of … individuals, their activities, life patterns, and networks…across territories, encompassing, transcending, and linking countries into deterritorialized, transnational communities. Religious force fields that span borders, connecting nations, transcommunities, and home and abroad"-Nimi Wariboko, The Charismatic City.

My experience of the Charismatic City emerges from living in Nigeria's Benin-City and in Cambridge, England. Benin introduced me to the experience of awephilia through the culture of keeping ancient sacred trees and groves intact at various points of the city. My initiation into aspects of being accessible only to an unconventional deepening of vision was made possible through the stimulation from the unique form of energy concentrated at such locations, a force that might have led them to their being designated sacred in the first place. I later encountered the same form of power in Cambridge, particularly in the oldest church in that city, St. Benet's where prayer has been said every morning and evening for centuries, perhaps contributing to or generating that force that has such a sense of the quietly numinous on the human mind.

Cambridge and Benin proved providential for the making of strategic friendships enabled by the distinctive qualities of those cities. Cambridge through its superlative culture of public lectures, Benin through its immense development of its classical religions.

Both cities also enabled ease of access to those qualities which I found most inspiring about them, Benin's classical religions and the University of Cambridge's public lectures being readily accessible to the public. Both cities, in their own ways, provided a nexus for books of various kinds, Benin bookshops introducing me to knowledge cultures fundamental to shaping my cognitive universe and the magnificent scholarly book culture of Cambridge enabling cognitive expansions that would not be possible in other contexts.

Intimate Advocacy

         Living Thought Speaking to Live Human Experience

Beyond these large themes executed at the scale of the cosmopolis and the cosmos, Wariboko's formulations can speak in intimate ways to the human heart and mind.

In The Split God: Pentecostalism and Critical Theory, he introduces this more intimate and personalistic aspect of his philosophical aspirations:

I was once part of a Pentecostal church in Victoria Island, Lagos, Nigeria, that had neither roof nor walls—and we were exposed to the tropical sunshine or rain as we worshiped Jesus as Lord. Real, useable theologies issued from the tongues, bodies, cries and moans, and testimonies and celebrations of the hard-bitten followers of Christ in that place.

How do we capture or retrieve the theologies in such small places? … chapter 7 offers a brief discussion on what I call microtheology. Microtheology is an interpretative analysis of everyday embodied theological interactions and agency at the individual, face-to-face level. It is a study of everyday social interactions of individuals or small groups that demonstrate the linkages between spirituality (practices and affections) and embodied theological ideas (beliefs).

Microtheology's focus on the small, beautiful, and ugly mundane actions enables the scholar to observe how life interpreted at the deepest level percolates up as subtle acts of everyday existence. Microtheology reveals how humans' concern with the ultimate works its ways into concrete acts. The tiny, minute acts become a window into an embodied interpretation of ultimate concern, existential questions, or theological apparatuses.

Microtheology seeks to create a space within theology…by identifying the subtle ways, the motility of small acts, disparities, and the small errors that give birth to the practices and reflection we call the everyday form of theology. It opposes itself to the search for definite contours that mark shifting or final boundaries of theological discourse. Microtheology originates in the present and speaks into the present.

Lines from J. R. R. Tolkien's poem on inspiring walking in The Lord of the Rings may serve our purpose here. Having entered on the road from one's front door that symbolises all roads, all possibilities of existence understood as paths of action and perception:

The Road goes ever on and on

Down from the door where it began

Now far ahead the road has gone

And I must follow it if I can

…

But not yet weary are our feet

Still round the corner we may meet

A sudden tree or standing stone

That none have seen but we alone.

As I read Wariboko's work, I increasingly see myself inside it. I encounter  sudden trees and standing stones that none have seen but me alone, ideas open to everyone but whose significance reveal themselves to me in relation to my uniquely intimate experience. Conceptions tentatively gestating in my mind for years are nourished by his own bold constructions that share some affinity with abstractions resting in my consciousness, half buried in soil, and,  like a plant exposed to sustaining sunlight, my own tentatively growing mentations gather strength, like a child putting on weight and height through wholesome food.

 I am also progressively able to appreciate how the cognitions he expounds, shining like diamonds or like stars in elevated glory above the earth, relate even to my intimate experiences and observations of life. The Principles of Excellence includes these delights:

Grace could supply the impulse to keep an existing relationship open, to touch and re-feel the jagged threads of a broken relationship and to transcend them and take them along to an ever bigger encompassing whole.

I find this moving, not only because of its musical rhythm, its poetic cadence, but because of my experience of the challenges of harmonizing mind, heart and body in relating with fellow humans. Such relationships may, in some strategic situations, require more to nourish them than a human being can provide by themselves, so one might need to wait in expectation for a factor beyond their powers to help repair or save the situation or show the way forward.

Negative perceptions may have been developed, injuring the health of the relationship, wounding expressions may have been used that are difficult to move beyond, yet, beyond the confusion and pain some hope might still shine. How does one step over the shards of hurt, the poison of negativity and embrace the more wholesome possibilities glowing ahead?

Apologies for using metaphors instead of expressing myself plainly since I am trying to explain how an idea is real for me as life experience. In the absence of divulging one's intimate experiences in public, one could use metaphors as I am doing.

The earlier quote is complemented by this one from The Pentecostal Principle : "Grace expresses the hidden potentials of a situation, existence, or life as well as transcends them".

Don't people often hope to see beyond the circumstances in which they are encased at particular moments? To grasp possibilities beyond their conventional awareness, to make a leap of consciousness opening vistas of value that can reshape their lives so they may walk high on mountains, looking down on the panorama of living as they direct their affairs in a manner expressive of self-actualization or cooperate with creative flows evocative of Shakespeare's description of the tides of fortune that boost a person's efforts leading to realisations of grand dreams, rather than walking in the lowlands of possibility, bogged down by circumstance?

That aspiration is a cry for grace of the kind described in Wariboko's lines about sensitivity to the hidden potentials of a situation as well as to the transcendence of that situation.

How a person may achieve this, how could one open oneself to it? Prayer, work, preparation, in the spirit of the saying that fortune favours the prepared mind?

Another inspiring quote from The Principles of Excellence:

The rhythms of grace that individuals take as their sources of existences and progress through life can make them say, 'the law and order is made for humans and not humans for law and order' and thus produce a fitting response in a moment of acute uncertainty and harsh fear. In our daily encounters with the other we may need this kind of grace so that as Martin Luther King Jr. once said, we would not devote our gaze and energy to order rather than to justice.

This reminds me of the painful experiences of immigrants in Europe where I have lived. Hoping against hope to defeat ever tightening immigration laws. Those lines also resonate with Wariboko's experience as  a pastor in a Pentecostal church in New York significantly populated by African immigrants. He was Born Again, a Pentecostal initiation into Christianity, at a church among the displaced members of Nigeria's Maroko community engaged in constant battle for their rights with the Nigerian government who had brutally displaced them. He is an economist keenly sensitive to the marginalization of some populations within globalization while empowering others, life experiences and related perceptions  described in his Nigerian Pentecostalism and Split God, in Mark Gornik's Word Made Global: Stories of African  Christianity in New York, Wariboko  being one of the pastors extensively discussed in the book, and insights evident in his work on economics and social justice, so the struggle of populations weakened by the levers of state power are live in his consciousness.

Another striking formulation from the same book:

 "We need it so that moral (or is it immoral?) human in immoral society will not prefer a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice."

This is the story everywhere people are challenged to struggle for a better society. Does one concentrate on one's limited existence, challenging as that is, rather than try to move beyond it to address inadequacies in society? Why not enjoy the peace you have and leave disturbing social issues to others? These are questions that shape many minds and lifestyles, whether consciously or subconsciously.

                                           
​        

                               The picture on the page above  is of a busy Boston street incidentally evoking the human

                              dynamism and its suggestion of cosmic dynamism central to Wariboko's work, from 

                               Toyin Falola's Flickr album commemorating  Wariboko's assumption of the Walter G. Muelder                                                     Professorship of Social Ethics, Boston University School of Theology.

Also published in 

Full essay

Academia.edu ( PDF)

Facebook personal account

Exploring Nimi Wariboko Facebook page

Exploring Nimi Wariboko blog

Images and commentary only

Facebook photo album

THE TOYIN FALOLA @65 CONFERENCE

THEME: AFRICAN KNOWLEDGES AND ALTERNATIVE FUTURES

THE UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN, NIGERIA

29-31 JANUARY 2018

CONFERENCE PROGRAMME

CONVENORS

The Toyin Falola @65 Conference Committee:

Dr Samuel Oloruntoba, Convenor-General

Dr Adeshina Afolayan, Chairman LoC

Mr Wale Ghazal, Director of Logistics

Dr Olajumoke Yacob-Haliso, Director of Administration

Support Personnel:

Graduate students of the Department of History, University of Ibadan

Graduate students of the Department of Philosophy, University of Ibadan

Graduate students of the Department of Political Science, Babcock University

The Ibadan School of Government and Public Policy (ISGPP)

OUR DONORS

Engr. Eghe Adun

Professor Vik Bahl

Professor Oladele Balogun

Professor Mukhtar Umar Bunza

Professor Bola Dauda

Dr Olabisi Falola

Engr Gozie Ifesinachukwu

Professor dele jegede

Dr Kenneth Kalu

Professor Fallou Ngom

Mr Cherno Njie

Dr Diran Obadina

Dr Edwin Ogah

Dr Tunji Olaopa

Dr Bola Olusola

Mr Femi Owoseni

Pan African University Press

Mr Keith Sipe/Carolina Academic Press

Dr Babs Sobanjo

The University of Texas at Austin

Professor Michael Vickers

INSTITUTIONAL CO-HOSTS

PROGRAMME OF EVENTS AT A GLANCE

OPENING CEREMONY PROGRAMME

2.00 – 5. 30 PM, MONDAY 29 JANUARY 2018

Master of Ceremony: Mr Edmund Obilo

2.00-2.10pm         Arrival and Recognition of Dignitaries

2.10-2.15 pm        National Anthem & University of Ibadan Anthem

2.15-2.25pm         Welcome Addresses:

    Conference Convenor-General, Dr Samuel Oloruntoba, Thabo Mbeki African Leadership Institute, South Africa

    Chief Host, Professor Abel Idowu Olayinka, Vice-Chancellor, University of Ibadan

2.25-2.30pm         Chairman's Opening Remarks: Professor Jide Owoeye, Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of Governing Council, Lead City University, Ibadan, Nigeria

2.30-2.35                Musical Interlude: Band

2.35-2.36                Introduction of First Keynote Speaker

2.36-3.06                First Keynote Address, "African Indigenous Knowledge Systems and  the  Legacy of Africa," by Professor Gloria T. Emeagwali, Professor of History and African Studies, Central Connecticut State University, USA

3.06-3.10                Interlude/ Performance: Standup Comedy by LaffUp

3.10-3.11                Introduction of Second Keynote Speaker

3.11-3.41                Second Keynote Address, "Academics and The Crisis of Knowledge Production and Dissemination in Africa," by Professor CBN Ogbogbo, Head of Department of History, University of Ibadan, and President, Historical Society of Nigeria

3.41-3.50                Interlude/ Performance: Olaijo Dance Company

3.50-4.05                Citation of Honoree, Professor Toyin Falola, The Jacob and Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities, The University of Texas at Austin, USA, by Dr Doyin Aguoru, The Department of English, University of Ibadan

4.05-4.30                Royal Felicitations:

    Royal Father of the Day, His Imperial Majesty, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi III, the Alaafin of Oyo

    The Olubadan of Ibadan

    Other Royal Majesties Present

4.30-4.45                Grand Host's Felicitations: His Excellency, Senator Abiola Ajimobi, the Executive Governor of Oyo State, Nigeria

Fraternal Greetings by other Governors in attendance           

4.45-4.55                Response by Honoree, Professor Toyin Falola

4.55-5.10                Book Presentation: The Toyin Falola Reader, by Kabiyesi Oba Lamidi Adeyemi III, the Alaafin of Oyo

5.10-5.15                Declaration of Conference Open by Grand Host, Senator Abiola Ajimobi, the Executive Governor of Oyo State

5.15-5.20                Vote of Thanks & Announcements: Conference Convenor-General, Dr Samuel Oloruntoba, Thabo Mbeki African Leadership Institute, The University of South Africa

5.20pm                    Opening Ceremony Closes

DAY ONE, MONDAY 29 JANUARY 2018

6.30-9.00pm, Movie Presentation: "Roti" (2017), a Kunle Afolayan Film

Entry is free to all conference participants only

Refreshments will be served

FIRST KEYNOTE ABSTRACT

African Indigenous Knowledge Systems and the Legacy of Africa

Professor Gloria Emeagwali, Professor of History, History Department,

Central Connecticut State University, USA

The legacy of Africa is multidisciplinary, multiregional and transcontinental. It spans from antiquity to the present and is embodied in the wide spectrum of African Knowledges. The legacy shows up in the first stone tool in the world, the earliest evidence of chemistry, the earliest evidence of hieroglyphics, early steel production, indigenous theologies about the spiritual and immaterial, musical and artistic expressions,  and a wide range of complex  ideas and philosophies  about the world we  live in.  That  legacy  is a  bequest from ancestral wisdom, inspiration,  experience and  scientific experimentation  but it is a legacy that must be preserved, improved  on,  where relevant,  and sustained in the context of  institutional building and archival creation and  preservation.  Professor Toyin Falola is a role model in that regard, and we celebrate his work, his mission and his accomplishments through this conference. We hope that his model would be replicated transcontinentally, and  that  African Indigenous Knowledge Systems and  the legacy of Africa will  be recognized, sustained and replicated in various formats,  for posterity in the context of  decolonization and  the decentering of Eurocentric epistemology.

Profile of Professor Gloria Emeagwali

Professor Gloria Emeagwali taught for a decade at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, and the University of Ilorin, Kwara State. She also taught courses on the History of Science at the Nigeria Defence Academy, Kaduna. Dr. Emeagwali has been Professor of History and African Studies at Central Connecticut State University, USA since 1991. She has been a Visiting Scholar at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine;   the Center for Cross Cultural Research on Women, CCCRW, and St. Antony's College, Oxford University UK.  She has published about seventy scholarly articles and nine books. Professor  Gloria Emeagwali has been a Reviewer  for CHOICE, a publishing unit of the Association of College and Research Libraries whose  database now reach more than 18,000 librarians, faculty, and key decision makers in the US and elsewhere.

 She is also the Chief Editor of Africa Update, a quarterly publication on African Studies that she founded in 1993. Africa Update is now in its 25th year and is about to publish its 100th issue. Africa Update has published over 250 articles by more than 150 scholars and has been nominated by EBSCO for inclusion in its Academic Search Research Database.

Prof. Emeagwali is also an amateur film maker and documentarian of African history. She is the videographer, interviewer and editor of about seventy video-film documentaries,   filmed in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Nigeria,   Egypt and Ethiopia. Some of these can be accessed at: www.gloriaemeagwali.com and https://vimeo.com/user5946750/videos.

SECOND KEYNOTE ABSTRACT

Academics and the Crisis of Knowledge Production and Dissemination in Africa

CBN OGBOGBO, FHSN, Department of History, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria

In this piece, it is argued that knowledge production and dissemination in Africa in the 21^st century are facing a fundamental crisis that has become the bane of development in the continent. Interrogating Africa's epistemological traditions have become critical in seeking explanation to the major challenges confronting the African realities. How knowledge is produced, disseminated and consumed in Africa and for what purposes and reasons are central to the interrogation and explication of the state of hopelessness and loss of faith that pervade the African continent- a blossoming crisis that is best epitomised by the desperateness with which her youths journey through the Sahara desert to engage in a more pernicious round of slavery in the search for greener pastures. The paper further contends that these apparent manifestations are direct consequences of the failure of the academic in Africa, a group that has, as a consequence of the colonial experience, become the think-tank in the post-colonial state in Africa. Domiciled mainly in the universities, these egg heads have failed to provide the necessary ideas that will unshackle their peoples and societies from the persistent development crisis in the continent.  

Profile of Prof CBN Ogbogbo

Christopher Bankole Ndubisi Ogbogbo, B.A. (Hons), M.A., LLB, LLM, Ph.D., B.L., lawyer, Professor & Head of Department of History, University of Ibadan; National President, Historical Society of Nigeria; Fellow, Historical Society of Nigeria and Fellow, Society for Peace Studies and Practice is from Delta State in Nigeria. Born in Lagos, had his teething years in Lagos and Port Harcourt. He read his History degrees at the University of Ibadan and law degrees at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. Ogbogbo has lectured African History at Ibadan for the past 28 years. He has taught, researched and successfully supervised over 8 Ph.D. theses in African History and in Peace and Conflict Studies and over 60 Masters Degree dissertations. A senior member of the Nigerian Bar Association, he has also practiced law for close to two decades. He has been Public Relations Officer and Treasurer of the NBA Ibadan branch in the early 90s.

As a scholar, Ogbogbo is a widely travelled and published scholar, who has won several academic laurels and grants. In his kitty is the Institute for Research in Africa (IFRA) grant 2005, MacArthur Foundation grant 2006, the University of Ibadan Senate Research grant 2007, and the Humanities Staff Development Grant 2015. He was a Visiting Scholar to Northwestern University Evanston, and Dartmouth College, (both in the USA), St. Augustine University of Tanzania, Mwanza and the University of Benin in Nigeria. He was appointed a Visiting Professor of African History in Kennesaw State University in Atlanta Georgia in 2014. He has published in reputable academic journals and books. He is the current Editor- in- Chief of the Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria and the Editor of Ibadan School of History Monograph Series.  Ogbogbo has written copiously on the Niger Delta and the challenges of nation building in Nigeria.

He is a Consultant to several organizations such as the Federal Ministry of Education; Nigerian Education Research and Development Council; United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and a member of several academic bodies prominent amongst which are Ethnic Studies Network, Ireland; American Studies Association; Member, African Studies Association, U.S.A.; Historical Society of Nigeria; Nigerian Bar Association and the Society for Peace Studies & Practice. His current passion is to midwife through the instrumentality of the Historical Society of Nigeria, the restoration of the teaching of History back to the school system in Nigeria. He is married with children.

FELICITATIONS

DAY ONE, MONDAY 29 JANUARY 2018:

SPECIAL & REGULAR PANELS AND CONFERENCE OPENING CEREMONY

DAY ONE, MONDAY 29 JANUARY 2018

SESSION A, PANEL 1:    Strategic Reflections on Africa's Developmental Dilemma, Lead City University (Co-Host Sponsored Panel)

TIME:                                   8.30-10.30AM

VENUE:                                UI Conference Centre

PANEL CHAIR:                 Professor Adigun A. B. Agbaje, University of Ibadan, Nigeria

Pan-Africanism in the Age of Globalization

Tunde Oseni, PhD

Lead City University, Ibadan, Nigeria

Co-operative Societies and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): A Viable Model in Human Development of Nigeria

Akanji, Ajibola Anthony

Lead City University, Ibadan

Technology Acquisition and National Development in Nigeria

Chukwuebuka Akuche

Lead City University, Ibadan, Nigeria

Nigeria and the Problem of Corruption: Exploring the Innovation of Reputational Sanctions

Olu Ojedokun

Lead City University, Ibadan&

Jamila Bisi Aduke Suleiman

Centre for Peace and Security Studies, Modibbo Adama University of Technology, Yola, Adamawa State, Nigeria

Managing the Quest for Good Governance in Nigeria Post-1999; A Patent Illusion?

Babatunde Oyedeji

Lead City University, Ibadan

Between Capital Social Infrastructure and Recurrent Stomach Infrastructure: A Practical Philosophical Contribution to the Poverty Policy and Discourse in Nigeria              

Dr. Badru, Ronald Olufemi                                                                                        

Lead City University, Ibadan, Nigeria & Institut Francais de Recherche en Afrique, IFRA-Nigeria

DAY ONE, MONDAY 29 JANUARY 2018

SESSION A, PANEL 2:    Trans- Atlantic Slave Trade and Colonialism in Africa

TIME:                                   8.30-10.30AM

VENUE:                                UI Conference Centre

PANEL CHAIR:                 Prof Sati Fwatshak, University of Jos, Nigeria

Colonial Antecedents and its Continuing Impact: Nigeria in Perspective      

Mustapha Sule Lamido & Abubakar Aliyu Rafindadi

Ahmadu Bello University Zaria

The Impact of Pre-Colonial Political Institutions on the Yoruba Political Culture in Nigeria's Fourth Republic (1999-2015)                                                                               Abubakar Aliyu Rafindadi; and Lawal Lateef

Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria

Remembering The Past That Haunts The Present And The Future: Implications of The British Colonial Economic Policies On Nigeria's Development

Dr. A. A. Adediran, Ogwu –Richard V. A.,

Federal College Of Education, Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria; and

Dr. Adeyanju H. Idowu

Tai Solarin University Of Education, Ijagun, Ogun State, Nigeria

On The Causes of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade: A New Interpretation

Akpu, James Onochie

The Ultimate University of Science and Management Technology, Adjarra, Porto Novo, Republic of Benin

Atlantic Slavery and its Impression on the Afrocentric Identity Since the 19th Century

Udo Emem Michael                                                                                                                

University of Uyo,Nigeria

Cassava and the Atlantic Slave Trade: A Critical Reflection

Saibu Israel Abayomi                               

Anchor University, Ayobo, Ipaja, Lagos &

Clement Cecilia Titilayo

Institute Of African Studies, University Of Ibadan

Slavery In kasar Kabi (Kabi Kingdom) From 1772 To Date

Mustapha Idris Sarka                                                                                                      

G.G.A.I.S.S. Kangiwa, Kebbi State

DAY ONE, MONDAY 29 JANUARY 2018

SESSION A, PANEL 3:    POLITICS, NATION BUILDING AND DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA

TIME:                                   8.30-10.30AM

VENUE:                                UI Conference Centre

PANEL CHAIR:                 Prof Ayo Olukotun, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Nigeria

Political Parties and Party Politics in Nigeria: a Dilemma of Democracy      Abubakar Aliyu Rafindadi andAbdulfattah Yakubu Alhassan

Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, Nigeria

Ethnicity, Fluid Identities and Nation Building in 19^th Century Lagos                     Mary Aderonke Afolabi

Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria

Tinubu, The Yoruba Nation And The Politics Of Statesmanship

Lawal Alabi Bamishigbin

University of Ibadan, Nigeria

Identity Politics and Democratic Consolidation in Nigeria

Alao, David Oladimeji Ph.D & Akhimien Davidson

Babcock University, Ilishan-Remo, Ogun State, Nigeria

Can Democracy help the Almajiri Child in Nigeria?                                        

Charles, Alfred (PhD)

Research Fellow, Department of Democratic Studies, National Institute for Legislative Studies, National Assembly, FCT, Abuja, Nigeria; and

Osah, Goodnews (PhD)

Dept of Political Science and Public Administration, Babcock University, Ogun State

Domestic Slavery, Identity Crisis and Peace in Atani, Anambra Sate, Nigeria        Ikenna Mike Alumona

Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University, Igbariam; and

Jude Odigbo

Kwararafa University, Wukari-Nigeria

An Overview Of The Legal Regime Of Border Region Development In Nigeria

Eniola Bolanle Oluwakemi, PhD

Faculty of Law, Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti, Nigeria

Mobility, Migration and its Discontent: Insights From Nigeria

Franca Attoh, PhD

University of Lagos, Akoka-Yaba, Lagos

DAY ONE, MONDAY 29 JANUARY 2018

SESSION A, PANEL 4:    LEADERSHIP, GOVERNANCE AND DEVELOPMENT ISSUES IN AFRICA

TIME:                                   8.30-10.30AM

VENUE:                                UI Conference Centre

PANEL CHAIR:                 Professor Bola Dauda, Nigeria

African Leaders and Development- Retrospect, Prospect and Challenges: A Programmatic View                                                                                                  

Aitufe Veronica Okpowunwa Ph.D

Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma

Seeking a More Effective Framework to Combat Africa's Under Development

Ogechukwu Ojimaduekwu Ajoku Esq,

Senior lawyer and entrepreneur, formerly of Madonna University

Leadership, Governance Crisis and the Challenge of Grassroot Development in Nigeria: A Focus on Ijebu North-East Local Government Area, Ogun State, 2009-2016

J. O. Nkwede

Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State

K. O. Dauda& A. O. Moliki

Tai Solarin University of Education, Ijagun, Ogun State

O. A. Orija

Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria

Africa's Development Quagmire and the Imperative of Adopting Indigenous Direct Development Strategy for Economic Emancipation

Ini Etuk, Ph.D

University Of Uyo, Uyo

The Legislature, Corruption And The Quest For Good Governance In Nigeria: Can The Application Of The Indigenous Knowledge System Of Political Administration Provide a Succour?

Omololu Fagbadebo, PhD and Fayth Ruffin, PhD

School of Management, IT & Governance, University of KwaZulu-Natal

Nation Building Efforts in Nigeria: Repositioning N.Y.S.C For Better Service Delivery

Aborisade, Daniel Atilade

Babcock University, Ilishan-Remo, Ogun State, Nigeria

Efficiency and Development Theory in Local Government Financing in Nigeria: Empirical Evidence and Limitations of Theory

Gift Ntiwunka and Ayodele, Temitope Mary                                                                       Babcock University, Ilisan-Remo, Ogun State, Nigeria

DAY ONE, MONDAY 29 JANUARY 2018

SESSION A, PANEL 5:    GENDER, LANGUAGE AND KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION IN AFRICA

TIME:                                   8.30-10.30AM

VENUE:                                UI Conference Centre

PANEL CHAIR:                 Prof Mobolanle E. Sotunsa, Babcock University Gender and African Studies Group (BUGAS) Nigeria

Transnational Feminism and its Impact on Knowledge Production in Nigerian Universities: An Exploratory Study

Olutayo Molatokunbo

Abiola Seun; and

Yalley Abena Asefuaba

Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan, Nigeria

Exploring Patriarchal Visibility in Cisgender Literature and the Problematic of Feminist Subjectivity

Aule Moses

Kaduna State University, Kaduna, Nigeria

Images of Muslim Women in Nigerian Texts and its Implications in Development Studies: A Cross Subject Discourse

Israel Meriomame Wekpe

University of Benin, Nigeria

Rukayat N. Banjo

Bayero University, Kano

Conjugal Family: A Platform For Women Education And   Political Leadership

Fasiku, Adesola Mercy Ph.D                                                                                                

College of Education, Ikere- Ekiti, Ekiti State

Feminism and the African Woman's Quest for Happiness in Aidoo's Changes and Emecheta's The Joys of Motherhood

Bosede Funke Afolayan

University of Lagos, Akoka, Yaba, Lagos

The Language Game and the Inequality of Gender: Interrogating Feminist Postproverbials

Olayinka Oyeleye                                                                                                                 

University of Ibadan, Nigeria

Gender Discourse, Gender Narrative and Gender Literature: a Continuation of Euro-American Knowledge Production in Africa.

Hashim Muhammad Suleiman                                                                                                        Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria

DAY ONE, MONDAY 29 JANUARY 2018

SESSION A, PANEL 6:    Indigenous Knowledge Production and Socio-Economic Development

TIME:                                   8.30-10.30AM

VENUE:                                UI Conference Centre

PANEL CHAIR:                 Prof. Gloria Emeagwali, Central Connecticut State University, USA

Knowledge Production and Pedagogy among the Islamic Scholars in Kano: A Case-Study of Shaykh Tijani Usman Zangon Bare-Bari (1916-1970)

Sani Yakubu Adam

Bayero University Kano, Nigeria

Production of Nigerian History Texts in the Publishing Scene of the 1980s

Arogundade Abdullah Iyanda

University of Ibadan

Against Developmentality: Decolonizing Love and Well-Being in Hegemonic Psychological Science                                                                                                     

Glenn Adams

Professor of Psychology, The University of Kansas

Indigenous Knowledge System

Bayo Asala

University of Lagos

African Knowledges and Alternative Futures: A Historical Discourse

Dr. Bello Bala Diggi

Federal University Birnin Kebbbi, Kebbi State – Nigeria

Thought Processes and Convictions on Poverty among the Yoruba

Tunde Decker                                                                                                               

Osun State University, Osogbo, Nigeria

African Indigenous Thoughts and Philosophy in the Service of History: Comparative Perspectives from J.F. Ade-Ajayi and Toyin Falola

Okunade, Seun Adedokun                                                                                      

University of Ibadan, Nigeria

Intercultural Philosophy: An Ibuanyindandaist Critique

Nyok, Efio-Ita Effiom

University of Calabar, Nigeria

Osuala, Amaobi Nelson

University Of Ibadan, Oyo State

Alternative Futures through Entrepreneurial Revolution: the Panacea for Youth Empowerment and Sustainable Poverty Reduction

Awosika Bridget Itunu (Ph.D.)

Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo, Nigeria

DAY ONE, MONDAY 29 JANUARY 2018

SESSION A, PANEL 7:    MIGRATION, GLOBALISATION AND AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT

TIME:                                   8.30-10.30AM

VENUE:                                UI Conference Centre

PANEL CHAIR:                 Dr Franca Attoh, University of Lagos, Nigeria

Explaining Nigeria's Diaspora Communities' Transmogrification From State Partners to Challengers                                                                                            

Isiaka Abiodun Adams PhD,

University of Lagos, Nigeria

Development Of Ejigbo Town Through Ejigbo Migrants In Abidjan         

Adebodun Olalekan Henry

University of Ibadan

The Impact of Migration on Crime and Socio-Economic Development in West Africa                                                                                                                             

Niyi Adegoke, Ph.D, LL.B

National Open University of Nigeria, University Village, Jabi, Abuja

Diaspora Remittances and Sustainable Development in Africa: Insight from Nigeria

Joseph Okwesili Nkwede,Ph.D,                                                                    

Ebonyi State University, Abakaliki

Kazeem O. Dauda& Ahmed O. Moliki

Tai Solarin University of Education, Ijagun, Ogun State

Atanda. A. Orija

Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria

External African Migration And Its Impacts on The Yoruba Identity And Culture                                                                                     Adeyemi Adebola Racheal

University Of Ibadan

Globalization and African Migration: A Case Study of African Immigration in Libya 1959-2017

William, Mary Aniefiok                                                                                                    

University of Ibadan

The Trend of Labour Migration In Akokoland: A Neglected Aspect of Akokoland, Southwestern Nigeria's Economic History, 1952-1980

Falowo, Ajagun Segun Ph.D                                              

Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education, Ijanikin, Lagos, Nigeria

The Formation of Communities In Nigeria: A Study Of Arawa Migration From Arewa Ga Adar (Baibaye in Niger Republic) To Arewa Local Government Of Kebbi State

Mustapha Idris Sarka

G.G.A.I.S.S. Kangiwa, Kebbi State

DAY ONE, MONDAY 29 JANUARY 2018

SESSION A, PANEL 8:    RELIGION, POLITICS AND DEVELOPMENT

TIME:                                   8.30-10.30AM

VENUE:                                UI Conference Centre

PANEL CHAIR:                 Dr Helen Labeodan, University of Ibadan, Nigeria

The Influx of Nigerian Church Leaders In Politics: Christians Response To Poor Leadership

Ajani, T.O

Adeyemi College Of Education, Ondo; and

Benjamin Etiemana Warri

University Of Ibadan, Ibadan

Captain Abiodun Christiana Akinsonwon in Christian Religion and Politics

Elizabeth Adenike Ajayi, Dr. Olasunbo Omolara Loko, Mr. Yomi Odu

Seventh-day Adventist Church Contribution to National Development     

Iheanacho Mendel Alala, Ph.D

Clifford University, Owerrinta, Abia State, Nigeria

Christianity and Economic Development in Nigeria: A Sociological Perspective

Azeez Oluwakemi H.                                                                                                             

University Of Ibadan

Adeniyi Oluwabukola A.                                                                                                       

University Of Ibadan

Proliferation of the Church In Nigeria: Women As Dynamists                                                                                        Ajani Tunde Olanrewaju

Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo; and

Adeyemi Adebola Racheal

College Of Education Ikere, Ekiti State

Islam and the People of Eti-Osa in Lagos State up to 2014: A General Historical Survey
Razaq Ishola Haruna, NCE, B. A. (LASU), M. A. (Ibadan) Islamic Studies

The Modern Challenges Of Religion And Migration

Ogedegbe Bosede Gladys                                                                                            

Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma

The African Traditional Religion And Forest Preservation With Reference To Osun Osogbo Sacred Grove In Osogbo Southwestern Nigeria

Oludare, Olusegun Olurotimi Theophilus (PhD)

Federal College of Education, Abeokuta

DAY ONE, MONDAY 29 JANUARY 2018

SESSION A, PANEL 9:    Nigerian Politics and Development Challenges

TIME:                                   8.30-10.30AM

VENUE:                                UI Conference Centre

PANEL CHAIR:                 Prof. Samuel Zalanga, Bethel University, USA

The Sociology of Security: An Explanation of Electoral Violence Network in Nigeria

Igwe, Dickson Ogbonnaya,

National Open University of Nigeria, Lagos, Nigeria; and

Ayokunle Olumuyiwa Omobowale, Ph.D.                                                                      

University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria

The Military Factor in Development in Nigeria

Ihuoma Chinonso                                                                                                                

University of Ibadan; and

Ekpo Mary Eta                                                                                                                    

Cross River State College of Education

Secessionist Movements in Nigeria And The Right To External Self Determination Under International Law

Kolawole  Adeejat                                                                                                                          

Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State, Nigeria

Unfair Share: The Policies and Politics of Transformation Agenda on Education In Nigeria

Odujobi Kayode                                                                                                             

Nigeria International School Cotonou, Republic of Benin

The Root of Ethnicity, Politics of Decolonisation and the Implications in the Nation-Building Process in Nigeria

Chukwuebuka Omeje

University Of Ibadan

Impact of Youth Corners and Knowledge About Human Sexuality Among Young Adults and Adolescents of Nigerian Population in the Prevention of Sexually Transmitted Diseases

Ayodeji Faremi 

Ladoke Akintola University of Technology &

Gabriel I. Oke                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Adolescent& Youth Friendly Center, Osun state, Nigeria

A History of Infant Mortality in Nigeria in an Era of Sustainable Development Agenda: The Case Study of Ibadan 1999-2017

Lawal Tomiloba

Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State

DAY ONE, MONDAY 29 JANUARY 2018

SESSION B, PANEL 1:    African Knowledges, African Diasporas and African Futures (Special Panel)

TIME:                                   11.00-1.00pm

VENUE:                                UI Conference Centre

PANEL CHAIR:                 Prof Ademola Dasylva, University of Ibadan, Nigeria

Back to the Future: Rethinking African Knowledge and External Intervention in African Conflicts

Prof. Isaac Olawale Albert

Director, Institute for Peace and Strategic Studies, University of Ibadan, Nigeria

Pan-African Doctoral Schools and Knowledge Production in Africa: Experiences, Issues, and Testimonials of Participants

Dr Blessing Nonye Onyima

Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria

Transnational Religious Movement and Knowledge Production in Africa and the African Diaspora: A Critical Appraisal

Samson O. Ijaola

Samuel Adegboyega University, Ogwa, Edo State, Nigeria

African Evangelicals in the Diaspora and Transformations in American Religious Space

Professor Adebayo Oyebade

Tennessee State University, USA

Joseph Odùmósù's Ìwé Ìwòsàn or Book of Healing: Its Content, Context, and Afterlives

Michael Oladejo Afoláyan, PhD, and Helen Tilley, PhD

Northwestern University, USA

Securitised Nationalism and Borders: Towards a Decolonisation of Borders in the SADC?

Dr Inocent Moyo

The University of Zululand, South Africa

DAY ONE, MONDAY 29 JANUARY 2018

SESSION B, PANEL 2:    D.A. Obasa and Indigenous Knowledge Production in Colonial Nigeria, The University of Florida (Co-Host Sponsored Panel),

Section 1: Denrele Adetimikan Obasa, A Local Intellectual

TIME:                                   11.00-1.00pm

VENUE:                                UI Conference Centre

PANEL CHAIR:                 Prof. Arinpe Adejumo, University of Ibadan, Nigeria

Multiplicity of Identities of D.A. Ọbasá

Taiwo,  Adekemi Agnes                                                                                          

Department of Linguistics& Nigerian Languages, Ekiti State University, Nigeria

Poetic Utterance and Socio-Political Commitment in Ọbasa's Poems

Lérè Adéyẹmí                                                                                                   

University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Nigeria

A Critical Appraisal of Ethics of Inter-Personal Relations in Ọbasá's Poetry

Ayọ̀délé Solomon Oyewale                                                                                 

University of Lagos, Àkọkà, Lagos, Nigeria

Didacticism and Philosophical Tenets in Obasa's Poetry

Arinpe G Adejumo                                                                                               

University of Ibadan, Nigeria

DAY ONE, MONDAY 29 JANUARY 2018

SESSION B, PANEL 3:    Dimensions of Peace, Conflict and Security

Caleb University (Co-Host Sponsored Panel)

TIME:                                   11.00-1.00pm

VENUE:                                UI Conference Centre

PANEL CHAIR:                 Prof. Toyin Vincent Adepoju, Nigeria

African Youths and the Indigenous Approaches to Resolving Conflicts in Africa

Dr. Joan Ugo Mbagwu,

Caleb University, Imota, Lagos, Nigeria

Beyond Military Force As Strategy for Countering Terrorism in Nigeria: A Handbook

Dr. Joan Ugo Mbagwu

Caleb University, Imota, Lagos, Nigeria

Managing Religious Propagation and Intolerance Among Students of University of Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria

Dr. Kayode George

Caleb University, Imota, Lagos

From Forced Migration to Forced Return: Policy and Humanitarian Implications in Nigeria

Mrs. Oluchi Enapeh

Caleb University, Imota, Lagos, Nigeria

DAY ONE, MONDAY 29 JANUARY 2018

SESSION B, PANEL 4:    GENDER, POLITICS AND DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA

TIME:                                   11.00-1.00pm

VENUE:                                UI Conference Centre

PANEL CHAIR:                 Dr Sharon Omotoso, Women Documentation Centre, University of Ibadan, Nigeria

Gender Politics and the Hope of the African Girl Child in Education

Adebile Ruth Foluke (Ph.D)

Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo, Ondo State, Nigeria

Women and Africa's Quest for Development

Dr. Adefarasin Victor Olusegun

Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Nigeria

Politicising The Politics: The Discourse Of Nigerian Women Politicians Akinrinlewo, Adepeju Mariam

University of Ibadan

Gender Inequality and Women Participation in Politics: The Nigerian Experience

Alabede, Tunji Sope,

Oduduwa University, Ipetumodu, Ile-Ife, Osun State; and

Giwa, Saheed Adebowale

University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Oyo State

The Exclusion of Women in Governance And Security Issues:  Establishing The Cost And Role Of Women In Inequality                                                                   

Amaka Theresa Oriaku Emordi PhD

Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria

Colonial African Historiography and Gender: Women in Science and Technology in Tarokland, 1900-1960

Rabi Nimlan and Clement Selbong                                                                                    

University of Jos, Nigeria

Trafficking in Persons and Commodification of the Girl-child in West Africa

Orogun F. Olanike          

Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago- Iwoye, Ogun State

DAY ONE, MONDAY 29 JANUARY 2018

SESSION B, PANEL 5:    PEACE AND SECURITY GOVERNANCE IN AFRICA

TIME:                                   11.00-1.00pm

VENUE:                                UI Conference Centre

PANEL CHAIR:                 Prof. Isaac Olawale Albert, Institute for Peace and Strategic Studies, University of Ibadan, Nigeria

Non-governmental organisations and protection of internally-displaced persons by pastoralist-farmer conflict in Benue state, Nigeria                                                Adebajo Adeola Aderayo

Tai Solarin University of Education, Ijagun, Ogun State, Nigeria

The Adjudication of Rape In Traditional Yoruba Society                                          

Saidat Tobiloba Adetayo

University Of Ibadan, Nigeria

The Role of Women In The Prevention Of Human Trafficking In Edo State, Nigeria                                                                                                                        Anthonia Okonye

Empowerment, Reintegration and Re-trafficking of Victims of Human Trafficking in Nigeria: Critical Issues and Opportunities

Rachael Oluseye Iyanda, PhD

Nigeria

Transhumance, Small Arms Proliferation and Security Challenges in Igboland since 1970

Vincent-Anene, Prince Okwudili Mbalisi, Nnaemeka Chinedu PhD

Paul University, Awka

National Defence and Production of Mass Destruction: Option for Nigeria's Participation and Relevance in Global Politics

Erinosho, T.O.  PhD

Tai Solarin University of Education, Ijagun, Ogun State, Nigeria

Peace and Security for Development in Africa: The Road Not Taken

Etuk, Akaninyene Ufot

University of Ibadan

ECOWAS Protocol on Free Movement, Border Porosity and the Emerging Threats To Internal Security In North Central Nigeria: An Appraisal of The Influx Of Migrant Fulani Herders

Dare Leke Idowu & Damilola Taiye Agbalajobi                                                                                          

Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria

DAY ONE, MONDAY 29 JANUARY 2018

SESSION B, PANEL 6:    ARTS, CULTURE AND TECHNOLOGY IN AFRICA

TIME:                                   11.00-1.00pm

VENUE:                                UI Conference Centre

PANEL CHAIR:                 Prof. Sola Olorunyomi, Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan, Nigeria

The Traditional Art And Culture Of Blacksmithing of Ogbomoso: Form, Style And Function                                                                                                              

Adegboyega Oyelakin Stephen

Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria

Popular Music Videos And The Expression Of National Culture In Nigeria                                                                                          Samuel Ayoola Adejube

Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye, Ogun State, Nigeria

Re-examining the Yoruba Civilisation through the Visual Arts                                Kehinde Adepegba

Lagos State Polytechnic, Ikorodu; and

Tolulope O. Sobowale

Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Ibogun Campus, Ogun State

Why African Culture Is Unpopular? A Critique of Toyin Falola In The Revival Of African Culture

Sufianu Afeez Ayinde

University of Lagos

Demolishing the Europeans' Misplaced Concept Of African Prints: A Stir At Work

Tunde M.Akinwumi

Professor of Art History (African Textiles and Clothing), Southwestern University, Okun Owa, Ijebu Nigeria

An Overview of the Challenges of Technology Integration In Art Pedagogy Within Africa

Ohambele James Chimezie

Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria

Africanisms in Kaltume Bulama Gana's Art                                          

Muhammad, Aliyu (Ph.D)

Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria

DAY ONE, MONDAY 29 JANUARY 2018

SESSION B, PANEL 7:    ARTS, COMMUNICATION AND TECHNOLOGY IN AFRICA

TIME:                                   11.00-1.00pm

VENUE:                                UI Conference Centre

PANEL CHAIR:                 Prof. Ayo Ojebode, University of Ibadan, Nigeria

Re-indigenising Nigerian Economy Through Indigenous Technology: A Clarion Call Towards Industrialization                                                                                                    Kola-Aderoju and Sekinat Adejoke Ph.D

Women in Pre-Colonial Yoruba: A Study of the Documentation Values of Monumental Sculptures                                                                                              

Rod Adoh Emi, Ph.D and Sam K. Adekoya,

Tai Solarin University of Education, Ijagun, Ogun State, Nigeria

Election, Technology and Political Sustainability

Irhue Young Kenneth (Ph.D)

Osun State, University, Okuku Campus, Osun State, Nigeria

New Englishes and Nigeria's Linguistic Ecology: An Appraisal Of Nigerian News Casters' Stress Patterns As Model For Standard Nigerian English                      

Akindele, Julianah A. PhD

Osun State University, Osogbo, Nigeria

The Influence of the Kingship Institution on Olojo Festival in Ile-Ife: a Case Study of the Late Ooni Adesoji Aderemi

Akinyemi Yetunde Blessing

Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria

Roles of the Artist/Art scholar in Cultural Policy and Cultural Aspect of National Policy on Education
Ademola Azeez, Ph.D

Federal College of Education (Technical) Akoka, Lagos, Nigeria

The Social-cultural Imperatives of Billboard Advertising in Southwest Nigeria

Feyisara Sunday Omolola

Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Nigeria

Toyin Falola: The Mother Drum (Iya-Ilu) of the Yoruba Dundun Ensemble

Oladipo Olufunmilola Temitayo

Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Nigeria

DAY ONE, MONDAY 29 JANUARY 2018

SESSION B, PANEL 8:    AFRICAN LANGUAGES AND KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS

TIME:                                   11.00-1.00pm

VENUE:                                UI Conference Centre

PANEL CHAIR:                 Prof. Duro Adeleke, University of Ibadan, Nigeria

"Gbójú Nbè̩͎!": Urban Slang As Sociolinguistic Expression In Selected Nollywood Films

Dr. Mojisola Shodipe                                                                                                                

University of Lagos, Nigeria

Ise o kan Oriire: Yoruba Linguistic Conceptualization of Success                          Augustine Agwuele, Ph.D

Texas State University, USA

Yoruba Language and Cultural Continuities                                                              Ayanlowo, Oluwatosin Blessing, M.A, M.I.R & Bello , Alice Adejoke, M.Ed, M.PH& Adeoye,  Ayodele  M.Ed., PhD (Ogun)

Babcock University, Ilisan Remo, Ogun State, Nigeria

Cultural Environmentalism in Osofisan's Many Colours Make the Thunder-King and Ogunyemi's Langbodo                                                                             

Saeedat Bolajoko Aliyu

Kwara State University, Malete, Kwara State, Nigeria

Determinism And Human Agency In Sholla Allyson Obaniyi's Gbe Je Fori

Lawrence O. Bamikole

The University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, Jamaica

An Arabistʼs Inventory of the Arabic Loan Words in Yoruba Language

Dr. Mikail Adebisi Folorunsho                                                                                     

Osun State University, Osogbo, Nigeria

European Hegemony and the Nigeria National Language Question: Issues and Considerations

Oyedeji Gideon Abioye                                                                                                              

Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida University, Lapai, Niger State &
Akintade Samuel Adeoye
Federal Polytechnic Bida, Niger State

The Language Game and the Inequality of Gender: Interrogating Feminist Postproverbials

Olayinka Oyeleye

University of Ibadan, Nigeria

DAY TWO, TUESDAY 30 JANUARY 2018:

SPECIAL & REGULAR PANELS AND BIRTHDAY BANQUET

DAY TWO, TUESDAY 30 JANUARY 2018

SESSION C, PANEL 1:    Alternative Knowledges on Toyin Falola (Special Panel)

TIME:                                   8.30-10.30AM

VENUE:                                UI Conference Centre

PANEL CHAIR:                

Rhizomatic and Arboreal Intelligence: In Search of Toyin Falola

Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

Compcros, Comparative Cognitive Processes and Systems, Nigeria

Lessons from Toyin Falola's Ways of Thinking

Bola Dauda

Nigeria

Metahistory: Toyin Falola and the Work of Yoruba Intellectualism

Bukola Adeyemi Oyeniyi

Missouri State University, USA

Oro: Concepts and Meaning in Yoruba Worldview

Ademola A. Dasylva

The University of Ibadan, Nigeria

Narrative—Convergence and Dispersion in the Writings of Falola

Michael Vickers

Emeritus Director of Parliamentary and Public Affairs,

The Hillfield Agency (UK)

DAY TWO, TUESDAY 30 JANUARY 2018

SESSION C, PANEL 2:    D.A. Obasa and Indigenous Knowledge Production in Colonial Nigeria, The University of Florida (Co-Host Sponsored Panel);

Section 2 - Obasa's Yoruba Newspaper, the Yoruba News -1924-1945

TIME:                                   8.30-10.30AM

VENUE:                                UI Conference Centre

PANEL CHAIR:                 Prof Tunde Akinyemi, University of Florida, USA

The Form and Content of Ọbasá's Weekly Newspaper: Yorùbá News

Clement Adeniyi Akangbe                                                                                        

University of Ibadan, Nigeria

A Critical Assessment of Editorial Opinions in Yoruba News

Taiwo Olunlade                                                                                                  

Lagos State University, Nigeria

Yoruba News as Political Tool and Avenue for Cultural Revival
Abidemi Bolarinwa                                                                                           

University of Ibadan, Nigeria

Serialization of Ọbasa's poems in the Yorùbá News newspaper

Tolulope Ibikunle                                                                                                     

University of Ibadan, Nigeria

A Comparative Study of Yoruba News and Alaroye

Adefemi Akinseloyin

University of Ibadan, Nigeria

DAY TWO, TUESDAY 30 JANUARY 2018

SESSION C, PANEL 3:    PAN-AFRICANISM AND AFRICAN CITIZENSHIP

TIME:                                   8.30-10.30AM

VENUE:                                UI Conference Centre

PANEL CHAIR:                 Prof. Bode Ibironke, Rutgers University, USA

Decolonizing Development Through a Recovery of the "Dangerous" Development Ideas of Thomas Sankara

Amber Murrey-Ndewa

The American University in Cairo

An Evaluation of the Emergence and the Role of Africanist Historiography In The Reconstruction of African History                                                           

Akombo, Elijah Ityavkase, PhD.,

Taraba State University, Jalingo, Taraba State, Nigeria

Ngah, Loui Njodzevan Wirnkar, MHSN

College of Education, Zing, Taraba State, Nigeria

Abdulsalami, Muyiudeen Deji, PhD

Taraba State University, Jalingo, Taraba State, Nigeria

Pan-Africanism and African Citizenship: The Way Forward

Gabriel Asuquo

Independent Researcher

Political Islam and State Reconstruction in Africa

'Dele Ashiru, PhD

The University of Lagos, Nigeria

Interrogating Pan-Africanism and African Citizenship through the African Endogenous Theory of the State

Lawrence Ogbo Ugwuanyi, Ph.D

Professor of African Philosophy and Thought                                                                       University of Abuja, Abuja-Nigeria

Nnamdi Azikiwe and Obafemi Awolowo as Conditioners of Igbo-Yoruba Relations since the Twentieth Century

Alex Amaechi Ugwuja, PhD  

Paul University, Awka, Nigeria

DAY TWO, TUESDAY 30 JANUARY 2018

SESSION C, PANEL 4:    INTELLECTUALISM AND DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA

TIME:                                   8.30-10.30AM

VENUE:                                UI Conference Centre

PANEL CHAIR:                 Prof. Alinah Segobye, Namibia University of Science and Technology, Namibia

New Trends In Intellectual Property: Trad-Technology Versus Bio-Technology In The Production Of Medicine In Nigeria

Ayoyemi Lawal-Arowolo

Babcock University & Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Nigeria

African Knowledges and Alternative Futures: What Is And What Is Known

Adesanya Babajide

Freelance Writer & Alter Magazine Lagos

Intellectuals, Universities and Democratization in Nigeria

Antonia Taiye Simbine, PhD                                                                                                      Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Abuja &

Dhikru Adewale Yagboyaju, PhD                                                                                            University of Ibadan, Nigeria

Intellectuals and African Development

HRH Eze Egwuogu, Bonny Ikenna, PhD

Imo State University, Owerri

Intellectuals and Issues in African Development

Ekaette Umanah Ekong (PhD)

University of Uyo

Coloniality of Knowledge and the Contemporary World Order

Chidochashe Nyere

University of Pretoria, Pretoria, Republic of South Africa

Politicization of Intellectualism in Africa: The Nigerian Experience

Chidubem I. Obayi                                                                                                                 

University of Ibadan

DAY TWO, TUESDAY 30 JANUARY 2018

SESSION C, PANEL 5:    GENDER, SOCIAL CHANGE AND ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT IN AFRICA

TIME:                                   8.30-10.30AM

VENUE:                                UI Conference Centre

PANEL CHAIR:                 Dr Chinyere Ukpokolo, University of Ibadan

Women and Knowledge Production in Africa: The Case of Indigenous Textile Entrepreneurs

Awosika Bridget Itunu (Ph.D.)

Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo, Nigeria

Gender Inclusion and the Implementation of Fadama III in Gwagwalada Area Council, Abuja

Olusola E. Akintola

University of Abuja & Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Abuja;and

Philip Oyadiran, Ph.D

University of Abuja, Abuja, Nigeria

Funding for Women's Rights Advocacy and the Struggles for Affirmative Action in Nigeria

Okedele Adebusola Omotola                                                                                   

Tai Solarin College of Education, Omu-Ijebu, Ogun State, Nigeria

Women of Substance: The Contributions of Dora Nkem Akunyili and Obiageli Ezekwesili to Nigeria's societal development

Ihuoma Chinonso                                                                                                           

University of Ibadan, Nigeria

War Against Women In Africa: A Threat To Peace And Security

Preye Kuro Inokoba, Ph.D,                                                                                                     

Niger Delta University, Bayelsa State; and   

Abeki Sunny Okoro, Ph.D                                                                                                 International Institute of Tourism and Hospitality, Yenagoa, Bayelsa State

The UN Development Policies (MDGS/SDGs) on Women Empowerment: An African Critique

Halima Sa'adiyat Adamu Muhammed

Ahmadu Bello University Zaria

Women as Custodian of Tradition and Family: Female Identity in Falola's A Mouth Sweeter Than Salt

Aisha Umar M.

Federal University Birnin Kebbi

Taxation, Women and the Colonial State: Ijebu Women's Agitations

Olalere, Titilope Olusegun

McPherson University, Seriki-Sotayo, Ogun State, Nigeria

The Life and Times of Efunsetan Aniwura and Osofisan's Depiction of the Feminine Gender In Women Of Owu

Adeoti Oluwatomi

Gobir Mariam Titilope

Kwara State University, Malete, Kwara State, Nigeria

DAY TWO, TUESDAY 30 JANUARY 2018

SESSION C, PANEL 6:    THE YORUBA FROM THEIR ORIGINS TO THE PRESENT

TIME:                                   8.30-10.30AM

VENUE:                                UI Conference Centre

PANEL CHAIR:                 Prof. Adebayo Oyebade, Tennessee State University, USA

Oko Idogo: The Railway And The Economic Transformation Of Parts Of Egba And Egbado Area, South-Western Nigeria, 1930 – 2010

Yussuf, N. Babatunde,

Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye

Asuwada Principle And The Concept Of Omoluabi In Yoruba Ethico-Metaphysical Thought

Yunusa Kehinde Salami, PhD                                                                                                     Professor Of Philosophy, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria

Digitizing, Preserving, and Presenting Yoruba Stories: A Visual Presentation for The Toyin Falola @65 Conference

'Segun Olude, CGD

The University of Manitoba, Canada

Contemporary Yoruba Heroes in Public Sculpture

Tolulope O. Sobowale                                                                                                            

Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Ibogun Campus, Ogun State &

Kehinde Adepegba              

Lagos State Polytechnic, Ikorodu

Johnson O. Oladesu                                                                                                                   

Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Ibogun Campus, Ogun State

The tax riots of 1969 in Southern Western Nigeria

Bamidélé Aly                                                         

Panthéon-Sorbonne University (Paris 1)

A Historical Perspective Of Christian Missions In South –Western Nigeria (1483 – 1895)

Samson Kolawole Oyeku (Ph.D.)                                                                                        

U.M.C.A. Theological College, Ilorin, Kwara State

Rethinking Ikare Traditions of Origin

Afeez Tọ́pẹ́, RAJI (Graduate Student),

Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko, Ondo State Nigeria

Knowledge Control and the Institutionalization of Patriarchy In Yorubaland Before the 14^th Century

D.I. Jimoh                                                                                                                               

Al Hikmah University, Ilorin, Kwara State

DAY TWO, TUESDAY 30 JANUARY 2018

SESSION C, PANEL 7:    GLOBAL AND COLONIAL POLITICS OF KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION

TIME:                                   8.30-10.30AM

VENUE:                                UI Conference Centre

PANEL CHAIR:                 Prof. Gloria Emeagwali, Cntral Connecticut State University, USA

Deconstructing Imperialistic Knowledge about African Scholarship: A Triangulative Analysis of Reverence Paid Sociologists of Africa versus African Sociologists
Fatai A. Badru, Ph.D.                                                                                                                 University of Lagos, Nigeria

Wisdom-Imbecility Paradoxical Value: Theorising Contemporary Political Communication Styles in Northern Nigeria

Sama'ila Shehu, PhD
Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria

Rethinking Neo-Liberal Agenda: The Sokoto Caliphate Political Thought As An Alternative

Mohammed Shuaibu                                                                                                 

Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria

The Politics of Labels: Imperial Categorizations and Indigenous African Medicine

Ogechukwu Ezekwem Williams                                                                                                   

Creighton University, USA

An Appraisal of Colonial Ethnography in Nigeria

Musa Oluwaseyi Hambolu                                                                                                           University of Jos, Nigeria

The Political Economy of Labour Strikes in Nigeria's Second Republic, 1979-1983: A Historical Analysis

Bernard Steiner Ifekwe, Ph.D                                                                                                University Of Uyo, Uyo, Akwa Ibom State

Colonial Machinery of Criminal Justice in Ilesha, 1863-1915

Tolulope Ilesanmi                                                                                                                 

University of Lagos

Colonial Ideologies of Legitimization and Their Resilience in Post-colonial Africa

Funmilola Olorunfemi                                                                                                         

Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko

DAY TWO, TUESDAY 30 JANUARY 2018

SESSION C, PANEL 8:    BUREAUCRACY, ETHICS AND DEVELOPMENT

TIME:                                   8.30-10.30AM

VENUE:                                UI Conference Centre

PANEL CHAIR:                 Dr Tunji Olaopa, Ibadan School of Government and Public Policy (ISGPP), Nigeria

State Bureaucracies and Development in Africa: Interrogating the Link

Maryam Omolara Quadri Ph.D & Amechi Vera                                                                                            University of Lagos

An Ethical Enquiry into the Subject of Migration and Its Effect in the Development of the Rural Communities in Nigeria: Nsukka Local Government Area of Enugu State as Case Study

Okafor Nneka Ifeoma PhD, Ifeanyichukwu Michael Abada PhD; and Ifeanyi Agbowo                                                                                                          University of Nigeria, Nsukka

Comparative Ethics in Multi-Cultural Society: The Nigeria Experience

Lazarus Baribiae Saale, PhD                                                                                               

Niger Delta University, Yenegoa, Bayelsa State

Bureaucratic Ethos and Development in Africa: The Nigerian Experience           

Abu Idris andOtinche Sunday Inyokwe (PhD)

IBB University, Lapai-Niger State

Corruption, the Bane of Good Governance: Nigeria's Snack

Falilat Adenike Kelani    

St. Theresa's Catholic Nursery and Primary School, Marine Beach, Apapa, Lagos, Nigeria

President Muhammadu Buhari's Whistle-blowing 2015 - Policy: The Moral Implication

Taiwo Olusegun Stephen
Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko, Ondo, Nigeria

Bureaucracy and Crisis of Development in Prismatic cum Post-Colonial African States

Ifeanyichukwu Michael Abada PhD, Okafor Nneka Ifeoma PhD, and Tr. Omeh Paul Hezekiah

University of Nigeria, Nsukka

DAY TWO, TUESDAY 30 JANUARY 2018

SESSION D, PANEL 1:    Toyin Falola, Feminist Knowledges and Nigerian Women's History (Special Panel)

TIME:                                   11.00AM-1.00PM

VENUE:                                UI Conference Centre

PANEL CHAIR:                 Prof. Aderonke Adesanya, James Madison University, USA

African Women in Politics: Past, Present and the Future

Damilola T. Agbalajobi

Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria

Writing African Women from the Margins: Feminist Epistemologies, Women and Knowledge Production in Africa

Bridget A. Teboh

The University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, USA

Gender and Power Dynamics in Falola's A Mouth Sweeter than Salt

Bola Sotunsa

Babcock University Gender and African Studies Group (BUGAS), Nigeria

Mediatizing and Gendering Pan-Africanism for 'Glocal' Impacts

Sharon Adetutu Omotoso

Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan, Nigeria

DAY TWO, TUESDAY 30 JANUARY 2018

SESSION D, PANEL 2:    Contemporary Explorations of History and Society, Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto (Co-Host Sponsored Panel)

TIME:                                   11.00AM-1.00PM

VENUE:                                UI Conference Centre

PANEL CHAIR:                 Prof. Henry Lovejoy, University of Colorado, USA

Religious NGOs and Grassroots Development in Nigeria: Some Selected Case Studies in the Northwest 1980s- to present

Professor Mukhtar Umar Bunza                                                                     

Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, Nigeria

Women Academics and Historiography in the Nigerian University

Aisha Balarabe Bawa PhD

Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, Nigeria

State, Economy and Religious Activism in Northern Nigeria: A Periscopic view on Maitatsine and Boko-Haram Uprisings

Abubakar Sama'ila, PhD

Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto-Nigeria

An Overview of Nigeria's Produce Inspection and Related Regulations in the Second Half of the Colonial Period

Aminu Umar Alkammawa

Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto

African Languages and Knowledge Systems: An Examination of Hausa Influence on Yoruba Vocabulary of Ara Ilorin

Z. S.  Sambo

Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto

Fulani Traditional Knowledge System and the Economy of Farmer-Herder Conflicts In Contemporary Nigeria

Murtala Ahmed Rufa'i

Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, Nigeria

DAY TWO, TUESDAY 30 JANUARY 2018

SESSION D, PANEL 3:    PAN AFRICANISM AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS IN AFRICA

TIME:                                   11.00AM-1.00PM

VENUE:                                UI Conference Centre

PANEL CHAIR:                 Prof. Matthew Heaton, Virginia Tech., USA

History, The Political Elite And The Struggle For Nigerian Unity, 1960 - 2010

Udida A. Undiyaundeye, Ph.D                                                                                             

University Of Uyo, Uyo, Nigeria

Pan-Africanism and Regionalism in Africa: The Journey So Far

Ernest Toochi Aniche, PhD                                                                                                   

Federal University Otuoke (FUO), Bayelsa State, Nigeria

An Age of Africanist Renaissance: The Transformation of the Historical Discipline in Nigeria, since 1956

Osayande Uyi Emmanuel                                                                                                    

University of Lagos, Nigeria

Imperial Citizens Or Economic Nationalists?: Analysis Of A Colonially Restructured Northern Nigeria Economy In The 1940s

Stephen Yohanna                                                                                                                   

Kaduna State University, Kaduna, Nigeria

Resistance, Social Movements and the Failure of Development in Africa

Oluwatoyin O. Oluwaniyi

Redeemer's University, Ede, Osun State, Nigeria

The Phenomenon of Suicide: History, Hysteria and Hope in a Multicultural Society                                                                                                                     

Abiodun Paul Afolabi

Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko, Ondo State, Nigeria

Adebile Oluwaseyi Paul

University of Lagos, Nigeria

DAY TWO, TUESDAY 30 JANUARY 2018

SESSION D, PANEL 4:    Nollywood, Arts and Cultures in Africa

TIME:                                   11.00AM-1.00PM

VENUE:                                UI Conference Centre

PANEL CHAIR:                 Prof. Hyginus Ekwazi, University of Ibadan, Nigeria

It's Not Mud's Fault: The Problematics of Using and not Using Mud in Contemporary 'African' Architecture

Oluwabunmi Fayiga                                                                                                             

Princeton University, USA

'Internationally Endeared, Locally Ensnared': The Glory and Gory Days Of The Adire-Kampala Of Abeokuta, South Western Nigeria

Thompson, O.O, Nwaorgu, O.G.F, Onifade, C.A and Aduradola, R.R.                                            Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta, Nigeria

Vessels unto Honour: African Potters and the Making of a New Identity

Stephen Yohanna                                                                                                                   

Kaduna State University, Kaduna, Nigeria

Nollywood and African Spirituality

Adeate Tosin & Bankole Olubukola

University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria

An Assessment of Kannywood Movies in the Promotion of the Hausa Cultural Values

Dr. Maryam Ibrahim and Kabiru Danladi                                                                               Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria-Nigeria

Religion and Technological Innovations: Revitalizing African Indigenous Religion through Movies

Ogunbiyi, Olatunde Oyewole PhD

University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Nigeria

Waka Into Bondage: Ndidi Dike's Performance Installation And The Creative Reenactment Of Slave Trade

Kunle Filani (MFA,PhD)

Federal College of Education, (Technical), Akoka,Yaba,Lagos

DAY TWO, TUESDAY 30 JANUARY 2018

SESSION D, PANEL 5:    INDIGENOUS AND ISLAMIC KNOWLEDGE SYSTEMS AND POLICIES

TIME:                                   11.00AM-1.00PM

VENUE:                                UI Conference Centre

PANEL CHAIR:                 Prof. Mukhtar Bunza, Usmanu Danfodio University, Nigeria

Indigenous Technology as a Catalyst for National Development

Salami A T

Nigeria

An Appraisal of African Epistemology

Gabriel Oyevesho Akinlade-Daniel                                                                                            Independent Scholar

Marginalization and Social Dislocation in the Sokoto Caliphate and Dual Knowledge Production in Northern Nigeria

Umaru Tanko Abdullahi                                                                                                             Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria

A Historical Appraisal Of The Educational Policies Of Selected Civilian Administrations In Lagos State, 1979-2015

Boge, Faruq Idowu

Lagos State University Foundation Programme, Badagry, Lagos

The Obfuscates of Almajirai and the Rights to Secular Education in Northern Nigeria

Chukwunka, C.A.C.

National Open University of Nigeria, Jabi, Abuja

Straightening the Records: A Critique of Abdullahi Mahadi's Narrative on "The Introduction of Shi'ism into Nigeria"

Sanusi Aminu Hayatu                                                                                                               

Bayero University, Kano

British Colonial Administration and the Development Of Western Education In Ilorin Emirate, 1900 – 1960

Dr. Yahaya Eliasu                                                                                                                      

Kwara State University, Malete, Nigeria

DAY TWO, TUESDAY 30 JANUARY 2018

SESSION D, PANEL 6:    EDUCATION IN POST COLONIAL AFRICA

TIME:                                   11.00AM-1.00PM

VENUE:                                UI Conference Centre

PANEL CHAIR:                 Prof. Michael Afolayan, M&P Educational Consulting International, USA

Effects of Indigenous Music on the Education of an African Child                     

Akande Sunday Olufemi

Olabisi Onabanjo University Ago Iwoye, Ogun State, Nigeria

The Post-Colonial Educational system of the 6-3-3-4 in Nigeria: Challenges and Prospects

S. Joseph Bankola Ola-Koyi

Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye

Imperatives for Christian Religious Education In Curbing Political Crisis In Nigeria

Odudele Rotimi                                       

College of Education, Ikere Ekiti, Ekiti State, Nigeria

A Critical Discourse Analysis of Nigerian 2015 Presidential Campaigns

Rita Bossan (Ph.D)

Kaduna State University, Kaduna, Nigeria

Perception of Tertiary institution Students' Towards the Hidden Health Dangers of Mobile Devices and Internet Usage: Focus on Lagos State Tertiary Institutions, Nigeria

Dr. Oyeyemi, Sunday .O.                                                                                                         

Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education, Lagos State, Nigeria

"Hey Mr. Teacher my child must pass this examination at all cost!": On the Cheating Culture and Africa's Post-Colonial Education

Irabor, Benson Peter                                                                                                             

University of Lagos, Lagos

DAY TWO, TUESDAY 30 JANUARY 2018

SESSION D, PANEL 7:    WOMEN, POWER AND HISTORY

TIME:                                   11.00AM-1.00PM

VENUE:                                UI Conference Centre

PANEL CHAIR:                 Prof. Nemata Blyden, George Washington University, USA

Women in African History and Politics: A Case of Women in Pre-Colonial Ekiti Society

Funmilayo Idowu Agbaje Ph.D                                                                                             

University of Ibadan

Politics of the Other Room: Dynamics of Female Power in Shoneyin's The Secret    Lives of Baba Segi's Wives                                                                                        

Ofure O. M. Aito, PhD.

Federal University, Lokoja, Kogi State and

Omolola A. Ladele, PhD

Lagos State University, Ojoo, Lagos State

Women and Political Participation in Colonial Nigeria                            

Cinderella Temitope Ochu

University of Lagos, Akoka, Yaba, Lagos State, Nigeria

Challenges of Females' Participation in Nigerian Politics

Ebobo Urowoli Christiana

National Open University of Nigeria, Jabi, Abuja

African Women, Culture and the Struggle For Recognition                                

Adu, Modupe Olajumoke

University Of Ibadan

Examination of the Woman's Resistance to Oppression in Selected Francophone Fictions

Dr. (Mrs) Temidayo Onojobi                                                                                   

Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye

Women Participation in Governance and Politics of the Eastern Niger Delta Area of Nigeria

Odeigah, Theresa Nfam, Ph.D                                                                                         

University of Ilorin

African Womanism in Selected Plays of Tess Onwueme and Irene Salami

Oguntoyinbo Deji

Faith Academy, Canaanland, Ota, Ogun State

DAY TWO, TUESDAY 30 JANUARY 2018

SESSION D, PANEL 8:    AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT ISSUES AND INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGES

TIME:                                   11.00AM-1.00PM

VENUE:                                UI Conference Centre

PANEL CHAIR:                 Prof. Segun Ogungbemi, Adekunle Ajasin University, Nigeria

An Examination of the Socio-Economic and Political Implications Of Ethnic Diversity on National Integration In Nigeria

Oyewale, Aderemi Oyetunde Ph.D

Emmanuel Alayande College Of Education, Oyo

Beyond The Failing Justice System: The Emerging Confluence Of Mob Justice And The Social Media In Nigeria

Bello Temitope Yetunde (Mrs)

Institute for Peace and Strategic Studies, The University of Ibadan, Nigeria

The Indigenous Knowledge of Law in Pre-Colonial Akwa Ibom Area: A Comparative Study of the Similarities and Differences Between the English and African Legal Systems

Dr. Joseph R. Bassey

Akwa Ibom State University, Nigeria

Africa in the Global Political-Economy: The Nigerian Experience, 1960-Date Adeniran, Enoch Oluwole  and Oladipupo, Kolapo Abiobun

Emmanuel Alayande College of Education, Oyo

Protestantism, Democracy and Social Development in Nigeria: Reflections on Contemporary Nigerian Writings                                                                

Adegboyega Adeyemi Amos

Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida University, Lapai

African Traditional Perspectives on Sentencing, Victim's Rights and Recidivism

Oluwole Dasylva

National Defence College, Abuja

Challenging the Orthodoxy of the Africa Reparation Debate                          

Sameha Alghamdi

York University, Toronto, Canada

DAY TWO, TUESDAY 30 JANUARY 2018

SESSION E, PANEL 1:    Rethinking and Rewriting the City, the State and Nigerian History (Special Panel)

TIME:                                   2.00-4.00PM

VENUE:                                UI Conference Centre

PANEL CHAIR:                 Prof. CBN Ogbogbo, University of Ibadan, Nigeria

'Ibadanpolis': Visualizing and Rethinking the Metropolis on the Hill

Aderonke Adesola Adesanya

James Madison University, USA

Questioning the Modern Nation-State in Africa: Nigerian Restructuring Debates in Perspective 

Sati U. Fwatshak

University of Jos, Nigeria

Nigeria since 2014: Restructuring or Dismemberment?

Egodi Uchendu (PhD) and Emmanuel T. Eyeh (PhD)

University of Nigeria, Nsukka

Power, Politics, and Pilgrimage: The Hajj and Colonial Ideology in Nigeria, 1903-1927

Matthew Heaton

Virginia Tech, USA

The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth: Insights and Lessons for Contemporary Nigerian Society

Samuel Zalanga

Bethel University, Saint Paul, MN, USA

DAY TWO, TUESDAY 30 JANUARY 2018

SESSION E, PANEL 2:    African Knowledges, Epistemologies and Leadership, The Thabo Mbeki Africa Leadership Institute, (TMALI) University of South Africa (Co-Host Sponsored Panel)

TIME:                                   2.00-4.00PM

VENUE:                                UI Conference Centre

PANEL CHAIR:                 Prof. Henry Lovejoy, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA

Pan-African Knowledge Production and the Imperative of Thought Liberation for Development in Africa

Samuel O Oloruntoba and Vusi Gumede

Thabo Mbeki Africa Leadership Institute, University of South Africa (UNISA)

Uncovering the Merits of African Justice with the Help of the Receptor Approach to Human Rights

Serges Djoyou Kamga

Thabo Mbeki African Leadership Institute, UNISA; and

Tom Zwart

Professor of Cross Cultural Human Rights at the University of Utrecht

Towards an Afrodecolonial Curriculum at Universities: A South African Perspective

Edith Phaswana (PhD)

Thabo Mbeki African Leadership Institute, UNISA

Extending the Ritual Archive: Mokhokha as an African Epistemology of the Body

Dikeledi A. Mokoena

Thabo Mbeki African Leadership institute, UNISA

DAY TWO, TUESDAY 30 JANUARY 2018

SESSION E, PANEL 3:    African History and Tradition

TIME:                                   2.00-4.00PM

VENUE:                                UI Conference Centre

PANEL CHAIR:                 Dr Ayo Adeduntan, Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan, Nigeria

Contemporary Yoruba Heroes in Public Sculpture

Tolulope O. Sobowale                                                                                                            

Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Ibogun Campus, Ogun State

KehindeAdepegba                                                                                                                        

Lagos State Polytechnic, Ikorodu

Johnson O. Oladesu                                                                                                                   

Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Ibogun Campus, Ogun State

Migration and Yoruba Identities: An Historical Account in Arabic Literature

Dr. Hashimi A.O.                                                                                                                      

Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State, Nigeria

Older Persons: Welfarism And Diplomacy within Indigenous African Society; Contextualization of Elechi Amadi's The Great Ponds andChinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart

Omotayo, Olatubosun Tope (Ph.D)

Tai-Solarin University of Education, Ijagun, Ijebu –Ode, Ogun –State

A Re-interpretation of Euro-centric Discourse of the Understanding of African Religion: A Case Study of Yoruba Religion

Professor Rotimi Williams Omotoye

University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria

Indirect Rule System in Aba Division

Ihuoma Chinonso                                                                                                              

University of Ibadan, Nigeria

Political Institutions of Ancient Oyo Empire: Lessons for Contemporary Africa's Development

Oladipupo, Abiodun Kolapo & Adeniran Enoch Oluwole                                                                                                                                  Emmanuel Alayande College of Education Oyo, Oyo State

DAY TWO, TUESDAY 30 JANUARY 2018

SESSION E, PANEL 4:    African History and Tradition 2

TIME:                                   2.00-4.00PM

VENUE:                                UI Conference Centre

PANEL CHAIR:                 Prof. Ibigbolade Aderibigbe, University of Georgia, USA

Yorùbá Traditional and Contemporary Cultural Perspectives on Homosexuality: Questions of Human and Minority Rights

Ibigbolade Aderibigbe PhD

University of Georgia, Athens, USA; and

Adepeju Olufemi Johnson-Bashua PhD

Lagos State University, Ojo, Lagos, Nigeria

A Yoruba Postmodern Identity and an Ethico-Epistemological Critique of Cosmopolitanism

Leye Komolafe                                                                                             

University of Ibadan

The Changing Trend of Ethno-Medical Practice in Yoruba Nation

Nwachukwu Uzoamaka                                      

University of Ibadan

Pre-Colonial Diplomacy in Igbo Land: Reasons, Means And Benefits

Francis C. Odeke                                                                                                                          Department of History and International Relations, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Ebonyi State University, Abakaliki

The influx of Igbo Migrants in Zaria, 1900-1965

Dr. V.S. Akran

Nigerian Defence Academy, Kaduna and

Odoh Nathaniel John

Federal University, Kashere

Understanding Igede Indigenous Knowledge Systems and the Future of Igede Cultural Heritage in Benue State, Nigeria

Mike Odey, PhD      

Benue State University, Makurdi

Globalization of African Land Reform Schemes: The South African Experience Akinola, Adeoye O. (PhD)

University of Zululand, South Africa

DAY TWO, TUESDAY 30 JANUARY 2018

SESSION E, PANEL 5:    African History and Tradition 3

TIME:                                   2.00-4.00PM

VENUE:                                UI Conference Centre

PANEL CHAIR:                 Professor Dele Layiwola, University of Ibadan, Nigeria

Tangible and Intangible Walls Between Idiroko and Igolo Neighbouring Towns

Oladesu J. O. & Sobowale T. O.

Olabisi Onabanjo University Ago Iwoye, Ibogun Campus,Ogun State

Yoruba Traditional Instrumental Ensemble and Indigenous Knowledge Systems

Olupemi E. Oludare Ph.D.

University of Lagos

Social Movements in Africa: Pre-Independence Equatorial Guinea

P.F. Owojuyigbe

Adeyemi College of Education Ondo, Ondo State, Nigeria

Indigenous And Modern Day Child Raising Methods : A Nexus. A Critical Look Into The Yoruba Proverb ' Omo Ti A Ko Ko Lo Ngbe Ile Ti A Ko Ta'

Oloyede Elizabeth Moronkeji; Ojoko Bukola Anike; and Samuel, Bukola Anike

Adeyemi College Of Education Ondo State, Nigeria

The Resilience of Ondo Indigenous Adjudicatory Systems, 1915-1957

Omotayo K. Charles

University of Ilorin

Indigenous Knowledge Systems-Mediated Classroom: What Role can it play in Education?

Ojo, Christianah Oluyemi (Ph. D); Akinrotimi, Adenike Adeola                                                                                                                       Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo, Ondo State, Nigeria; and                                                            Famakinwa Adebayo

Obafemi Awolowo University of Education, Ile-Ife, Osun State

Torn Between Cultures: Igbo Indigenous Knowledge of Peace Building and Security Mechanisms in Post-Colonial Nigeria

Mbalisi, Chinedu N. PhD                                                                           

Paul University, Awka; and                   

Okeke Chiemela Adaku                                                                              

Federal University Ndufu Alike Ikwo, Ebonyi State

Deconstructionism as Illustrated in Ifá Divination

Ofuasia Emmanuel                                                                                                         

Olabisi Onabanjo University,Ago-Iwoye,Ogun State, Nigeria

DAY TWO, TUESDAY 30 JANUARY 2018

SESSION E, PANEL 6:    African Commerce and Economic Development

TIME:                                   2.00-4.00PM

VENUE:                                UI Conference Centre

PANEL CHAIR:                 Dr Edith Phaswana, Thabo Mbeki African Leadership Institute, South Africa

Hegemony and Dominance in and between African Social Space: The Arbitrary and artificial dichotomy between rurality and urbanity

Terwase T. Dzeka                                                                                                                              Benue State University, Makurdi

Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Food Security in Hausaland: An Examination of Food Preservation and Storage Practices

Umar Muhammad Jabbi (PhD)                                                                                                

Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto

Traditional African Sculpture Style and its Development: Problems and Prospects

Kevin Samuel Damden                                                                                                  

Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria

The Art of Cloth Weaving a Medium for Culture Preservation in Nigeria

Umar Yusuf Olayinka  and Tisloh David Dung                                                                                                               Federal University Lafia, Nasarawa State Nigeria

DAY TWO, TUESDAY 30 JANUARY 2018

SESSION E, PANEL 7:    African Indigenous Knowledges and Epistemologies

TIME:                                   2.00-4.00PM

VENUE:                                UI Conference Centre

PANEL CHAIR:                 Dr Rebecca Golden Timsar, Boston University, USA

Existence of Social equilibrium and its Conditions

Immanuel Nashivela                                                                                                                   Namibia University of Science and Technology

African Indigenous Knowledge: Expounding the Rationale to Move from Discourse to Provention

Peter Genger  

Arthur Mauro Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (PACS), University of Manitoba, Winnipeg

The Role of Information Technology in the Enhancement of African Knowledge Production

Okoh Nora Augusta Ozemoya, Felix Omoh Okokhere (PhD), and Ekpoma Okoh Vincent Ehimhen,

Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma

Exploring Indigenous Knowledge as Alternative Pathways to Nigeria's Economic Development

Anthony  C. Onwumah (Ph.D), Tayo O. George (Ph.D), Idowu A. Chiazor (Ph.D)                                                                                                

Covenant University, Ota, Ogun State, Nigeria

Ending White Supremacy in Education: Using the Funds of Knowledge (FKN) Strategy to De-Colonize Knowledge

Munjeera Jefford      

York University, Toronto Canada

The Promise of Epistemic Contextualism in African Epistemology

Mikael Janvid                                                                                                                    

Stockholm University, Sweden

Interpreting the Urhobo indigenous knowledge system in the light of Western Education

Jibromah, Oghenekevwe K. (Mrs.)                                                                                                                               

Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo

Recasting Historical Epistemology & Scientific Discourse in Africa
Sesan Michael Johnson     

Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, Nigeria

Production of Knowledge and the Literary Tradition in Africa: Re-Reading Achebe and Ezeigbo

Ijeoma C. Nwajiaku, (Ph.D)

Federal Polytechnic, Oko, Anambra State, Nigeria

The Historiography of Knowledge Production in Africa

Stephen Okhonmina                                                                               

University of Benin, Benin City, Nigeria

DAY TWO, TUESDAY 30 JANUARY 2018

SESSION E, PANEL 8:    African Arts, Culture and Spirituality

TIME:                                   2.00-4.00PM

VENUE:                                UI Conference Centre

PANEL CHAIR:                 Dr. Samson Ijaola, Samuel Adegboyega University, Nigeria

The Dynamics of African Spirituality: A Study of Ijo Orunmila Adulawo

Mobolaji Olagbemi

Osun State University, Osogbo, Nigeria

The Palm Oil Baptises the Yam and the Hungry Rejoice: Food and Feasts in the African Novel

Kayode Kofoworola                                                                                                                

University of Lagos Akoka, Yaba Lagos

Dominican Catholic Chapel Ibadan; Artist's Hand in the Service of God

Kolade Ayeyemi

Federal College Of Education (Technical), Akoka, Yaba, Lagos, Nigeria

Consciousness of Spirituality in Visual Art Practice: A Personal Encounter

Lasisi Lamidi

Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria

Art of Pottery: Medium for Culture Identification in Africa

Obadofin Samuel Bamidele,                                                                                                  

Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria;

Akan, Nicholas Behatan                                                                                                      

Federal College of Education Obudu-Cross River State

Maxwell E. Roberts

Federal Polytechnic Nasarawa, Nasarawa State

Towards an Endogenous Interpretation of Indigenous Yoruba Culture: A Critique of Lola Shoneyin's The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives

Akin Olaniyi, Ph.D

The Polytechnic, Ibadan, Nigeria

The Influence of African Culture on Modern Music: A Global Dimension

Etuk, Akaninyene Ufot and Oliseh, Kadishi Ndudi

University of Ibadan, Ibadan Nigeria

Assessing Indigenous Music Content in Colleges of Education Curriculum: Implications for Indigenous Musical Practices and National Identity in Nigeria

Ojelabi Cornelius Olufemi (PhD) 

Emmanuel Alayande College of Education, Oyo

DAY TWO, TUESDAY 30 JANUARY 2018

SESSION F, PANEL 1:    Toyin Falola, African History and Pan-Africanism

TIME:                                   4.00-5.30PM

VENUE:                                UI Conference Centre

PANEL CHAIR:                 Prof. Malami Buba, Sokoto State University, Nigeria

The Role of Intellectuals and African Future: Exploration into the Contributions of Prof. Toyin Falola in Historical Scholarship

Mukhtar Umar Bunza

Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, Nigeria

Falolaist Cultural Brokerage and the Pan-African Agenda

Malami Buba

Sokoto State University, Nigeria & Hankuk University of Foreign Studies (HUFS), Korea

Liberated Africans from the Bight of Benin Hinterland

Henry B. Lovejoy

The University of Colorado, Boulder, USA

Removing The Debris

Segun Ogungbemi                                                                                                                     

Nigeria

Falola and the Future of the Humanities in Africa

Olabode Ibironke

Rutgers University, USA

The African Past in the Future: Resource or Relic?