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Scholar Calls for Council on Yoruba Historical Studies

Professor Akin Ogundiran has called for the creation of a Council on Yoruba Historical Studies to ensure the accurate preservation and interpretation of the past.

Ogundiran is the Cardiss Collins Professor of Arts and Sciences, Professor of History, and Affiliate Professor in Anthropology and Black Studies.

He made the call on Tuesday, 2nd September 2025, while delivering the Faculty Distinguished Alumnus Lecture at the University of Ibadan’s Faculty of Arts.

The lecture was themed “Ancient History for the Present: The Challenge of Ancestral Yoruba Cosmopolitanism to Postcolonial Nigeria.”

Identifying three major challenges facing history in Nigeria, Ogundiran cited the rise of amateur historians on social media, a widespread lack of critical historical thinking, and the growing influence of artificial intelligence.

He warned that many Nigerians “cannot distinguish between allegory and history”.

The historian stressed that academic historians depend on evidence from documents, oral traditions, archaeology, linguistics, and material culture, among others, unlike popular narrators who promote ideography.

He said entrusting historical preservation to political or royal elites would be “absurd”, urging instead that traditional rulers invest in museums and archives to safeguard legacies.

“We must be deferent to our king, but we must not be tolerant of royal rascality,” he said, cautioning against allowing personal interests to distort historical facts.

To address the problem, Ogundiran proposed a council to organise historical retreats for leaders and fact-check misleading claims by elites.

"I propose that a council on Yoruba historical studies be established, to take on the responsibility of organising historical retreats for our leaders, including our princes and princesses, king-makers, chiefs, kings, politicians, and to be able to fact-check misleading historical pronouncements coming from these elites.

"The Council’s intervention must be based on established evidence and references from relevant literature."

He particularly urged the Development Agenda for Western Nigeria (DAWN) Commission to lead the effort, noting that “there can be no development without an evidence-based history.”

He also called for a review of the history curriculum in Nigerian universities, warning that overemphasis on colonial and post-colonial history would “impoverish the intelligence of our future generations.”

He recommended closer collaboration between history and related disciplines.

"We need a closer curriculum alignment among departments whose intellectual frameworks are based on historical thinking, such as archaeology, anthropology, classics, artistry, and history," he said.