All roads are leading to the Benue State University in Makurdi, the Benue State capital later this month when the Historical Society of Nigeria would put one of its leading members on the intellectual couch. It would be a conference in honour of Yakubu Ochefu, a professor of African Economic History, a former President of the society and the immediate past Vice-Chancellor of the Kwararafa University in Wukari, Taraba State.
The conference which is a partnership of the Departments of History at the University of Ibadan, the University of Calabar, Benue State University, Federal University, Lafia, Taraba State University, Prince Abubakar Audu University and the Kwararafa University will take place on October 23rd and 24th, 2017 at the Department of History, Benue State University, Makurdi. Its theme is “African Economic History: From Hunters and Gatherers to the Industrial and Information Age”
Additional to its key essence, this conference also signals the strength of academic History in contemporary Nigeria compared to the Nigerian Political Science Association, (NPSA), for instance, which many see as merely a living dead. The relative diversity of the partnership underpinning the conference might also suggest a renaissance or revivalism. The academic climate in Nigeria at the moment is seen to be on the decline. However, History as a discipline in Nigeria has had the heritage of waging and winning a methodological warfare against received wisdom. Could it be morning yet on creation day?
