Establishment and Growth of the Department of History at the University of Ife

The Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) was founded in 1962 as the University of Ife.Footnote ⁶ It took off on the campus of the old Nigerian College of Arts, Science and Technology at Ibadan before it was moved to its permanent site at Ile-Ife in 1967.Footnote ⁷ The University was founded with the goal of meeting the nation’s demand for high-level manpower. A model of contemporary campus planning and design, the University is situated on a 13,850-hectare of land in the historic city of Ile-Ife in southwest Nigeria. It was renamed the Obafemi Awolowo University in 1987 by the Federal Government of Nigeria following the death of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the former Premier of Western Region, during whose tenure the establishment of the university was conceived.Footnote ⁸ The University has witnessed a remarkable growth from an initial population of 244 students and 64 academic staff at inception to over 37,000 students and 1,300 academic staff at present. The University is currently made up of 2 colleges (College of Health Sciences and Postgraduate College), 13 faculties, and 103 Departments/academic units, and it offers undergraduate and graduate programs in the Liberal Arts, Sciences, Engineering, and Technology in addition to some professional programs. Since graduating its first students in 1965, the University has produced over 100,000 alumni, many of whom have distinguished themselves as national and international leaders in their various professional callings.

The Department of History was one of the pioneer academic units in the University of Ife at its inception in 1962.Footnote ⁹ It was one of the four departments in the Faculty of Arts at the inception of the University. At its temporary take-off site at Ibadan in 1962, the Department admitted its nineteen pioneer students into the History Special Honours program and ten other students into the combined honors programs in History/English and History/Religion. The pioneer academic staff of the Department of History of the University of Ife were expatriate scholars supported by scholars from the Department of History of the University of Ibadan. These pioneer expatriate scholars included R. S. Smith, H. R. Lynch, T. W. Roberts, and O. H. Myers (an archaeologist with the University’s Institute of African Studies).Footnote ¹⁰ Apart from these expatriate scholars, the indigenous academic pioneer at the Department of History, University of Ife, was Dr. Isaac Adeagbo Akinjogbin who joined the Department in 1963 as a Lecturer.Footnote ¹¹

Due to its temporary location and take-off at Ibadan, the Department benefitted immensely from the academic contributions of scholars of Ibadan School of History such as Professors J. F. Ade-Ajayi, S. O. Biobaku, B. O. Oloruntimehin and a host of others. Other early indigenous academic staff in the Department of History of the University of Ife during its Ibadan years were Messers A. Fajana, A. O. Anjorin, K. Folayan, P. A. Igbafe, and Mrs. F. A. Okediji (later lent to the Faculty of Economics and Social Studies due to its shortage of academic staff).Footnote ¹² These pioneers were joined by later Nigerian scholars when the University was moved to Ife in 1967. The list of early scholars who joined the Department at Ife included Drs. S. O. Osoba, G. O. Ekemode, and S. O. Akintoye (later Professor). In the 1970s, these early scholars were joined by Drs. O. Omosini, R. A. Olaniyan, G. I. O. Olomola, J. A. Adefila, M. Omosule, A. Olorunfemi, A. A. Adediran, O. O. Falola, and S. O. Arifalo, among other later scholars. The 1980s saw the appointment of younger scholars such as Akanmu Adebayo, Olasiji Oshin, Olusola Akinrinade, Olukemi Rotimi, and Funsho Afolayan, among others.

The undergraduate and postgraduate programs at Ife aimed generally at giving students a thorough understanding of Nigerian history and historiography planted firmly in the context of African culture, history, and historiography and educating students on historical movements of global importance from other continents to enable them acquire better knowledge of the world.Footnote ¹³ This is with a view to inculcating in the students critical and analytical faculties and balanced judgment, which would allow them to comprehend the historical forces and develop a sense of commitment and capacity to consciously relate to these forces and developments in such a way that Nigerian and African unity, development, and prosperity can be achieved and sustained. To achieve these aims, relevant courses were designed and taught at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

Within a short period of time, the Department of History at Ife carved a niche for itself as a leading school of history in Nigeria with special focus on African, West African, and Yoruba culture history. By the 1970s, scholars from the “Ife School of History,” as tagged by Professor Benjamin Olatunji Oloruntimehin in 1976, had produced notable works on different aspects of African history through what it called Ife History Series emanating from its rich departmental seminar series.Footnote ¹⁴ This was apart from other seminal works on aspects of African history produced by individual scholars from the Department. The Department graduated its first set of bachelor’s degree holders in 1965 and produced its first doctorate degree holder in 1977.Footnote ¹⁵ Over the years, the Department of History has produced a number of renowned academic historians of professorial and non-professorial ranks working in universities across the world. This is in addition to a number of its graduates who are successful professionals, administrators, and journalists, among other professions, in different parts of the world.

Due to the crisis of relevance and recognitions that faced the historical scholarship during the long years of military rule since the early 1980s, rather than changing its nomenclature like other History Departments did, the Department of History at Ife retained its name but introduced a number of combined degree programs to retain its students and attract new ones. Today, the Department awards Bachelor of Arts (BA) degrees in History (Single Honours), Bachelor of Arts History and English; History and International Relations; History and Philosophy; History and Political Science; History and Religious Studies; History and Sociology; History and Economics; and History and Education (Combined Honours).Footnote ¹⁶

Professorial Appointments and Inaugural Lectures from the Department of History at Ife

The Department of History at OAU, Ile-Ife, has produced a total number of thirteen professors since inception in 1962. These are Professors I. A. Akinjogbin (1968), B. O. Oloruntimehin (1974), S. A. Akintoye (1977), K. Folayan (1979), O. Omosini (1981), R. A. Olaniyan (1983), A. A. Adediran (1993), G. O. I. Olomola (1997), A. Olorunfemi (1998), O. T. Akinrinade (1999), A. A. Alao (2009), E. O. Rotimi (2015), and A. O. Adesoji (2015).

Benjamin Olatunji Oloruntimehin, History and Society (Inaugural Lecture Series 18, 1976): This Inaugural Lecture was delivered on 24 February 1976 as the first Inaugural Lecture from the Department of History of the University. Professor B. O. Oloruntimehin obtained his bachelor’s and doctorate degrees in History at the University of Ibadan in 1963 and 1966, respectively.Footnote ¹⁷ He began his teaching career at the University of Ibadan, rising to the post of a Reader before joining the University of Ife as a professor at the then Institute of African Studies in the late 1960s. In this lecture, Professor Oloruntimehin, an Ibadan-trained Historian, chronicles the challenges of History as a field study, the resilience of the discipline to survive its derision, the use of history in the African preliterate societies, the ways to reposition African history in the postcolonial Africa, and the importance of history in human society. In his conclusion, he makes a case for the promotion of history because society itself is history in transition and “the need to know the past in order to understand the present and planning for the future can hardly be over-emphasized.”Footnote ¹⁸

Isaac Adeagbo Akinjogbin: History and Nation Building (Inaugural Lecture Series 26, 1977): This lecture was delivered on 28 November 1977 as the second Inaugural Lecture from the Department of History of the University. Professor Isaac Adeagbo Akinjogbin can be regarded as the “doyen” of the Department of History at Ife, having joined the Department as a Lecturer in 1963. He was educated at Fourah Bay College, Sierra Leone, University of Durham, and the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London where he obtained his doctorate degree in 1963 as Commonwealth Scholar. In this lecture, the London-trained historian x-rays the philosophies and principles that guide teaching and research in history and how these principles can be used as instruments of nation building in Nigeria. He provides, in this lecture, the preliterate Yoruba’s conception of history, its nature, its sources, and its use and importance in the development of their society. He also makes a case for methodological and content redefinitions in African history, which will emphasize African situations and realities rather than European paradigm and models. His conclusion is that pre-European Africans not only had worthy history to be studied but also reflected on the nature and purpose of history. Therefore, it is his considered opinion that history must be accorded a pride of place in Africa’s quest for an all-round socioeconomic and political development because “the soul of a nation is its history.”Footnote ¹⁹ Professor Akinjogbin, the doyen of “Ife School of History,” has an unsurpassed record of services to the Department, Faculty of Arts, the University, and the outside world during his active days.

Kola Folayan: The Arab Factor in African History (Inaugural Lecture Series 60, 1983): This lecture was delivered on 15 March 1983. Professor Folayan was trained at the University of Ibadan for his bachelor and master’s degree before obtaining his doctorate degree in history from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, in 1970. He joined the services of the University of Ife in 1964 and rose to the professorial rank in 1979. In this Lecture, Professor Folayan reflects on the place of the Arabs and Islam in the development of African history and historiography. His analysis shows that the Arabs not only had an impact on the religious, economic, and political systems in Africa but that they contributed immensely to African historiographical traditions in the area of sources of history, preservation, and transmission of historical information from generation to generation. He submits that “the Arab factor is certainly one of most important, pervasive, dynamic, and significant factors that shaped and have continued to shape African history.”Footnote ²⁰ Professor Folayan served as Head of Department and Dean of Faculty of Arts before he retired from active service.

Olufemi Omosini: Evolution of African Historiography: An Overview (Inaugural Lecture Series 97, 1991): This lecture was delivered on 5 February 1991. Professor Omosini was educated at the University of Ibadan, University of Cambridge, and University of Oxford. He obtained his PhD in History at Oxford in 1969 and joined the Department of History at Ife in 1969 as Lecturer II before rising through the ranks to the professorship in 1981. In this Inaugural Lecture, Professor Omosini provides succinct description of historiography and its evolutionary stages from the classical times to the Renaissance and modern periods. He also traces the evolution of African historiography and its distinct characteristics from oral historiography of the preliterate era through the era of Arabic and Islamic historiography to the era of European written accounts characterized by writings of the explorers, missionaries, and colonial officials up to the indigenous African writings and academic historiography since the 1950s.Footnote ²¹ He concludes this lecture by outlining the contributions of Nigerian historians to the study of African history in the areas of rigorous research productions, the use of interdisciplinary approach, the embracing of oral traditions, the Nigerianization of History curricula in schools and colleges, the establishment of the national archives, the formation of the Historical Society of Nigeria, and the publication of journals and magazines. Professor Omosini was Head of Department and Dean of Faculty of Arts at different times of his active career before he retired.

Richard Adeboye Olaniyan: Nigerian Diplomacy: The Burden of History (Inaugural Lecture Series 102, 1990): This lecture was delivered on 16 January 1990. Professor R. A. Olaniyan was educated at Regis University, the George Washington University in Washington DC, and Georgetown University, all in the United States of America. He obtained his PhD in History in 1969 and joined the Department of History at Ife as Lecturer II in 1970. He rose through the ranks and became Professor of History in 1983, specializing in Diplomatic History. In this Inaugural Lecture, Professor Olaniyan reflects on broad issues around the origin, nature, dimensions, and thrusts of Nigeria’s diplomatic relations since independence and the major factors shaping them. These factors, according to him, include the country’s national interest, the colonial experiences, neo-colonial orientations, the neighboring countries of Nigeria, the dominant system of government, and the personalities of the leaders, among other factors. His central argument is that studies of contemporary issues must take a central stage in Nigerian history so that better historical understanding of these issues will aid informed judgment and decisions on major issues of national importance.Footnote ²² Professor Olaniyan served as Head of Department, Dean of Faculty of Arts, Dean of the Division of Students’ Affairs, and Provost of College of Arts and Education of the University before his retirement.

Gabriel Ola Ishola Olomola: Reconciliation: The Myth and the Fact (Inaugural Lecture Series 154, 2002): This lecture was delivered on 3 December 2002. Professor G. O. I. Olomola was educated at the University of Ife where he bagged his bachelor’s degree in 1967 and doctorate degree in 1977 as the first doctoral graduate produced by the Department of History at Ife.Footnote ²³ He thereafter joined the Department as Lecturer II and rose to the professorship in 1997. He served as the Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs in the old Ondo State from 1987 to 1991. Professor Olomola argues in this Lecture that conflict is part of life, which is as old as human existence with relevant examples in human history across epochs. Conflict is inevitable because, in his words, human society is “a world of perpetual opposites.”Footnote ²⁴ He also stresses that the management, containment, resolution, and reconciliation of conflict among disputants are necessary for the advancement, growth, and development of human societies. He concludes that it is worth the efforts of academic historians to look at the issue of conflict resolution and reconciliatory efforts in human societies and organizations to see how true and lasting peace can be achieved. Professor Olomola served as the Head of Department and Director of the Institute of Cultural Studies of the University before his retirement.

Abiodun Adebayo Adediran: The Problem with the Past (Inaugural Lecture Series 159, 2002): This lecture was delivered on 10 August 2002. Professor Abiodun Adediran was educated at the Department of History at Ife for his bachelor and doctorate degrees which he obtained in 1975 and 1980, respectively. He began his academic career as Graduate Assistant in the Department of History at Ife in 1976. He was promoted to the rank of Professor of History in 1993. In this lecture, Professor Adediran reflects on the basic factors responsible for the failure of historical studies to impact our understanding of the contemporary issues in the Yoruba and Nigerian contexts.Footnote ²⁵ His argument is that history has always been relevant but this relevance has not been always officially recognized by successive governments in Nigeria, which tend to promote only science and technology. He, therefore, submits that while it is good that governments promote scientific and technological knowledge among the Nigerian youths, we also have an obligation to make them appreciate their historical background and make them proud of their African identity in the global community. Professor Adediran served as Head of Department, Dean of Faculty of Arts, Director of the Institute of Cultural Studies, and Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University at different times of his career.

Olusola Timothy Akinrinade: Foreign Policy Cooperation in Developing States (Inaugural Lecture Series 178, 2005): This lecture was delivered on 31 May 2005. Professor O. T. Akinrinade was educated at the Department of History at Ife for his bachelor and master’s degrees in history from 1981 to 1984. He obtained his doctorate degree in International Relations in 1987 from the London School of Economics and Political Science. He joined the Department of History at Ife in 1982 as Graduate Assistant and attained full professorship in 1999. In this lecture, Professor Akinrinade delves into the realm of Third World international relations and foreign policy formulations in the post-independence era and the historical factors that affect them. Analyzing the behaviors of Third World countries in international organizations such as the United Nations Organisation (UNO), the Commonwealth of Nations, the African Union (AU), and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), it is argued that certain military, economic, political, and geographical constraints militated against their exercise of influence or power in the international system. For instance, African states were faced with such challenges as primary mono-dimensional economies, neo-colonial influences, lack of common approach, disunity and related issues that negatively affected their cooperation on the international scene. He concludes that history has shown that there is much to be gained from foreign policy cooperation among African states and other Third World countries because they share geographical and regional affinities, they are confronted by similar constraints, and they pursue similar objectives.Footnote ²⁶ Professor Olusola Akinrinade served as the pioneer Vice-Chancellor of Osun State University, Osogbo, from 2007 to 2012 and Provost, Independent Corrupt Practices, and other related Offences Commission’s Academy, Abuja, from 2015 to 2020. He is still very active as lecturer, researcher, and mentor in the Department.

Akinsola Clement Olorunfemi: The Problems of Historical Understanding (Inaugural Lecture Series 194, 2006). This lecture was delivered on 11 July 2006. Professor A. C. Olorunfemi was educated at the Department of History at Ife for his bachelor and master’s degrees. He later obtained his doctorate degree in history from the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom, in 1977. He joined the Department of History at Ife as Graduate Assistant in 1972 and rose to the professorship in 1998. In this lecture, Professor Olorunfemi examines the concept of philosophy of history and its importance to the discipline of history. He also identifies and analyzes the various philosophical problems of historical research. These philosophical problems include the following: what constitutes historical fact; the problem of causation in history; the nature of history (whether science or art); the nature of historical evidence and evidential relationship; freewill, determinism and contingency; continuity and change; generalizations and laws of history; problems of the dichotomy of individual and society in historical explanations; problems of relations between history and religion; and the problem of historical objectivity, among others. These problems and how historians should handle them so that their accounts are intelligible to their audience are examined in the lecture. He concludes by lending his voice to the dire need for salvaging history as a discipline in contemporary Nigeria because it has capacity to make our world intelligible by showing us “how things have come to be what they are at the present.”Footnote ²⁷

Akinkunmi Adegbola Alao: History, Law and Society in Nigeria (Inaugural Lecture Series 324, 2018): This lecture was delivered on 14 August 2018. Professor A. A. Alao was educated at the Department of History, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, for his bachelor and master’s degrees. He obtained his doctorate degree in History at the University of Ibadan in 2000. He started his teaching career at the Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo, before joining the Department of History at Ife in 1997 as Lecturer I. He rose to full professorship in 2009. In this lecture, Professor Alao provides, in historical perspectives, the connections between law and society and their enduring links over the ages using the Yoruba people and the Nigerian state as reference points. Premised on the Yoruba cultural and legal milieus, the lecture makes an excursion into the legal and judicial history of Nigeria from the preliterate era through the Arabo-Islamic period and the Euro-Christian era up to the colonial and postcolonial periods in Nigeria. It underscores the nexus of history, society, law, justice, and the political process and governance in Nigeria from the earliest till the contemporary period. He concludes that legal history as a branch of history demonstrates clearly the functional relevance of history through a systematic study of the forces of change in the society.Footnote ²⁸ Professor Alao served the Department as Head of Department from 2006 to 2008 and has continued to teach and mentor students and junior colleagues in the Department.

Abimbola Omotayo Adesoji: The Politics of History (Inaugural Lecture Series 340, 2019): This lecture was delivered on 9 July 2019. Professor A. O. Adesoji was educated at the Obafemi Awolowo University for his bachelor, master and doctorate degrees in history which were obtained in 1991, 2003, and 2007, respectively. He started his academic career as Graduate Assistant in the Department of History at Ife in 2001 and rose to the professorship in 2015. In this lecture, Professor Adesoji examines the use to which history and historians are being put Nigeria over the years and the challenges confronting historians in the course of doing their job as the mirrors of the society. He sums the collective challenges of writing, teaching, and application of history in the twenty-first-century Nigeria as “the politics being played with history.” He shows, with concrete examples, that these politics include politics of access to source materials, politics of interpretation, politics of use of sources, politics of exclusion, politics of using history as image launderer, and so on. However, he cautions historians to “be conscious of the kind of history they make or write not because of anything but that of reckoning time and the lessons inherent therein.”Footnote ²⁹ Professor Adesoji has served the Department as Head of Department at different times, and he is still very active in teaching, research, and administration in the Department till date.

Emmanuel Olukemi Rotimi: The Odyssey of a Historian of the Police (Inaugural Lecture Series 360, 2022): This lecture was delivered on 12 April 2022. Professor Emmanuel Olukemi Rotimi was educated at Ife where he obtained bachelor’s degree in History Education in 1980, master’s degree in 1984, and doctorate degree in History in 1990. He joined the Department of History at Ife in 1982 as Graduate Assistant and rose through the ranks to the professorship in 2015. In this lecture, Professor Rotimi provides historical insights into the trajectories of his career as a professional and academic historian of the police and his major services to the government of Nigeria in the area of police reforms and management in the postcolonial era. His major position in the lecture is that his career has demonstrated the best example of scholarship for public good through the numerous policy recommendations he had made to the governments from his research exertions.Footnote ³⁰

Other Academic Staff Affiliated with the Department of History at Ife

Apart from the professorial staff who delivered inaugural lectures identified above, the Department of History at Ife was also blessed with other renowned academic historians who taught in the Department at different times and attained the professorial ranks but did not deliver inaugural lecture and those who did not attain the professorship before retirement or departure from the Department. One renowned scholar in this category is Professor Stephen Adebanji Akintoye. He was educated at the University College Ibadan (1956–1961) and the University of Ibadan (1961–1966) for his bachelor and doctorate degrees in History. He joined the Department of History at the University of Ife as a Lecturer in 1966, was promoted to the rank of Senior Lecturer in 1971, and rose to the rank of professor in 1977. He specializes in political history of Yorubaland.Footnote ³¹ Professor Akintoye left for the United States of America in 1983 where he continued his career after four years as a Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria from 1979 to1983.

Other prominent academic historians who were affiliated with the Department of History at Ife included Mr. (later Professor) A. Fajana who was a specialist in the Yoruba traditional education. During the early years of the University at Ibadan, Mr. Fajana combined work as a Lecturer with additional work of being the Departmental Librarian.Footnote ³² He later moved to the Faculty of Education where he attained the professorship in History Education. Another renowned scholar in this category was Dr. Segun Osoba. Dr. Osoba was educated at the University College Ibadan and Moscow State University where he obtained his bachelor and doctorate degrees in History in 1959 and 1967, respectively. He joined the services of the Department of History at Ife in 1967 as a Lecturer and retired in 1991 as Senior Lecturer. He is a specialist in social and intellectual history of modern Nigeria.Footnote ³³

Drs. A. O. Anjorin, G. O. Ekemode, P. A. Igbafe, and O. Eluyemi of blessed memories were four scholars affiliated with the Department of History at Ife who did not attain the professorial rank. Dr. Abel Olorunfemi Anjorin joined the Department as a Lecturer in 1964.Footnote ³⁴ He obtained his bachelor and doctorate degrees in History from Universities of Exeter and London in 1959 and 1966, respectively. Dr. Anjorin’s area of specialization was the British occupation of Northern Nigeria.Footnote ³⁵ Dr. Philip A. Igbafe taught in the Department of History at Ife from 1964 to 1975 when he transferred his services to the Department of History of the newly established University of Benin where he later attained the professorship.Footnote ³⁶ Other scholars in this category included late Dr. G. O. Ekemode, a specialist in the history of East Africa; Dr. Omotoso Eluyemi, the first Yoruba man to obtain a doctorate degree in Archaeology, who taught as a lecturer in the Department from 1973 to 1984 when Archaeology was excised from the Department of History as an autonomous academic unit; and O. Onabajo who was also a trained archaeologist and taught in the Department of History at Ife for a while.Footnote ³⁷ The trio of Ekemode, Eluyemi, and Onabajo contributed immensely to historical scholarship and training in the Department during their lifetimes.

Dr. J. A. Adefila is another scholar who was affiliated with the Department of History at Ife but did not attain the professorship there. He obtained his bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Ibadan in 1969 and studied at Brandeis University, Massachusetts, for his master and doctorate degrees which he obtained in 1972 and 1975, respectively. He specialized in African-American History. He joined the Department of History at Ife as Lecturer Grade II in 1975 and voluntarily retired as Senior Lecturer in 1993. He later took an appointment at Bennett College in the United States. Dr. Monone Omosule is another scholar in this category. He obtained his doctorate degree in History from Syracuse University in the United States in 1974. He joined the Department of History at Ife as Lecturer Grade II in 1975 and rose to senior lectureship before his retirement in 2007. Dr. Omosule is a specialist in East and Central African history – areas where he taught undergraduate and post-graduate courses from the 1970s to 2007.

Also included in this category of scholars are late Professor S. O. Arifalo and Dr. V. O. Oshin. Professor Arifalo was one of the second sets of students admitted to the Department of History at Ife in 1963. He obtained his bachelor and doctorate degrees in History at Ife in 1966 and 1983, respectively.Footnote ³⁸ He taught as a school teacher from 1966 to 1973, attaining the post of principal before joining the Department of History as a Tutor. In 1976, he became Lecturer Grade II and attained senior lectureship in 1983 after obtaining his PhD. Dr. Arifalo retired from active services of Obafemi Awolowo University as Senior Lecturer in 1990. Thereafter, he joined the Department of History at the Ondo State University, Ado-Ekiti, in 1991 where he attained readership and the Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko, where he attained full professorship in 2002. Late Arifalo specialized in Yoruba history with special bias for the history of Egbe Omo Oduduwa. Footnote ³⁹ Dr. V. O. Oshin, an Economic Historian, was educated at the University of Ibadan for his bachelor (1977) and master’s (1982) degrees while he obtained his doctorate degree in History at Ife in 1987. He was appointed as Assistant Lecturer in 1982 and attained Readership in 1997 before he voluntarily retired from the University in 2001.

In the annals of academic staff of the Department of History at Ife, the names of four contemporary US-based historians stand out. These are professors Toyin Falola of the University of Texas at Austin, A. G. Adebayo of Kennesaw State University, Funso Afolayan of New Hampshire University, and Adebayo Oyebade of Tennessee State University, all in the United States of America. These fours scholars were not only trained in the Department of History at Ife but three of them also started their careers there. For instance, Toyin Falola was a Lecturer in the Department of History at Ife from 1977 to 1990, attaining the rank of senior lectureship before relocating to the United States; Akanmu Adebayo was the first student to obtain First Class Bachelor’s degree in the Department in 1979 (he obtained the MA in 1982 and the PhD in 1986) and taught there from 1980 to 1991, attaining the senior lectureship; Funso Afolayan obtained the BA (1980), MA (1984), and PhD (1987) in History at Ife and attained senior lectureship before relocating to the US in 1996; Adebayo Olumuyiwa Oyebade earned the BA (History/Political Science) in 1982 and MA in History in 1985 at Ife but did not teach in the Department before relocating abroad. The quartet of Falola, Adebayo, Afolayan, and Oyebade moved to the United States in the 1990s and early 2000s as a consequence of the myriad of challenges that faced the Nigerian academic community, which led to brain drain during the period.

At different times in its history, the Department of History at Ife, since its establishment, has had the benefits of teaching and research contributions from other scholars within the country and from various parts of the world in adjunct, sabbatical, and visiting capacities. Some of the scholars who had visited the Department of History at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, include Professors J. D. Hargreaves, A. F. C. Ryder, J. K. Fynn, James Mulira, Dierk Lange, S. S. Berry, Gabrielle Weisser, Regennia Williams, among numerous leading historians and scholars across the globe. Also, Nigeria-based scholars from such universities as the University of Ibadan and the University of Lagos also visited the Department and taught students as visiting professors over the years. This list includes Professors J. F. Ade-Ajayi, R. J. Gavin, Olutayo Adesina, Victor Osaro Edo of the University of Ibadan, and Professor Rufus Taiwo Akinyele of the University of Lagos, among numerous others.