The Vice-Chancellor of Caleb University, Lagos, Professor Ayodeji Olukoju, will deliver the Convocation Lecture during the 21st and 22nd Combined Convocation Ceremonies of the University, titled, Leadership, Economic Nationalism and Development: Nigeria and the Challenge from the Global South. The Lecture holds on Friday, June 20, 2014 at the new FUNAAB Ceremonial Building, beginning at 2pm.
Professor Olukoju obtained a Bachelor of Arts, First Class Honour’s degree in History and Archaeology from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka; Master of Arts and Doctorate degrees from the University of Ibadan in 1980, 1982 and 1991, respectively. He lectured at the Ogun State University, now Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, between 1984 and 1987, as well as the University of Lagos, where he was appointed Professor on October 1, 1998. He later served as Head, Department of History, between 2001 and 2004 and a two-term Dean in the Faculty of Arts, UNILAG, between 2005 and 2009.
The distinguished academic was twice the University of Lagos Best Researcher in the Arts/Humanities, between 2006 and 2009, and the first as well as the only African, Executive Committee of the International Maritime Economic History Association (IMEHA). He has to his credit, over 100 academic publications, having maintained a continuous sequence of international (offshore) publications on a yearly basis since 1991. He has equally served on the editorial boards of African Economic History, Madison, United States of America; Afrika Zamani: Journal of the Association of African Historians, Dakar, Senegal; History in Africa: A Journal of Method, Madison, USA; and Journal of African History, Cambridge, United Kingdom.
The Convocation Lecturer is a Fellow, Nigerian Academy of Letters, the apex body of academic organisations in the Humanities. He is also the Convener, Network of Nigerian Historians; external examiner and professorial assessor at several Nigerian and Ghanaian Universities; consultant to many international organisations such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO); Ford Foundation; The Netherlands Foundation for Tropical Research; the Israeli Science Foundation; and the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), among others.