History and history-makers in modern Nigeria:
Date
1973
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Ibadan, Oyo State: University of Ibadan Press,
Abstract
an inaugural lecture delivered at the university of Ibadan on Thursday, 25 October 1973.
Description
This Inaugural Lecture for a number of reasons. Coming first in the session which marks the Silver Jubilee Celebrations of this University, my lecture provides a
unique opportunity to relate my theme, in some respects, to the early development of this institution. Besides, my Inaugural Lecture is the first to be given by a professorial Head of a Department which was one of the foundation departments of this University. Historical circumstances prevented my distinguished predecessors—the professorial Heads of Department—from giving an Inaugural Lecture. There is, however, no doubt that Professors Eveline C. Martin, Kenneth 0. Dike, J. C. Anene, J. F. Ade. Ajayi and A. F. C. Ryder, in that order, contributed their utmost in keeping ablaze the flame of History at Ibadan. We can agree therefore that my lecture today does not claim to inuagurate a new Department.
The choice of a suitable theme on an occasion such as this was not easy. On the scope of an Inaugural Lecture, the last expatriate Principal of this institution, himself a historian, made some useful suggestions worth recalling. In June 1959 he observed: One of the performances expected of a newly appointed Professor is an Inuagural Lecture. As you know, the term "Inaugural" is not always literally accurate. There was one Professor at Cambridge, very famous in other-respects, who devoted much of the twenty years of his tenure of the Chair to preparing material for his Inaugural; and there is something
to be said for the view that an Inaugural should sum up a
man's best thought on his subject. However, in general, it is a good thing for an Inaugural Lecture to inaugurate a tenure.