Kazeem Ugbodaga
Have you written a critical article on former Nigerian leader, Olusegun Obasanjo before? Have you lampooned him in cartoons?
The chance is that your critical piece is among the prized collections of the former Nigerian leader, now being kept in the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library in Abeokuta, Ogun state.
“If you visit the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential library in Abeokuta, you will find thousands of archived newspaper comics and columns meant to spite and insult my persons even as a sitting President.
“No individual or group of people was ever queried or jailed or repressed in expressing this freedom. Rather, I encouraged them because I derived fun and pleasure from the humour as I know who I am and what I am and nobody needs to tell me who and what I am not.”
He spoke today in Ibadan, Oyo State, Southwest Nigeria at the opening ceremony of the First International Conference of the African Studies Association of Africa, ASAA. The event was hosted by the Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan.
Citing his experience in tolerance, Obasanjo said that the problem of human rights violation had waned drastically in Africa. The jurors on human rights, such as the Amnesty International and even Nigeria’s National Human Rights Commission, may, however, not agree with this sweeping view.
On the future of African studies, Obasanjo said the success of African studies would be tied to the intellectual, philosophical, ideological and institutional transformation currently taking place in various socio-cultural and political systems in different counties and countries.
“African studies should not be satisfied with merely contributing to the accumulation of knowledge about Africa. Scholars should have novel priority which should slant towards indigenous-based tradition of knowledge. In line with the necessity of making African studies a wider project, African scholars should not be satisfied with merely contributing knowledge that is capitalised in and managed by the West,” he stated.
The theme of the three-day conference is “African Studies in the Twenty-First Century: Past, Present and Future.”
The conference was attended by scholars and academics drawn across Africa.