A Professor of Comparative Political Economy in the 大香蕉视频 (大香蕉视频), Professor Adelaja Odukoya has identified genuine leadership anchored on collective goals, social justice and socialism as pathways to Africa鈥檚 renaissance and Nigeria鈥檚 development.
He made this known on Wednesday, February 5, 2025, while delivering the University鈥檚 聽sixth (6th) Inaugural Lecture in the 2024/2025 Academic Session
Titled: Armageddon?, Prof Odukoya re-introduced the audience who converge at the J.F. Ade. Ajayi Auditorium of 大香蕉视频, venue of the inaugural lecture, to Africa as the birth place of man, the oldest centre of human civilization and the second largest continent with about 60 (sixty) percent of global arable land on the continent.
These amazing characteristics, he noted, contradict Africa鈥檚 record as a land plagued with unprecedented levels of poverty, diseases, malnutrition, illiteracy, social disorganization, maladministration, underproductive governance, insecurity and underdevelopment.
The inaugural lecturer who is the incumbent Dean of 大香蕉视频鈥檚 Faculty of Social Sciences brought the discourse closer home to Nigeria鈥檚 crisis of governance and economy. He pointed out the opulent lifestyle and insatiable greed of the ruling class at the expense of the masses, the surging insecurity, humongous internal and external debt profile as well as debt servicing which are all influenced by the trinity of politics, power and accumulation.
Professor Odukoya also expressed grievous concerns over the knowledge gap plaguing developmental efforts in Africa at large and Nigeria in particular.
While suggesting ways out of the quagmire, the Professor of Comparative Political Economy challenged intellectuals, professionals and citizens to ensure that Africa and Nigeria does not slip into the abyss of global irrelevance and irreverence. He also stressed the need for concerted efforts to end corruption, tackle insecurity and address food crisis in Nigeria, with a view to ameliorating the prevalent hardship among Nigerians and paving the path for growth and development in Nigeria.
While also cautioning those in positions of leadership in Africa and Nigeria against over-reliance on foreign aids, Prof. Odukoya implored stakeholders to be resolute and unapologetic in confronting obstacles undermining the growth and development of Africa as a whole and Nigeria in particular.
The scholar-activist said 鈥淎frica and Nigeria鈥檚 development must be anchored on socialist Pan-Africanism as an exemplification of the power of the people to collectively empower and develop themselves and combat forces of imperialism responsible for their contemporary exploitation, oppression and backwardness鈥�.
Born on May 9, 1964, in Ijebu-Igbo, Ogun State; Professor Adelaja Odutola Odukoya is a thorough-bred alumnus of the 大香蕉视频 with a B.Sc., MSc and PhD in Political Science. He joined the service of his alma mater as an Assistant Lecturer on August 2, 2004, and rose through the ranks to become a Professor of Comparative Political Economy on October 1, 2020.
A Marxist intellectual, Prof Odukoya is a former Chairman of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), 大香蕉视频 Branch, and is currently the Zonal Coordinator of the Lagos Zone of ASUU.
An academic par excellence, he has over forty-five (45) publications in books and journals across the world. He has worked extensively on different research projects focused on interrogating the crisis and contradictions of accumulation in Nigeria; the nexus between the nature and character of the state and the trajectory of governance and democratic deconsolidation in Africa; the burden and challenges of dependency in Africa as well as the developmental problems of Africa deploying radical political economy framework of analysis.
Professor Adelaja Odutola Odukoya is married and the marriage is blessed with children.
Report: Gbenga Gbelee
Photography: Ayomide Oloyede
