A Professor of Literary Theory/Criticism and Text-stylistics at the University of Ibadan, Professor Nelson Olabanji Fashina, has said that the time has come for Nigerian universities and research institutions to begin explore more advanced, and give more devotion to indigenous knowledge production systems.
Prof. Fashina made the call in the 523rd inaugural lecture of the University of Ibadan, which he delivered on behalf of the Faculty of Arts.
The lecture was entitled: “Text, Grammatology and the Automation of Theories in (African) Literary Discourse.”
Professor Fashina stated that Western scholarship had failed to realise that Africa’s theory of art antidates that because Ifa is said to have been existing since 10,000 B.C.
From Ifatory, he stated that Africans could generate their own indigenous body of knowledge in physics, chemistry, biology, political science, anthropology, history and above all, Literature and Linguistics- which are all offsprings of Philosophy, the mother of all disciplines.
Making a deviation into politics, Professor Fashina advised Nigerians not to see any presidential candidate as a saint, adding that “we should apply an objective barometer to our critical judgments.”
He said Nigerians should not deify any of the presidential aspirants, otherwise, they would be guilty of prejudiced bigotry.
The Professor said he introjected the ongoing political discourse into his lecture to underscore the humanistic relevance of his discipline to sociopolitical reality.
