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University Of Pretoria Appoints Falola As Extraordinary Professor Of Political Science

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University Of Pretoria Appoints Falola As Extraordinary Professor Of Political Science
Prof. Toyin Falola

The University of Pretoria Council South Africa has just appointed the eminent scholar Toyin Falola as an Extraordinary Professor in the Department of Political Sciences from
where he will be seconded to the African Centre for the Study of the United States, University of Pretoria (ACSUS-UP). He has accepted the offer with a promise to immediately commence the responsibilities associated with this thoughtful appointment.

The conferment of this appointment on Falola reflects the deep-seated feeling of attachment that he, as an academic, and the University of Pretoria, have towards humanities generally, especially concerning the need to provide alternative perspectives to issues and emerging sociopolitical trends poised to shift erstwhile orientations widely held in the global knowledge economy. Counting Falola worthy of occupying this important role sends a strong signal of certainty that the University of Pretoria, alongside its various intellectual communities, have identified with what his academic engagements have triggered in intellectual conversations. This appointment will provoke the highest level of delight in many others.

Prof. Tinashe Nyamunda, Department of Historical and Heritage Studies, ACSUS
University of Pretoria, South Africa.

Falola has promised to be actively involved in the supervision of postgraduate students in the Department of Political Science and ACSUS-UP whenever assigned. A significant part of his academic career has been dedicated to a lifelong productive relationship with postgraduates whom he has mentored, directed, guided and even aided their academic progression through informed engagements and systematic evaluation of issues. Therefore, being accorded an opportunity to continue in this trajectory, especially by the University of Pretoria, renews his spirit and would most certainly get the best of his attention and dedication to service. It was stated in the letter of appointment that Falola is expected to partake in the research agenda and projects of the university, for which he considers himself ready in the course of his career progression too as an academic, first, and secondly, as an African whose lifelong ambition is to be an active participant in engagements that would catapult the continent to its deserved height in global affairs. Since academia has offered Falola this dreamed opportunity, he cannot emphasize enough how instrumental he will be in this regard.

The above would therefore facilitate the third possible responsibility that Pretoria has deemed fit for Falola as an Extraordinary Professor. Publication of research materials has always been an enduring desire of all academics so that their intellectual efforts would have a wider coverage of readership and, in the process, acceptability. In essence, research engagements that predominantly include Falola’s participation would be seriously worked on to ensure their publications with the notable and international publishing industry. It is a fundamental development that would bring to the academic environment of South Africa as a whole, and the University of Pretoria in particular, the anticipated intellectual advancement that projects not only the findings of seasoned scholars there but also the ones from collaborative and transdisciplinary works. As also stated, Falola is open to participation in seminars and conferences. This would substantially enhance knowledge transfers where exchanging ideas would further refine the university’s intellectual and moral principles as a community and then as individuals. Different conferences are held periodically at the University of Pretoria Future Africa campus to gather people together to deepen conversations around identified topics.

Falola has contributed substantially to the understanding of African politics since the precolonial times till date. Among his latest accomplishments are a series of handbooks that give a good theoretical and practical evaluation of situations to reach an informed position. His latest book published in 2022, Decolonizing African Studies: Knowledge Production, Agency, And Voice, offers a rough-hewn examination of African studies with its seemingly eternal glorification of its Eurocentric counterpart, apparently doing epistemic damage to the African identity. The thematic focus of the work is to break the bondage of inferiority that has compelled the African intellectuals to underutilize their indigenous knowledge system and structure, which are generally expected to engineer a resolute demographic of Africans who would challenge the domination of others that have held them in perpetual bondage. In ways completely interlinked with the South African political experience, the book x-rays the negative consequences of imperialism and how its effects have crawled into the mental department of the people, silently disparaging their thought processes for reasons that would never benefit Africans. The book argues that decolonization is a promising way out for the people.

READ ALSO: President Thabo Mbeki On The Need For An African Reawakening

In 2022, Falola coedited a handbook titled The Oxford Handbook of Nigerian History, where contributors explored different themes about Nigerian history. The book features contributions from various scholars of history and politics who provide a more robust academic engagement that highlights a timeline of historical experience that has been hitherto poorly organized, distorted or manipulated for purposes known best to the writers. The Nigerian history, they discovered, has always been painted in revisionist colour where the tones of invading colonizers have been given superordinate preferences. Therefore, this has necessitated that many innocent Nigerians and, by implication, the global audience seeking a true history of the people have been fed with distorted information that dictates their relationship with the people. To this extent, many sociopolitical and even academic involvements of the affected have been determined by the revisionist information with which their mental faculty has been programmed. In collaboration with the other scholars involved in the publication, they can situate the good Nigerian history within its deserved position in the intellectual space and filter out the over-saturated misinformation previously created and shared by those interested in Africa’s financial and strictly exploitative gains.

University Of Pretoria Appoints Falola As Extraordinary Professor Of Political Science

University of Pretoria

The Palgrave Handbook of African Education and Indigenous Knowledge, produced in 2020, follows a familiar trajectory of protest culture against the individuation of African epistemology. It reveals firstly that the education associated with African people in the contemporary time is designed to honour the structure of those inherited from colonial experiences. To that extent, the indigenous knowledge systems and their identified sociological responsibilities have been impaired by the new ones and handicapped by them. As such, the implantation of the Western ideas of humanity and personhood, aided, for example, by the application of Western epistemic legacies, has forced the African minds to conceive of themselves from the lens of their erstwhile predators, which among other things, contaminates the original sense of being to an irreparable degree. As such, the average African has reservations against nearly all African philosophies, ideologies and even perspectives on living. This book, therefore, traces the indigenous African knowledge, its production and distribution methods and the sociocultural import linked with it. This, therefore, helped in reinforcing the assumption that African epistemic systems are not inferior, and neither are they inadequate. Their challenge has always come from the inferiorization of their heritages for no particular reason.

In 2019, Falola co-edited a book titled Oppression and Resistance in Africa and The Diaspora, and the material refracted the various experiences of oppression that the generality of African people witnessed in their recent history. Of particular interest is the suppressive and oppressive experience that the South African people were subjected to during the agonizing years of apartheid. The pains and anguish people faced are best imagined as they witnessed the catastrophic collapse of their indigenous structures both at the level of observable infrastructure and moral systems. To the extent that the Black South Africans were forced to subdue their sense of self and, in exchange, embrace the irreconcilable ideas of the predatory civilization, so much that they had their humanity downgraded and squashed with callous indignity. They could not have access to economic resources, and every of their potential is drained at the corridor of wastage. However, they stood up to these people and also challenged the superstructure. In essence, the book x-rays the various dehumanizing experiments and experiences that these people were subjected to, evaluating their various styles of protest against all these questionable moral behaviours. Their protest led to the actualization of freedom and opened the door to identity reclamation, which gave them the anticipated respite. As such, Falola’s works are foregrounded for their political and historical importance.

READ ALSO: President Thabo Mbeki: On South Africa And The South African Youth

Meanwhile, his coedited work, Africa and Globalization: Challenges of Governance and Creativity, produced in 2018, explored a different but thematically connected subject matter. It seems Africa is caught in the ebbs of restless yet rapid globalization, so much their leadership struggles to consider what it meant by development and how their conception of it would reflect what they face as a people. It is observed, for example, that from the start of the Industrial Revolution to the technological development that introduced internet culture, Africans have always experienced one form of destabilization. Consider, for example, that when Europe accomplished Industrial Revolution, Africa was being ransacked by them either for the enslavement of the people or for the planting of colonization expeditions. This would eventually be overcome by the fast-moving globalization project, which still meets the people at the spot of leadership quagmire. In essence, governance has been grossly ineffective as they have had many complications to deal with in their postcolonial time. This has affected their creativity in all ramifications, and the book offers an insightful perspective to enrich the knowledge community. It is a success given that it received wider acceptability from the reading public.

Despite his exploration of the above topics, a book produced in 2018 titled Exploitation and Misrule in Colonial and Postcolonial Africa has been expository writing on the exploitation of Africa and Africans, this time not from the staple of predatory civilizations but the active participation of the African leaders. In all parts of the ex-colonized civilizations, Africa appears to be the most tormented with visionless leadership. That leaders beleaguer them without any business with leadership has increased their chances of underdevelopment as they have no clear-cut roadmap or blueprint for their collective development. It, therefore, seems from their very attitudes that they consider first the accumulation of public resources for their provincial interests. This has inevitably led to the maneuvering of their systems to assuage the leaders of the moral and ideological punishment they deserve for their unpatriotic engagement against their motherland.

An example is that African leaders expend fortunes to scuttle the process in almost all political circles so they would be favoured in the long run. And the question comes clearly to mind to what extent would an individual truly be ready to sacrifice when they are expected to offer selfless services? The irony in the idea that leaders are extravagant in Africa would therefore reveal reasons for continuing exploitation and misrule that is now characteristic of Africa.

These are part of Prof Falola’s pedigree which he will be bringing to the University of Pretoria to advance the frontiers of knowledge, improve visibility and internationalization for the African Centre for the Study of the United States, the Department of Political Sciences, the Faculty of Humanities and the University of Pretoria at large.

 

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Abiodun Seeks US Partnership In Developing Critical Sectors

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Ogun State Governor Dapo Abiodun

The Ogun State government has solicited for partnership with the United States of America in developing the critical sectors of the State’s economy.

The State Governor, Prince Dapo Abiodun who stated this when he received the American Consul General to Nigeria, Mr. Will Stevens, who led a 5-man delegation on a courtesy call in his office at Oke-Mosan Abeokuta on Wednesday, noted that the State considers the United States as a progressive partner in the areas of economy, good governance, security, climate change and human capital development around the world.

Governor Abiodun posited that the State apart from the sophistication of its people and their cognitive political culture, is unanimously and popularly adjudged as the New Jersey of Nigeria and the leading industrial hub in the West Africa Sub-region, hence the need to tap from the American experience to further its developmental stride.

The governor said his administration at inception in 2019, assembled a team made up of highly resourceful technocrats and cerebral policy architects and conceptualized a transformational philosophy coined ISEYA, which is an acronym for Infrastructural Development, Social Welfare and Well-being, Education and Human Capital Development, Youth Empowerment and lastly, Agriculture and Food Security.

He said: “Through this concept, we have strategically transformed the state with modern infrastructure, deliberate policy steps to attract businesses and moving the economy from being federal allocation-focused to becoming the state with the third largest Internally Generated Revenue in the country.

“The State’s strategic location as the primary gateway to Lagos State – the largest market with the busiest ports in Nigeria has contributed to its status as the Industrial Hub of Nigeria.

“Our State is home to one of the largest industrial zones in Sub-Saharan Africa, which includes the 8,000 hectares OPIC-owned Agbara Industrial Estate, which accommodates the Federal Ogun-Guangdong Free Trade Zone (OGFTZ), with forty-four (44) operational companies, factory tenants from across the world, with over 6,000 Nigerian employees and an estimated 100,000 metric tons of freight moving in and out daily.”

Prince Abiodun noted that in its quest to make Ogun State the first destination for investors in Nigeria, his administration is currently constructing an Agro Cargo International Airport at Iperu-Ilishan road in Ikenne Local Government Area of the State, adding that the project is strategically designed to create the needed infrastructure to boost the exportation of agricultural and non-agricultural goods.

“By its structure and business plan, the Cargo Airport remains a game-changer in our import and export promotion efforts, as it was specifically constructed to be an aerotropolis (Airport City) equipped with components such as a special agro-processing zone to process raw agricultural materials for exports, an international testing centre to certify that agro-produce complies with international standards before it is exported, and facility for passenger operations as well as facilities to receive parcels coming into Nigeria that are to be redistributed to other parts of the country.

“In addition to that, it is an important component of Ogun State’s transportation master plan expected not only to connect rail, road and water transportation but also to decongest the Lagos Airport,” the governor added.

Governor Abiodun appreciated the American government for her firm stance on democratic governance, specifically on the sanctity of the electoral process as well as supporting different reforms in the electoral process and taking an uncompromising position on electoral offenders.

In an interview after a closed-door meeting with the governor, the Consul General said their discussions centred on security and health.

He noted that health remains the number one investment in Nigeria as the US government is in the health sector to help Nigeria to reach the 95 95 95 goals of ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the country.

“It is my job to promote US trade and investment here in certain parts of Nigeria. I had a great conversation with the governor about the incredible investment the US companies are already making in the state as well as opportunities for more increased US trade and investment.

“We also talked about the tax sector, I think there are incredible opportunities right now to find jobs and opportunities for Nigerian youths to participate in the tax sector.

“We’ve seen the explosion of growth and investment in that sector throughout Nigeria, particularly in the South West,” the Consul General added.

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BREAKING:Chicago State University Unable To Grant One Request By Atiku As It Releases Tinubu’s Academic Records

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Senator Withdraws Support For Tinubu Over Choice Of Muslim Running Mate
President Bola Tinubu

The Chicago State University (CSU) was unable to meet one request by the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential Candidate Atiku Abubakar as it finally released to him the academic records of President Bola Tinubu.

Atiku requested the documents to back his allegation of forgery of CSU certificate against Tinubu. It would mean Tinubu was not qualified to run for the election, which he won, if the allegation is successfully proved against him.

The university, on Monday, presented to Atiku’s legal team, a cache of documents connected to Tinubu’s education at the institution and copies of certificates with redacted names issued to other persons about the same time the Nigerian president finished from the school in 1979.

It also contained Tinubu’s admission records, and a letter dated 27 June 2022 confirming that he attended the university from August 1977 and June 1979 majoring in accounting. The letter said Tinubu was awarded Bachelors of Science in Business Administration with Honours on 22 June 1979.

The District Court in Northern Illinois, had in its judgement delivered on Saturday, given the university up till 12 noon on Monday to deliver the documents to Atiku.

The judge, Nancy Maldonado, gave the other after dismissing Tinubu’s objection in the judgement.

Ms Maldonando dismissed Tinubu’s objection to the 20 September decision of a magistrate judge of the court, Jeffery Gilbert.

The judge fully affirmed Gilbert’s ruling, ordering the CSU to release Tinubu’s academic records as requested by Atiku. She insisted Atiku had the right to have access to the records.

Complying with the court order on Monday, the university produced four sets of documents copies which went viral online on Monday.

In a deposition detailing its compliance with the court order, the university confirmed it was able to grant three of Atiku’s four requests.

Responding to one of the requests it granted, the university said, “after diligent search”. it was able to locate and produce seven different certificates for Bachelor of Science degree it issued in 1979.

Atiku had apparently requested the documents to compare and contrast them with the one presented by Tinubu as his for the 2023 presidential election.

The university also handed to Atiku’s team, documents relating to Tinubu and certified by an official of CSU, Jamar C. Orr, a lawyer.

The university similarly produced, “after diligent search”, copies of three other diploma certificates issued to other students other than Tinubu in 1979.

This was in response to Atiku’s request for “true and correct copies of any diplomas issued by CSU (other than to Tinubu) that contain the same font, seal, signatures, and wording (other than the name of the recipient and the specific degree awarded)”. Atiku sought these documents to compare and contrast them with the one Tinubu claimed to have obtained on or about 22 June 1979.

But the university said it was unable to locate “a copy of the original diploma it prepared for Tinubu in 1979” as requested by Atiku.

This was the kernel of Atiku’s request which is at the heart of the issue he intends to use the documents for in his legal challenge of Tinubu’s victory at the 25 February presidential election.

The university said it “does not in the ordinary course keep copies of student diplomas, and after diligent search cannot locate a copy of the original diploma it prepared for Mr. Tinubu in 1979, hence has no documents responsive to this request.”

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Group Commends Ogun Governorship Election Petition Tribunal’s Verdict

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Ogun State Governor Dapo Abiodun

A Civil Society Organization, Advocacy for Peace and Good Governance, has commended the Ogun State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal for its verdict on  the March 18, governorship election in the State.

It would be recalled that the tribunal, on Saturday, unanimously validated the victory of Governor Dapo Abiodun, as it dismissed all the grounds canvassed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate, Ladi Adebutu in their petitions.

The group stated that the verdict was a victory for democracy and affirmation of the people’s choice.

The group, in a statement signed by it’s National Coordinator, Waheed Sulaimon, on Saturday in Abuja, described the judgement as explicit without any ambiguity, saying it was a true reflection of what happened across Ogun State on March 18, 2023.

The group noted that the tribunal delivered its verdict based on the facts and evidence presented before it, as well as the credibility of the electoral process.

It lauded the judiciary for its impartiality in the ongoing election petition-related cases across the country, adding that Nigerians have always reposed their confidence in that arm of government.

The group, therefore, urged all parties involved to accept the decision of the tribunal and join hands with Governor Dapo Abiodun, to work towards the development of the state.

It also called on all stakeholders in the Ogun State project to rally round the governor to make the Gateway State among the best in Nigeria in terms of economic prosperity, political stability and social cohesion.

The group also lauded Governor Abiodun for his commitment to good governance and efforts at ensuring the security of lives and property, as well as his unwavering political will to speedily develop the state.

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