Organs & Students

The CAD was established in 1963. The initial proposals for the CAD were made during the First International Congress of Africanists, held in Accra, Ghana, in December 1962. Many of the peoples of sub-Saharan Africa have been using Arabic for several centuries as an official and literary language for different types of written communication, hence the urgency to collect and document Arabic materials existing in private hands in various media, from inscriptions made on the bones of large mammals to writing on parchments. The Centre does not only store documents in Arabic, but documents in other languages written in the Arabic script. It issues a Research Bulletin in English and Arabic on new accessions as well as discussing the value of these Arabic manuscripts in relation to their historical, religious, literary, and social interest. Apart from rare books, materials in the CAD include microfilm, photostat, and xerox copies of documents in Arabic.

Formerly known as the Museum of the Institute of African Studies (MIAS), the Museum was renamed in 2018 in honour of late Prof Cornelius Adepegba, former IAS Director and Curator of MIAS. The Institute houses the major part of the University’s ethnographic and fine art collections. Collecting commenced with the foundation of the Institute in 1962, and is a continuing activity. It was a deliberate policy to earmark funds for the acquisition of material culture on an annual basis. The ethnographic collection reflects the research interests of the Institute over time, and contains examples of material culture: carved masks, cloth costumes of masquerade cults, religio-political insignia, carvers’ and potters’ tools, divination apparatus, fishing and farming implements, household furnishings and utensils, paintings, prints, drawing and sculpture. Over the decades the Institute had acquired about one thousand two hundred objects from Nigeria, Mali, Ivory Coast, Benin, Togo, and Cameroon, as well as from Brazil. From the early 1970s to mid-1980s, the Institute prided itself as owning the largest single collection of artworks from the Osogbo School. Our museum collections grew to the stage that, by a special arrangement, IAS was allowed some space in the main library of the University, the Kenneth Dike Library, to keep some of these materials. Many of these objects were acquired through direct purchase on location. CAMAA’s mandate includes regular exhibitions featuring the works of notable contemporary Nigerian artists, including organizing an annual Convocation Fine Art Exhibition on behalf of the University. We are thus a major patron of the artistic ferment in Nigeria. We established the Odinani Museum at Nri, Anambra State, in 1972, where traditional works from the surrounding cultures are housed.

WORDOC was founded in 1987 under the inspiration of Prof Bolanle Awe, former IAS Director. It is the hub of women’s studies and gender studies in Nigeria, and is at the centre of a network of agencies, scholars, researchers, and activists engaged in the study of the historical and social experiences of women in Nigeria and Africa at large. These engagements have been fruitful in the production of data and publications, seminars and symposiums, policies and protocols on women and gender issues at the national and continental levels. The WORDOC Library is one of the pioneer resource centres of its kind specializing in archiving and disseminating information on women issues on the continent, and WORDOC is linked in collaborative work with other women’s centres and international agencies beyond Africa, including the West Indies, North America, Latin America, Europe, and Asia. It is the engine of our postgraduate programme in Gender Studies.

The Institute runs a reference library comprising over four thousand titles. This collection is constantly being updated with new accessions. Also, seminar and conference papers delivered in our Institute are held in the Library of the Institute. Copies of students’ dissertations and theses are, as well, held in the Library. Apart from these, journal series also make up a considerable part of the Library’s collection. The Library covers all the areas of specialization available in our Institute, and even more, thus catering to needs in cognate disciplines. It has journal and book exchange agreements with many other institutes in Africa and beyond.

TRADOC was established to coordinate research and documentation of systems of traditional medicine across all the cultures in Nigeria. Its scope covers materia medica and formulations, including herbs, knowledge of mineral and animal substances, as well as incantations that serve as mechanisms for codifying and transmitting medical and medicinal information. TRADOC has been collecting oral and written materials on various aspects of traditional medicine throughout Nigeria. It is developing a herbarium of medicinal plants, which serves as a practicum site for our Institute’s programme in Traditional Medicine and Belief Systems.

The Diaspora Resource and Research Centre (DRRC) is a brainchild of the synergy between the office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Foreign Affairs and Diaspora and our programme in Diaspora and Transnational Studies. Honourable Abike Dabiri-Erewa, the Senior Special Assistant, and Dr Senayon Olaoluwa of IAS have been working since 2015 on modalities to set the centre running. In August 2016, the Institute of African Studies took up the challenge of facilitating the establishment of the Diaspora Resource and Research Centre under our Diaspora and Transnational Studies Unit. To do this, we applied to the Office of the Vice Chancellor for site allocation. The Vice Chancellor’s enthusiastic response led to the immediate allocation of a site for the project in the Ajibode area of the University. The Institute of African Studies has paid for and received an approved plan for the land from the University Survey Unit. Currently the Institute of African Studies and the Office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Foreign Affairs and Diaspora are working together to get an approved architectural plan for the building. The approval would hopefully be followed by other activities leading to the foundation laying of the building. The DRRC would be the hub and clearinghouse for all research activities relating to the diaspora in the context of its role and presence as an extension of the African reality, especially in terms of its official recognition by the African Union as the sixth region of the continent.

Established in 2000, at the behest of an international meeting in Ibadan of African musicologists, including their doyen, Professor Emeritus Kwabena Nketia, the ICAMD secretariat serves, among other functions, as an archival, documentation and study centre for African music and dance. It is also a clearinghouse for information on events, artists, scholars, and institutions concerned with the study and promotion of African music and dance, as well as coordinating research and facilitating publication in the relevant fields.