Mentorship in Nigerian Music Scholarship: Critical review and way forward

Abstract

This paper examines the current state of music mentorship in Nigeria, especially as it affects scholarship quality. It looks at musicology as a métier and draws the link between mentors and mentees. With this perspective, the paper investigates the ideal relationship between them and what it is currently in the contemporary Nigerian space. The paper, hinged on Adedeji’s theory of transformative music education, employed bibliography and critical analysis as methodology. To elicit data for this study, the authors reviewed sampled conference paper presentations/collaborative efforts of senior and budding scholars in the Association of Nigerian Musicologists in the past two years - 2018 and 2019. The study reveals that while in modern scholarship, collaboration is a well-priced endeavour, mentors need to provide leadership for their mentees. In African Indigenous Knowledge Systems, apprenticeship roles are well defined and this role definition made it possible for a new entrant into any caste to look up to a master for proper guidance. It is, however, discovered that not much has been done in this synergy. Rather, what we yet see is role reversal—a situation where the mentee is left to wallow on a slippery academic terrain devoid of support, a fact that has contributed to unethical practices such as duplicity and plagiarism. Conclusively, the authors highlight the dangers of such lapses in human capacity building in music scholarship and offer ways to reimage the undesirable situation.