Olukoju: A Reminiscence on a Scholar’s Influence

Abstract

This paper is a commentary on the career of Ayodeji Olukoju as a scholar with emphasis on his influence on the academic ambitions of students in the Department of History and Strategic Studies, University of Lagos. This is rarely done by historians who edit festschrifts in honour of academic mentors. This, this paper attempts to do. Referencing the author’s experience as a student and apprentice intellectual - trained in one of the most challenging periods in the history of the Nigerian educational system - this paper recollects the motivational character of Olukoju’s scholarship which fired the imaginations of would-be historians in the Nigerian
academic space.