Olutayo Adesina

Olutayo Charles Adesina is a professor of history at the University of Ibadan. His research interests are in the fields of economic history of West Africa, history of development, and Nigerian history. Adesina is a Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters. He has at different times served as the Head of the History Department at the University of Ibadan.

Education and career

Adesina was educated at the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU, formerly University of Ife), where he earned his bachelors (in 1985), masters (in 1989), and his doctorate degrees (in 1994) all in history. From 1989 through 1991, Adesina was engaged as a teaching assistant at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife (1989–91), and a Lecturer Grade III at the Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo, Nigeria from 1991 to 1993. He joined the faculty of the Department of History, University of Ibadan, in 1993, rising to the rank of full professor in 2007. Over time, Adesina has served as the departmental head three times (2001–2003, 2006–2008 and 2019–2021), and as the Director of the university's Centre for General Studies.

In 1994, Adesina was a Grantee of the United States Information Agency at the Boston College, Massachusetts. He has also received several distinguished visiting fellowship awards, including the Fellowship of Salzburg Seminar, Austria (2001); Fellow of the Atlantic History, Charles Warren Center, Harvard University (1998); the African Visiting Fellow, Rhodes Chair of Race Relations, St Antony's College, Oxford (2004/2005); and, Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi (2009).

In 2004 and 2014, Adesina was a visiting professor at Kennesaw State University, Georgia, US. In October 2019, he was the Distinguished Visiting Guest Lecturer at the Centre for African Studies, Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai, China.

Adesina is a current Editor of Africa Review. In May 2017, Adesina was elected as president of the Society of Nigerian Archivists, taking over from Gabriel Alegbeleye. In 2018, he was inducted as a Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters.

In April 2024, the British Academy awarded Adesina the prestigious Global Professorship. As of April 2024, he is one of only two Nigerians to have received the award since it began in 2018. The Global Professorship program is supported by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. For this award, Adesina received the equivalent of $1,000,000.

Selected publications Adesina, Olutayo Charles, ed. Nigeria in the Twentieth Century: History, Governance and Society. Connel Publications, 2017.

Adesina, Olutayo C. "Globalization and the Unending Frontier: An Overview." Journal of Global Initiatives: Policy, Pedagogy, Perspective 3, no. 2 (2010): 107–110. Adesina, Olutayo C. "Nigerian Political Leadership and Yoruba-Hausa/Fulani Relations: A Historical Synthesis." International Journal of Humanistic Studies 4 (2005): 17–33.