The Historical Society of Nigeria has built a legacy inextricably linked to the unfolding of Nigerian nationhood, education, and scholarship. The early scholarly work of its members provided the starting point for professional historical research in West Africa and for mentoring subsequent generations of scholars who have shaped continental and national discourse. Through research, writing, and activism, the HSN has fostered ideologies that emphasize African agency and the use of oral tradition
THE Historical Society of Nigeria (HSN) is 70! I have been part of this veritable organization for over 45 years. This celebrated Society has passed the test of time. The activities marking this milestone in mid-October 2025 reflect its current outlook. In the 1980s, I served on its board, becoming the Assistant Secretary and later the General Secretary under two Presidents, Professor Obaro Ikime and Geoffrey Uzoigwe. I assisted in convening two of its conferences. Under the presidency of Professor Yakubu Ochefu, I delivered the Dike Memorial Lecture, the annual flagship event. I have followed the careers of the generations before and after me. Thus, I am an embodiment of the history of the HSN, and now one of its living ancestors. I will reflect on the past of the HSN in this first piece, and, in the second, I will suggest the future path of its growth
The HSN is a well-known institution in Nigeria, even seventy years after its founding. This is immortal evidence of the role that history, as a discipline and an instrument of decolonization, plays in forging the memory, cultural identity, and development of a people. The story of the HSN as a society is the story of scholars and conferences. Still, it is also the story of Nigeria’s determination to inscribe itself in knowledge outside colonial frameworks. Since its creation in 1955, the HSN has been one of the leading actors in the movement to take back African history from colonial historiographical distortions. The founding fathers held the view that the future of Nigeria could only be built on a “truthful” engagement with the past. It is, therefore, imperative to reflect on the past of the Historical Society of Nigeria by retracing its origin, vision, achievements, travails, and legacies, and pondering on the learnings from the journey so far about the development of the Nigerian intellect. Today, the HSN at 70 remains an academic, iconic, subversive, resilient, and rebirth-oriented body. It can equally be described as a case study that nations without a historical sense are destined to be rudderless.
The mid-twentieth century was a turning point in Africa’s intellectual history. Nationalist movements emerged and began dismantling colonial rule across the continent, while intellectuals led the charge to redefine African identity through the reclamation of African culture and history. During this period, intellectual spaces emerged, including universities in Ibadan, Nsukka, and Zaria. These spaces became epicentres of decolonial thought. This rise of intellectualism was the foundation for the establishment of the Historical Society of Nigeria in 1955 at the University College, Ibadan. The organisation was established to promote rigorous historical research that reflected African perspectives.
It can also be said that the Society was born of the growing dissatisfaction with Eurocentric historiography that dominated colonial education. I have argued that colonial narratives portrayed Africa as an ahistorical territory—a continent without a definitive past before European contact. These narratives were what African scholars like Kenneth Dike, Ade Ajayi, E.A. Ayandele, and A.B. Aderibigbe, some of the founding members of HSN, set out to correct by providing evidence that Africa developed complex civilizations, governance systems, and intellectual traditions long before colonial intrusion. This mission can be defined as an academic and a political act of intellectual emancipation.
The coming together of scholars, educators, and cultural nationalists, led by Nigeria’s first Professor of History, Kenneth Onwuka Dike, on the 27th of October 1955, gave birth to the Historical Society of Nigeria. The period of its establishment coincided with the waning years of British colonial rule. At this period, Nigeria’s political independence was near, but its intellectual independence remained in question. Thus, the idea behind the Society was to reclaim Nigerian history and to ensure that the emerging nation-state was built upon indigenous historical consciousness. The founding members saw the HSN as an institution that would champion the history of decolonisation and train a new generation of historians in African knowledge. The Nigerian historians of that period were tasked with moving beyond the imitation of European methods and exploring African perspectives in historical processes. This motivation was both academic and nationalistic, reflecting the quest for cultural and intellectual freedom.
From its emergence, the HSN’s mission was anchored in three objectives: advancing historical scholarship, promoting historical education, and integrating history into national development. Through the Society, the founders recognised history as more than an academic subject, but also as a vital tool for nation-building. Professor Ogbogbo, in his 2015 presidential speech, affirmed that the HSN sought to position history in the centre of Nigeria’s postcolonial life. In pursuit of this mission, the Society facilitated critical examination of history by citizens through annual conferences, publication of academic journals, and its intervention in school curricula. History was the nation’s conscience of progress to the HSN; it was an intellectual discipline connecting past and present and guiding the future. The HSN’s approach positioned historical research as essential for sustainable development by providing policymakers with the understanding necessary for just governance. In a society like Nigeria, divided by ethnicity and colonial legacies, the HSN saw history as the tool to drive unity, identity, and moral reconstruction.
Over the course of seven decades, the Historical Society of Nigeria has recorded profound and far-reaching achievements, with the greatest of these perhaps the establishment of the Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria (JHSN), first published in 1956. The JHSN became a platform for indigenous historical research at a time when African historical perspectives were marginalised in global academia and thus became one of Africa’s most respected scholarly journals. The HSN also played a significant role in structuring university curricula and in promoting the teaching of Nigerian and African history in schools. It influenced policy debates about the role of the humanities in education.
The early years of the HSN catalyzed an intellectual revolution in the discipline of history, ushering in the era of African historiography, characterized by scholarly contributions from pioneers such as Professor Kenneth Dike’s Trade and Politics in the Niger Delta and Jacob Ade Ajayi’s studies on Yoruba and missionary history. Beyond academia, the HSN organized annual congresses and conferences that allowed historians, educators, and policymakers to engage in discourse on pressing national issues. Its advocacy contributed to the institutionalisation of history as a compulsory subject in Nigeria’s educational system, ensuring that generations of Nigerians were equipped with knowledge of their heritage. The Society’s reach also extended across Africa, influencing the establishment of similar organizations and contributing to the Pan-African Historical Association and UNESCO’s General History of Africa project – further demonstrating Nigeria’s leadership in African scholarship.
The HSN, like any other organization, however, faced challenges in its journey. Many of these issues were similar to the ones that plagued Nigeria’s intellectual institutions. The period from the 1970s to the 1990s, marked by coups and counter-coups, economic stagnation, and political instability, significantly eroded academic freedom. In addition, the funding cuts, brain drain, and devaluation of the humanities department occasioned a crisis in contemporary Nigerian historiography. There was also the marginalisation of history in school curricula from the 1990s, which was another heavy blow. At this point, the relevance of historical scholarship became questioned as the Society and its scholars were consumed by immediate economic survival. There was also a rise in internal challenges, ranging from generational divides within the Society to administrative stagnation. The HSN, however, continued to demonstrate remarkable resilience. The tenure of leaders like Professors C.B.N. Ogbogbo, Ochefu, and Okpe O. Okpeh witnessed the revival of the Society’s activities as the JHSN was reintroduced, and the Society led campaigns that resulted in the eventual reinstatement of history in Nigerian secondary schools in 2019.
The Historical Society of Nigeria has built a legacy inextricably linked to the unfolding of Nigerian nationhood, education, and scholarship. The early scholarly work of its members provided the starting point for professional historical research in West Africa and for mentoring subsequent generations of scholars who have shaped continental and national discourse. Through research, writing, and activism, the HSN has fostered ideologies that emphasise African agency and the use of oral tradition. The intellectual current continues to be devoted to undermining Eurocentrism and proposing an Africa-centred historiographical revolution. The legacy of the HSN transcends academia; it also incorporates the cultivation of national consciousness. The Society serves as a reminder to Nigerians that history is essential to progress.
The history of the HSN mirrors that of Nigeria’s intellectual trajectory – that is, a movement from colonial dependency to cultural sovereignty. By institutionalizing African historiography, the HSN resisted colonial narratives that dismissed oral traditions and indigenous memory systems as unscientific. There was also the expansion of the definition of evidence; oral accounts began to assume priority, and anthropology, archaeology, and linguistics started to fall within the realm of historical analysis. These methodological advances transformed global views of African history and made Nigerian scholars themselves the vanguard of intellectualism in postcolonial scholarship. The HSN’s journey also exposes the weaknesses of intellectual institutions in postcolonial states. It reveals how they can be easily undermined by political instability, economic downturn, and global academic hierarchies.
On the celebration of the Historical Society of Nigeria’s seventieth anniversary, this should be recorded as an academic milestone and a reaffirmation of purpose. From its establishment amid decolonization struggles to its present-day revival in a digital, globalized age, the organization has remained steadfast in its belief that history is the soul of the nation. Its past teaches that nations can perish from amnesia. In this Digital Age, which is also an era of fake news, historical distortion, and cultural degeneration, the legacy of the HSN calls for toughness in the battle for truth, scholarship, and intellectual integrity. Its history is ultimately the story of Nigeria itself; it follows a narrative of resistance, resilience, and rebirth. Seventy years and still functional, the Society’s founding vision continues to echo as a reminder that the path to national transformation begins in the honest remembrance of our past.