Celebrating our noble department at 50 this interview features Professor Samuel Ogundele an Archaeologist whose research work focuses on Settlement Patterns and Migrations in Nigeria. In the interview, Professor Ogundele speak with AASA PRESS elaborately on the growth the department has experienced in the last 50 years, he spoke on the changes he would like to see as the department has come of age.
AASA PRESS: Can our readers meet you and please tell us your role in the department.
PROF OGUNDELE: I entered here in the 1970s as an undergraduate. Then after my NYSC in 1981, I came here as a graduate assistant, and since then, I’ve been here. I got my Ph.D. in January 1990. So, I went gradually from graduate assistant to an assistant lecturer to lecturer II.
AASA PRESS: How did the department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Ibadan develop?
PROF OGUNDELE: Archaeology is growing because it started in 1962 as a research unit under the institute of African Studies, the University of Ibadan with Professor Thurstan Shaw as the Research professor. So, by 1970, it became a full-fledged department and we were still using the African studies’ space while construction was going on here. Occasionally, were using where they use now as the gallery as our main lecture room while construction was still going on in this part of the complex. So, when they finished the construction fully, we moved out of African studies, to our library, then to this place.
AASA PRESS: How long have you been lecturing in this noble department?
PROF OGUNDELE: Well, I can say 1982. Because as a graduate assistant then, I conducted a fieldwork which I was not supposed to do alone. But my two senior people felt I should do it, which I saw as a challenge, just as I’m encouraging some of you, so I was teaching my students that time. So, it was a challenge for me, cos the two senior people were just enjoying themselves on the field. So, that was I started, and then gradually became an assistant lecturer in 1985. When you’re a graduate assistant, you’ll only be doing tutorial classes. Sometimes you have to sit in the class of senior people and understudy them, so you’ll know the act of teaching, so you’ll not just be talking to yourself. Sometimes, teachers talk to themselves because of inexperience. Although you grow with time, because my first lecture as an assistant lecturer, I can call it a failure in the sense that I finished the old stuff I had with me within 35 minutes out of one hour, so I still had 25 minutes to occupy my students, so I was sweating.
AASA PRESS: The department will be clocking 50 in a few days, any expectations from you?
PROF OGUNDELE: Yeah, you see, there are many things, because you’ve touched on the matter that’s agitating my mind, and it didn’t start today. A long time ago, I’ve been looking at our curriculum. My problem is with our curriculum, and the university management, fairness to it, has always been the ones coming to modify their curriculum. And so, I don’t think we’ve done enough in that respect, but the area where I think the department has done very well compared to our own days is the area of fieldwork. Many of you will not know that, because the people – with due respect to them – who were teaching us that time were white people. They never really enforced field techniques, we were more or less like laborers carrying surveyor’s staff, drawing tapes and sort, they didn’t teach us the fundamentals. It was Professor Bassey Andah (Of blessed memory) that continued to tell me when I was doing my Master’s that I need to show more interest in field techniques because if you’re not good in field archaeology, you are not an archaeologist. So in the area of field techniques in archaeology, I think we have done much better than during the early days when the white people went still there, and I think the glory must go to Late Professor Bassey Andah who made us realize that we must know how to do it otherwise, you pave the way for cultural imperialism, in the sense that outsiders will be coming to do the job for you, and you will be hiding, because it’s practical. It got a point, we were not having students, and archaeology was about to be canceled by NUC, so he introduced anthropology to strengthen archaeology as a program so we have two programs. And he made sure that if you are doing archaeology, there’s no way you will not take one or two courses in anthropology, giving this American background which is a plus for the department. So in that respect, we have made progress.
The stakeholders now have not done much. That’s my honest position. We’ve not done much in terms of building on that foundation, and I don’t think it’s too late, because archaeology as a discipline, is an important component of the society, it’s an important component of culture. Society, culture, all these things are changing. The value system, the sensitivities, they are changing, and you must worry about how to make your subject archaeology and anthropology relevant to society. You know, in those days, there were jobs everywhere. If you do so you could decide to continue doing archaeology, as a hobby, the museum will take you, they needed more archaeologists than they had. So, the museum had more opportunities for archaeology graduates. But the story has changed because the market is already shrinking, not only for archaeology and anthropology, for all disciplines, and that’s why people are adjusting their curriculum to fit the market, you have to worry about your students (the products), and that is still lacking. It is called evaluation in education. You know, you monitor your students, where they’re working, what impact are they making there? If they are making any impact to what extent are they making an impact? Those that have not got a job, what are the reasons? What are we going to do? Now, the feedback you get is what you are going to use to craft a new curriculum. So, evaluation is part of what every university should be doing. Not just in Archaeology and Anthropology, every discipline needs to be evaluating their products, we do have to worry about what happens to our products because we are using the taxpayers’ money to run the university. Because the university is an integral part of human society.
For example, there’s a need to add internships to what we are doing. I pursued this thing vigorously in 1997, I got the idea from a document I read from the University of Florida. Well, it doesn’t mean that the hope is lost, it can still be revisited. You’ll go to oil companies, they do environmental impact assessment (EIA). You go there for your internship for two months, that will expose you to them, you’ll learn from them and they will learn from you. So by the time you finish your program as an archaeology graduate, or as an anthropology graduate, and you apply there, they know what you’re capable of doing. Because when they are laying pipes, they offend people sensibilities, you know, sometimes they destroy shrines and cultural materials. So, EIA is a global exercise for all construction companies. So, they should allow some of our students to go to the airports, seaports for internships because a lot of our antiquities could be taken out of the country via these means.
Because we must make sure that our discipline doesn’t go into extinction because any discipline that fails to adjust to current realities will go into extinction.
AASA PRESS: How are you as a lecturer adjusting back to physical teaching?
PROF OGUNDELE: I’m coping, I prefer that to virtual teaching. I was never trained in virtual teaching. I don’t deceive myself, I don’t like it. It’s a pity that it’s nobody’s fault. It’s not the fault of the management, it’s just an attempt to protect us. But I’m not comfortable with e-teaching. More so, in our incline, sometimes, even the students where they are living, no light, nothing, this aggravated inflationary trend, material poverty, there are so many factors. With e-teaching, the interaction is not there. Although it’s not anybody’s fault, it’s the pandemic, but it’s a lesson for us to move forward. We don’t just sit down there and be complacent, we just have to look ahead.
AASA PRESS: What is your wish for the department as she marks her 50th?
PROF OGUNDELE: Yeah, my wish is what I’ve said so far, we should open up, even to students, sometimes we learn from you. This traditional approach to issues to just be on your own, without engaging the students is a weakness. The department has not done enough in that respect, some people call it mentorship, I don’t know whatever name you give it, but we have not done enough, I want to see a better synergy between the students and the staff. It could be once in a semester, we could meet, listen to your problems, and even evaluation can start from here. So there’s a need to come down from our ivory towers in the interest of robust humanity. Otherwise, we can be easily seen as a failure collectively. In doing that, specifically, I want to see internships introduced.
AASA PRESS: Thank you very much.
AASA PRESS UI 