On 10 March 2026, the National Museum of Unity in Ibadan and IFRA-Nigeria hosted their latest event “Materiality, Performance, and Cultural Essence of Masquerades and Festivals” as part of the Nigerian Alternative Heritages project. It featured talks, performances and dialogue that centres on tangible and intangible of Nigerian cultures, fostering a deeper understanding of their significance and impact. There were over 140 people in attendance, including about 70 students and pupils.
Over the past two years, the Nigerian Alternative Heritages project has engaged in critical inquiry, digital documentation, and workshops to highlight marginalized cultural expressions.
On 21 April, Dr Mark Van de Velde, linguist at the CNRS and currently based at IFRA-Nigeria, will join us for our April methodological seminar, where he will delve into the specific methods of linguistic research. To do so, he will use the example of his current project on the languages of the Jarawan family, of which only about a dozen still survive today.
Although these languages have fascinated linguists and historians since the beginning of the 20th century, none of them has been properly studied. The reason for this fascination is the oft-repeated claim that the Jarawan languages may belong to the Narrow Bantu family, despite their location in Northern Nigeria and the important differences between their grammatical structures and those of the Bantu languages.
The goals of the JARAWA project are (i) to thoroughly analyse the grammatical structures of the Jarawan languages of Nigeria, (ii) to achieve a reliable external genealogical classification, (iii) to elaborate a partial reconstruction of Proto-Jarawan; and (iv) to create a rich, publicly accessible linguistic documentation.
On 31 March, IFRA-Nigeria welcomed Dr Shina Alimi, associate professor from the Department of History at Obafemi Awolowo University, for our March methodological seminar.
Dr Shina Alimi began his career as a historian with the exploration of print media, and progressively developed the notion that it is necessary to go beyond the surface of the colonial archives, to understand the silences of history. Looking for unconventional sources of knowledge, he turned to colonial advertisements, in particular those dedicated to medical or hygiene products, asking: how did colonial advertisements medicalise black bodies? How did this make the body an object to be reformed through consumption? Can we read advertisements as ethnographic archives?
After six months of meticulous work, the Ogunsheye Foundation team, under the leadership of Adejoke Rafiat Adetoro, has successfully completed the cleaning, scanning, renaming, and metadata creation for the first 250 folders of the Ogunsheye Foundation's invaluable archival collection.
This milestone includes materials from two extraordinary collections: Professor Felicia Adetowun Ogunsheye'sarchive, which documents women's activism in Nigeria and its international connections from the 1940s to the present. Professor Ayo Fidelis Ogunsheye's archive, which explores Nigeria's economic history and the development of adult education in the country.
Find out more about the project on its dedicated page: Ogunsheye Foundation Project.
Scroll to see some pictures of the last months' work.
The Plateia journal released its latest issue intitled "Emergences Patrimoniales", which explores the question of what we consider as "heritage", and in particular "architectural heritage". This notion is currently being reconfigured, with the rise of "alternative heritages", from Europe to Africa. The issue was directed by former IFRA-Nigeria director, Barbara Morovich, and Géraldine Djament.
Two articles of the issues are dedicated to Nigeria heritage in particular. First, Sébastien Jacquot, Marie Morelle et Émilie Guitard - former IFRA Deputy Director and head of the INFRAPATRI project - published Identifier des relations infrapatrimoniales – Usages, savoirs et attachements autour du végétal à Ìbàdàn (Nigeria) et à Yaoundé (Cameroun). Barbara Morovich and Sa'eed Husaini from the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) share an essay on the Promises and Perils of Participation in Digital Restitution Projects in Nigeria.
You can find out more about the issue here: https://pus.unistra.fr/ouvrage/plateia-n5-2025/
Dr Delphine Manetta, IFRA’s deputy director, will hold a panel at the Lagos Studies Association Conference 2026 focusing on the role of care in the construction of masculinities in Africa, but proposing several shifts in perspective from the literature from a perspective that emerged with Western scholars to one more centered on African perspectives.
Date & Time: 20 June, 3:45pm - 5:15pm
Venue: E-library
You will find below the details of the panelists.
![[CLOSED] Call for applications - Researching Nigerian vernacular architecture](/images/logos/Alternative%20Heritage_Intro%20call.png)
IFRA-Nigeria is organizing a masterclass tailored for Master’s students and PhD candidates in Ibadan with a keen interest in architectural and cultural research between 13 and 16 April. This workshop will concentrate on the essentials of conducting rigorous research and will offer hands-on training in the exploration of Nigerian vernacular architecture.
Download the call here or read it below
The deadline was extended to 13 March 2026.
On Tuesday 31 March, we welcome Dr Shina Alimi, associate professor in the Department of History at Obafemi Awolowo University for our March methodological seminar titled "Medicalised Black Bodies in Colonial Advertisements: An Ethnographic Lens". In his research, Dr Alimi's can be summarised by a series of questions : how did colonial advertisements medicalise Black bodies and transform them into objects of therapeutic intervention, racial knowledge, and consumer marketing? In what ways did colonial advertisements construct Black bodies as sites of pathology, hygiene, or therapeutic intervention? How did advertising imagery reproduce or reinforce ideas derived from colonial scientific fields such as anthropology, tropical medicine, and colonial medicine? Can advertisements be read as ethnographic archives that reveal colonial attitudes toward African bodies and environments? How might reading colonial advertisements ethnographically challenge the silences in colonial medical archives?
Practical information:
Date & Time: Tuesday 31 March, 10am to 12pm
Location: IFRA-Nigeria's Resource Centre
Link for registration (deadline for application: 26/03/2026): https://forms.gle/b8fP7X5fKPS2VN2HA
On 26 February 2026, IFRA-Nigeria and the Institute of African Studies (IAS) of the University of Ibadan, co-hosted the newest conference in our “Imagine(d) Africa” series. Dr Kudus Adebayo, from the IAS, held a presentation titled “In the Shadows of Global Migration and Deportation: Nigerian men in search of livelihood in China”. Prof. Rasheed Olaniyi, from the Department of History of the University of Ibadan, was his discussant.
On 25 February 2026, IFRA-Nigeria organised an event, themed "Identity, Trade and Preservation of Cultural Heritage in Nigeria," which was held in collaboration with the National Museum of Unity as part of the FEF-financed Nigerian Alternative Heritages project. It was comprised of three parts: an academic lecture, a roundtable discussion, and an exhibition tour.
Between 19 February and 9 March, IFRA-Nigeria and the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) held an exposition titled "Archives of Popular Struggle" at the CAMAA Museum. Building on selected pieces from the different activist's archives digitised by CDD with the support of the French Embassy Fund project Nigerian Alternatives Heritages, it highlighted the pro-democracy movement in Nigeria. From student activism, women's groups and union mobilisations, it covered all the variety of these vibrant organisations.
On the opening day, Dr Sa'eed Husaini (CDD), curator of the exhibition, walked participants through the different pieces of the collection.
On 17 February, Yemisi Olawale, PhD candidate at the Department of History, University of Ibadan, presented his work in IFRA-Nigeria’s methodological seminar.
His focus is on the history of Yoruba Nigerian migrants to the Ashanti region of Ghana, from 1970 to 2021. In particular, his interest lies in the “return migration” and the process of reintegration of the migrants forced to leave the country following the 1969 Ghana Aliens Compliance Order.
On 4 February 2026, the National Commission for Museums and Monuments, the National Museum Lagos and IFRA-Nigeria organised an exhibition on the theme "Reimagining Nigerian Alternative Heritage: An Exhibition on Monuments and Natural History". This event took place at the Old Secretariat Building, Federal Ministry, providing an historical setting, ideal to exemplify the exhibition's display of Nigerian monuments.
On 3 February 2026, IFRA-Nigeria in collaboration with the National Museum of Unity, Ibadan hosted an event as part of the French Embassy Fund-financed Nigeria Alternative Heritages programme. The event, with the theme "Hair Matters", was aimed at exploring the arts, crafts and politics of hair.