Project launch : Protecting Political Activists’ Archives to Write Another History of Nigeria

On the 8th of December 2023, the director of IFRA-Nigeria attended the soft launch event of a project IFRA-Nigeria is coordinating with the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) in Abuja. The project aims at “Protecting Political Activists’ Archives to Write Another History of Nigeria”.

Dr. Sa’eed Hussaini (CDD) noted during the presentation that with few exceptions the study of left radicalism in Africa has focused on countries were Soviet aligned movements, or prominent African socialist leaders took power. Less is understood about contexts where ideological counter-movements remained in opposition.

Filling this gap, CDD aims at reducing the generational divide in historical memory of 1990s pro-democracy struggle in Nigeria where elite narratives are dominant but popular and ideological counter-movements are largely forgotten.

Thanks to its network, the CDD in collaboration with IFRA-Nigeria has been working toward the digitization of archives all over Nigeria, but mainly in the southern regions of the country, among which are archives belonging Ola Oni, Yusuf Bala Usman, Baba Omojola, the Ogundipe Leslie Family and others.

Ultimately, this project aims at making all the archives available online for researchers and the general public to learn about and study them.