Don tasks academics on public discourse
By Bukola Olamona
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A United States-based Nigerian and Professor of Religion, Afe Adogame, has charged teachers and researchers in the humanities genre to wake up to the prevailing security challenges in Nigeria by reorientating the nation’s values and norms.
He gave the charge address of the 2nd biennial International Conference of the Faculty of Arts, Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba Akoko, with the theme, “Humanities, Governance and Security”.
Prof. Adogame said, “The humanities are very important in discusses of governance and security. They should bring up their voices because they are the cream of the society. The public perception of the humanities is as if they are useless courses but within the public discourse, the humanities actually take the forefront.
And if we are to deal with the question of governance and security today, they have a prominent role. But so far, it’s like they are sleeping. We are in security crisis in Nigeria because the values and norms of the society have been degraded.
“Through the voices of humanities, they can bring back true history and culture and the sense of community which we are gradually losing. And so, security, therefore, must be revisited because what we take as security here is actually insecurity and there seems to be what I called the ‘securitization’ of insecurity. We need reorientation of our values.”
