The General Studies Unit of the Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti on Tuesday 28th May 2013, held its first Visiting Scholars’ Lecture Series at the Kayode Esho Lecture Theatre of the University’s College of Law. The maiden edition of the lecture had Prof. Saheed Aderinto, an erudite professor of African History at the Western Carolina University, Cullowhee, United States as the 2013 GST Visiting Scholar. Prof. Aderinto delivered a lecture on “Gun and Arms Control in Nigerian History”. The paper chronicles the historical analysis of gun and arms ‘criminalization’ and control in Nigeria from 1861, with precise consideration of the events in pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial period. According to him, the pre-colonial wars, colonial high-handedness and civil war in West African Sub-region (most especially the Liberian and Sierra-Leone civil wars) were responsible for the current arms proliferation which has led to cheapness of human lives in Nigeria. The brilliant scholar, who has over thirty five journal articles, about forty encyclopedic entries and three books to his credit, recommends that Nigerian government should monitor the borders, provide employment, tackle poverty and take more proactive action against corruption.
The Director of the Unit, Prof. Adekunle Alalade (a former Vice Chancellor of Babcock University, Ogun State) decried the present prevalence and proliferation of arms in Nigeria and suggested that government should take arms control seriously to avert the likely dangers the situation poses to the nation-state.
In his vote of thanks, Temidayo Oladipo, on behalf of the Founder Aare Afe Babalola (SAN, LL.D, CON) and the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Sidi Osho, expressed the Unit’s profound gratitude to Prof. Saheed Aderinto for honoring the invitation to visit ABUAD; he also acknowledged the efforts of the Unit’s Research Coordinator, ’Yemi Ademowo, Barr. Oyeniyi Abe and Mr. Gabriel Obi for their efforts in making the programme a huge success.