Olutayo Charles Adesina is a Professor of History in the Department of History and former Director, Centre for General Studies at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. He earned his PhD from the Department of History, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria, after which he joined the Department of History, University of Ibadan. He served as the Sub-Dean (General), Faculty of Arts, and as the Head, Department of History from 2001-2003 and 2006-2008. For more than two decades, the focus of his scholarship on sub-Saharan African history (with special focus on Nigerian History and the Economic Hisory of West Africa) has either singly or generally summoned intersections of local, national, regional and global history. He is the author/co-author of more than a dozen books and over sixty articles. Prof. Adesina is a Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters, and the recipient of several other fellowship awards, including: Fellow of the Atlantic History, Charles Warren Center, Harvard University; the African Visiting Fellow, Rhodes Chair of Race Relations, St. Antony’s College, Oxford University, U.K.; and, Fellow, Institute of Advanced Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India.

Prof. Adesina has carved a niche for himself as a scholar and historian. In 1998, he was invited by Prof. Akin Mabogunje to a Research Associateship at the Development Policy Centre, Ibadan, Nigeria. Between 1998 and 2006, he also served as the editor of The Nigerian Journal of Economic History (A publication of the Economic History Association of Nigeria). In 2008, he was Guest Editor, Journal of Global Initiatives (Special Edition on Globalization and the Unending Frontier, Vol.3 No.2, 2008), Institute for Global Initiatives, Kennesaw State University, Georgia, U.S.A. In 2009, he served as a member of the Committee of Experts of the Department of National Archives of Nigeria to the House of Representatives, Abuja, Nigeria on the ‘Public Hearing on a Bill for An Act to Repeal the National Archives Act, 1992 and to Establish the National Archives and Records Administration.’ Between 2009 and 2011, he also served creditably as a member of the Committee of Experts to set up the new Faculty of Arts, Bowen University, Iwo, Osun State, Nigeria. Since 2008, he has been a Resource Person/International Panel of Scholars working for the African Humanities Programme of the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS). He is currently the president of the Society of Nigerian Archivists (SNA).

His major publications include: Akanmu Adebayo and O.C. Adesina (eds.), Globalization and Transnational Migrations: Africa and Africans in the Contemporary Global System (Newcastle-upon- Tyne, U.K, Cambridge Scholars Publishing), 2009; Akanmu Adebayo, Olutayo C. Adesina and Rasheed Olaniyi (eds.), Marginality and Crisis: Globalization and Identity in Contemporary Africa (Lanhan, Maryland, U.S.A. Lexington Books), 2010 and, Adesina, O.C., Olukoya Ogen and Noah Echa Attah (eds). Critical Perspectives on Peace, Conflict and Warfare in Africa, Ile-Ife, Obafemi Awolowo University Press, 2012. His most recent publications include: Nigeria in the Twentieth Century: History, Governance and Society, Ibadan, Connel Publications, 2017; “Soccer Victory authorized by the gods: Prophecy, Popular Memory and the Peculiarities of Place”, In Afe Adogame, Nick Watson and Andrew Parker, Global Perspectives on Sports and Christianity, London and New York, Routledge, Taylor and Francis, 2018; and, “Feeding the Millions: Understanding Africa’s Food Security Problem” In Richard A. Olaniyan and Ehimika A. Ifidon (eds), Contemporary Issues in Africa’s Development: Wither the African Renaissance? Newcastle upon Tyne, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2018, and “A Terrain…Angels Would Fear to Tread”: Biographies and History in Nigeria Southern Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 45 No. 1, June 2020, pp. 6-29. He is currently completing a book-length manuscript on ‘The Indian Diaspora in Nigerian History, Economy and Political Power Relations.’