The Olusegun Obasanjo Centre for African Futures grows out of the rich intellectual tradition of the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ibadan, the first institute of its kind in Africa. For over six decades, the Institute has been home to pioneering research, landmark publications and cultural initiatives that shaped how Africa is studied across the world. It has nurtured generations of scholars who have carried forward its vision of transformative knowledge.
The Olusegun Obasanjo Centre for African Futures continues this legacy while turning its gaze toward the urgent demands of the twenty-first century. The Centre treats futures thinking as an urgent and collective endeavour, linking scholarship with practice and drawing together forms of knowledge that range from the academic to the creative and the everyday.
The Centre provides a space where scholarship, artistic practice and public dialogue converge. Through research labs, residencies, fellowships, exhibitions and training programmes, it seeks to produce work that is intellectually serious, socially responsive, and globally relevant. It is a place where rigorous study and imaginative practice converge and generate ideas that matter both within the academy and in wider society.