“This elevation is a miracle of God”: Nigerian Professor Appointed to Pontifical Academy

As an ordinary member of the 26-year-old Academy, the Nigerian-born academician is expected to “attend plenary sessions every two years, propose subjects for scientific meetings and take part in their organization, suggest topics that could be examined by the Academy and nominate outstanding social scientists for membership in the Academy,” she told ACI Africa July 15.

She will also “participate in other scientific meetings organized by the Academy which are of relevance to my field of sociology and anthropology.”

In her summary report published on the website of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, Prof. Agbontaen-Eghafona who has a keen interest in oral literature and ethnography as well as peoples and cultures in her native country of Nigeria and Africa indicated that she had published over sixty academic works “mainly in the area of Benin (Nigerian) culture and tradition and have been working in the field of irregular migration since 2003.”

Asked about her motivation for cultures in Africa, the Benin City-based Don said her research passion is “in reaction to negative statements and beliefs about Africa.”

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“There is so much to do in the area of African anthropology and history. There is the need to continually promote African indigenous knowledge and technology as a way of social, economic and political growth, development and independence,” she told ACI Africa.

She added, “It is essential to adopt a model of development based on the principle of self-reliance from indigenous knowledge. Knowledge generated to address the problems of one civilization may be problematic in another part of the world.”

As Africans, the Professor said, “we have to sometimes look for indigenous knowledge for our own development. We must stop searching for solutions to our problems in terms of what we can copy from other people. We should move away from a developmental paradigm of unproductive imitation to that of productive innovations.”

The Professor who is an Anglican with “Catholic background” also said that “there is only one true God, the triune God.” 

“The Almighty God is the one true God. He is not a foreign God, but He is God of all and He alone is to be recognized as God,” she concluded.