“Their fight was our fight”: a brief exploration of the contribution of Nigerian universities to the anti-apartheid campaign in South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s

Abstract

Focusing on Obafemi Awolowo University, Ife (OAU) (formerly known as the University of Ife 1 ) in Nigeria’s Western region in the 1970s and 1980s, this article explores the internationalist politics of both students and academic staff and how they influenced Nigeria’s international relations policies, particularly during the apartheid period in South Africa. This article is a critical study of some of the substantive measures and policies initiated to both provide solidarity with South African anti-apartheid activists and also undermine the South African apartheid regime during this period. The efforts of the anti-apartheid campaign at the tertiary institution in Nigeria’s post-independence era, this article illustrates, culminated in several of the seminal economic and political policies that were subsequently ratified by the Nigerian government, against the South African apartheid regime. This article argues that during the 1970s and 1980s, leftist students and academics on university campuses across Nigeria mobilized support and were at the forefront of the anti-apartheid campaign in Nigeria and also on the African continent.