The Professor is also propagating this same "theory" among the dozens of PhD students he's supervising all over the country. In addition to the nine PhDs he has supervised (by 2016), this is what he wrote in his CV:
"Currently, I am supervising five Ph.D. students in the Department of Political Science, and four Ph.D. students in the Institute for Peace and Strategic Studies (IPSS), University of Ibadan. I am also supervising five Phd students on part-time basis in Igbinedion University, Okada. Between 2007 and 2015, I successfully supervised five Phd Students in the Department of Political Science of Igbinedion University. I also co-supervised a Phd student at Covenant University."
1. Nwolise OBC, (2015), "Motion for Serious Focus of Research On The Spiritual Dimension of Human And National Security", Studies In Politics and Society, Vol.3, No. 1, December, pp. 1-14
2. Nwolise OBC (2014),"Oracles On Excessive Use of Force", Ibadan Journal of Peace and Development, Vols 3 and 4, May, pp 35-42.
3. Is physical security alone enough for the survival, progress and happiness of man? : an inaugural lecture delivered at the University of Ibadan on Thursday, 20 February, 2014
| Author: | O B C Nwolise |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Ibadan, Nigeria : Ibadan University Press Publishing House, 2013. ©2013 |
| Series: | Inaugural lectures (University of Ibadan), 2014. |
4. Spiritual dimension of human and national security
| Author: | O B C Nwolise |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | [Ibadan] : Faculty of the Social Sciences, University of Ibadan, [2012] |
| Series: | Faculty lecture series (University of Ibadan. Faculty of the Social Sciences), no. 18 |
By Mayowa Okekale, Ibadan on 28/02/2014
https://www.newsexpressngr.com/news/detail.php?news=4789
Views: 8,090
A university don, Prof. Osisioma Nwolise, has stressed the need for the country's quest for security to be extended to the spiritual realm, saying the battle cannot be won if limited to the physical realm.
Nwolise, of the Department of Political Science, Faculty of Social Sciences of University of Ibadan, made the submission in his inaugural lecture entitled 'Is physical security alone for the survival, progress and happiness of man?' delivered recently at the Trenchard Hall of the university.
He enjoined the leadership of the country to, as a matter of urgency, embrace the indigenous knowledge of spiritual instrument to enhance security in the country. In his words, "There is so much anarchy and havoc going on in the spiritual realm of human and national security today that there is every urgent need for governmental and societal attention to be focused on that realm, with a view to saving lives, protect human rights and national values, and to enhance human and national security.
"There is nothing happening in the physical world today that is not happening in the spiritual world – rape, bombing, robbery, kidnapping, hostage taking, food poisoning, ambushing, imprisonment, murder, torture, politics and accidents."
Nwolise argued that there is an urgent need to establish an academic structure for the teaching, research and study of the spiritual dimension of human and national security. His words: "There is a need to open up studies in mysticism, Nigerian n and African divinities, magic, spiritual healings, death and Strategic Spiritual Intelligence (SSI). We should as well open a new Department of Metaphysical Studies or Department of Spiritual Studies, which will serve as the nucleus for a future Faculty of Spiritual Sciences, because our little efforts so far convinced me that juju can be dissected, studied and understood just as the rabbit."
He described security as the primary concern of all humans and nations at all times, as it is a pre-requisite for their survival, progress and happiness of humanity.
In his comparison on physical and spiritual security, Nwolise opined that the welfare of human beings is not only in the physical realm as perceived by many leaders but also in the spiritual realm. Quoting the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, he said: "The aim of a leader should be the welfare of the people whom he leads. I have used 'welfare' to denote physical, mental, and spiritual well-being of the people."
Nwolise faulted the stance of scientific posture on nature, arguing that science is being too cowardly, pompous, despotic and arrogant in insisting that whatever it cannot understand, capture, measure, control or predict, does not exist. The don said it is important to understand the spiritual not only because it is superior to the physical but also because it positively reinforces the physical, and can equally endanger it under some certain circumstances.
Prof. Nwolise condemned what he called the miseducation of today's children and youths as well as the poor funding of the education sector, stressing a need for this to be urgently reversed so as to rescue the country's future.
•Photo shows Prof. Osisioma Nwolise.
Source News Express
Posted 28/02/2014 11:12:11 PM
--The Professor was analyzing a core belief of most Nigerians and that is what social scientists do. He is not alone in identifying that Nigerians believe that juju is factual. Awolowo stated the same thesis of Juju as Science for killing enemies (1939) in opposition to Azikiwe who called for the scientific method to be applied to healthcare in Renascent Africa (1937). In his series of essays on 'How I survived Ebola', Biodun Jeyifo observed that medical doctors and Physics professors still believe in divine intervention even when they follow the scientific method. Professor Nwolise may have been arguing the same thesis as Obadare but from a different perspective, from the perspective of the believers.Without reading the entire lecture, we should not judge his entire scholarship or those of all Nigerian professors based on one paragraph taken out of context. He may have been hypothesizing, like Obadare, that in a country where rulers call for prayers as the solution to every problem, how is a political scientists to be taken seriously if he fails to address this mindset? His argument may be that psychological health is indeed part of national security and so if the average Nigerian goes about with the belief that there are witches and wizards out to cause every kind of mischief, it will be a mistake for social scientists to call them imbeciles without risking irrelevance. That was why religion was called the opium of the people, the soul of a soulless world, and the heart of heartless conditions.Even after the society guarantees the security of electricity supply, pipe-borne water, hospitals and schools for all, motor-worthy roads, fast railways, safer airlines, food and housing, jobs with living wages, the people will continue to reserve the right to believe in spiritual curses as realities sui generis. The trick is to be tolerant of all spiritual beliefs that are not oppressive of others and focus public policy on things that can be solved without mysticism while researchers should not be ridiculed for trying to understand the magical thinking of most human beings.The Japanese and Chinese still pray at the shrines of their ancestors for blessings, Israelis still pray at the Wailing Walls, a religious party dominates India today, Arabs still fast, pray and believe that there are evil forces of Shetan, Americans still believe in the inerrancy of the Bible and many think that elected officials are the representatives of the Divine, while the British still have a state church. No one is weeping for them because they also have huge funding for research and development by their STEM specialists who send people to the moon, build enough weapons to wipe out life on earth, tackle incurable diseases, and make millions speculating on market trends.Instead of weeping for our colleagues at home, we should be humble and acknowledge that some of them, like OBC Nwolise himself, are busy advocating for the Nigerian Diaspora to be given a role in Nigerian foreign policy, addressing the insecurity in the country, peacemaking in West Africa, analyzing the implications of the Arab Spring, and advocating gender sensitivity in public policy.Did Obadare have recommendations on how to solve some these problems that Nwolise has been addressing? Pentecostal Republic is a narrow title anyway because adherents of traditional spirituality, Catholics, Rasta, and Islamists all buy into the idea of spiritual warfare around the world and not only in Nigeria.BikoOn Sunday, 5 May 2019, 17:56:28 GMT-4, Moses Ebe Ochonu <meochonu@gmail.com> wrote:--
I am reading Professor Ebenezer Obadare's brilliant new book, Pentecostal Republic: Religion and the Struggle for State Power in Nigeria (Zed Books, 2018), and I came across the quote below, one of those he advances as touchstones for his central argument.
It is not lifted from a sermon or a facebook post. It is not extracted from a theological or hermeneutical document.
On the contrary, ladies and gentlemen of Facebook Nigeriana, it is an excerpt from the inaugural professorial lecture of a certain Professor Osisioma B.C Nwolise, a Professor of Political Science (a social science that teaches logic, empirical proof, rigor, verifiability, and rational analysis) at the University of Ibadan.
This is the most important lecture of his academic career, delivered in a university to an academic audience. And yet if I did not know its context I would have surmised that this was a sermon delivered in one of the parishes of my home church, the Redeemed Christian Church of God.
Here is an academic lending his professorial weight to the Nigerian pastime of spiritualizing sociopolitical, security, and economic problems--our culture of conflating piety and politics, or neglecting political action for pietistic escapism.
We try to pray away our problems when we should be acting against them. Now, our professors who should know better are uncritically legitimizing and trying to intellectualize this culture of fatalistic spiritualization of secular, practical problems.
Farooq Kperogi is right; our problem is not just leadership but also a national scourge of illiteracy (literal and figurative) and irrationality. How can a country whose professors profess such nonsense make progress or solve its problems?
And how can a people challenge their oppressors and tormentors in power when even their professors subscribe to such drivel, such spiritual causality for everything, including election rigging, bad governance and incompetent leadership?
Read and weep for what remains of the diminishing country called Nigeria.
"When we want to watch our television, we switch it on with our remote control by pressing a button. Then we can stay in Ibadan and watch a football match being played in Athens, Sydney or Paris. In the same way, a witch stays in her house in Lokoja or any other town, stirs water in a pot, or conjurs(sic) a mirror, and can monitor any targeted person or object in London, Athens, or Sydney. In these two instances, one is seen as science, and the other is seen as magic. A witch can also stay in South Africa or the United Kingdom and break the leg of an effigy spiritually programmed to represent a person domiciled in the United States, and the person's leg will break mysteriously there. The scientist or intellectualist may not see or accept these as real based on his training, but they happen daily and are factual. There are spirits attached to walls, plants, leaves, found in bushes, on people's clothes, etc.; and there are roving spirits that move about especially between 12 noon and 2.00 pm, and at night. Some of these spirits are benevolent, while others are malevolent. It is the malevolent spirits that constitute threats to humans. They can project sickness into people's bodies, change people's star or destiny, or change the sex of a baby in the womb, remove the baby completely or turn it into a stone, or tortoise, snail, horse, snake, or a disabled [person]. If it were possible to carve out a block of the air for spiritual analysis, we can find several arrows, and many other dangerous pollutants, spiritual weapons of mass destruction flying in various directions 24 hours of the day."
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Just published "The African Corporation, 'Africapitalism' and Regional Integration in Africa" (September 2018). DOI: https://doi.org/10.4337/9781785362538.
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