Nigeria’s Indigenous Knowledge Is at Risk, FUTA Professor Warns

A lot of what Nigerians know about plants, healing, farming, and daily life was never written down. It lives in the memory of elders and passes from one generation to the next. A professor at the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA) says that way of keeping knowledge is no longer safe, and that Nigeria needs better systems to protect it.

Professor Oluremi Adenike Abiolu, who teaches Information and Women Studies/Indigenous Knowledge, made the call in her inaugural lecture on Tuesday. It was FUTA’s 208th, titled “Information Past, Information Present and Information Forever: Understanding the Questions That Remain.” It was also the first inaugural lecture from the university’s School of Science and Technology Education.

Why the knowledge is disappearing

Professor Abiolu warned that indigenous knowledge, particularly traditional medicinal knowledge, could slowly die out. She pointed to four causes: poor documentation, weak legal protection, changing lifestyles, and the loss of knowledge as one generation fails to pass it to the next.

The trouble with traditional medicine

The lecture looked closely at the challenges facing traditional medicinal knowledge. Medicinal plants are becoming scarce because of urbanisation and deforestation. Herbicides affect the quality of the plants that remain, and high-demand species are being overharvested. There is also little reliable information on standardised dosages and side effects, which makes it hard to use these remedies safely.

She also raised the problem of biopiracy, which means taking a community’s biological resources or traditional knowledge without permission or fair benefit. She said Nigeria’s legal safeguards against it are weak.

What she wants done

Professor Abiolu called for coordinated action between government institutions, universities, information professionals, and communities. Her proposals included:

• Indigenous knowledge centres and special libraries in each of Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones, to document, preserve, and promote the country’s cultural and intellectual heritage

• Modern information technology to record and digitise indigenous knowledge

• Legal frameworks that protect communities from unauthorised use of their knowledge and intellectual property

• Investment in modern information infrastructure, training for information professionals, and policies that keep information preserved and easy to access

She argued that this work would do more than protect heritage. In her view, it would also support healthcare, food security, environmental sustainability, and progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

A message for universities

On the future of information management, she noted that information and communication technologies have changed how information is created, stored, organised, preserved, and shared. She urged Nigerian universities to provide current and accessible resources in different formats, and asked information professionals to keep studying what their users need and how they look for information so their services stay useful.

Her closing thought was that information does not always end questions. Sometimes it raises deeper ones that lead to solutions. She challenged stakeholders to think about how information can guide decisions today, preserve lessons from the past, and prepare society for an uncertain future.

What the university said

The Vice Chancellor, Professor Adenike Oladiji, was represented by the Deputy Vice Chancellor (Development), Professor Sunday Oluyamo. She described the lecture as timely and relevant to current challenges in information management, knowledge preservation, and sustainable development. She said the topic reflects the need to preserve knowledge from the past, use information well in the present, and prepare for technological and social change ahead. She also reaffirmed FUTA’s commitment to research that tackles society’s problems and supports national development.