By Guest Writer
It is becoming a trend to look down on courses in humanities. Even some academics ask and wonder what those of us in humanities contribute to human existence. The one who studies law becomes a lawyer. Banking and finance graduates become bankers. Graduates of electrical and electronic engineering will expectedly become engineers.
What do these graduates of English, literature, philosophy, history and international studies, religions and so on become after school and contribute to life and living? What do they offer society? What is the essence of such abstract courses?
I shall be providing some responses to these questions. Of course I am not going to argue strongly against the notion that courses in arts and humanities are abstract; I am just going to pick my point from the fact that all or most of the things that are concrete began from the abstract level of conceptualisation and are mainly sustained by values which are also abstract.
Humanities education is not focused on training students for a specific profession, but rather on developing their critical thinking, communication, creativity, and empathy skills that can be applied to any field of endeavour.
The absence of humanities and their scholarly contributions will reduce the human race to the level of lower animals. Music, movies, historical facts, literary/artistic works and other forms of popular culture that scholars in humanities concern themselves with bring human face to the supposedly concrete/practical courses.
These days, everyone and anyone make songs and produce movies but the likes of Fela Kuti and Akinwunmi Isola who went through the rigour of humanistic training will remain notable in history for how they deployed their arts in the interest of the human race.
Posterity will surely remember Achebe, Soyinka, Clark and other writers for their struggles which transcend writing to actual activism as a result of their humaneness borne out of their training in humanities. Sophie Oluwole’s exploration of Socrates and Orunmila would bring light to the heart of any reader, especially Africans often tempted to think less of ancient African leaders.
The humanities produced works that remind lawyers and judges of their oath to uphold justice. New forms of literature such as skits and memes which are within the purview of humanities are used to remind pharmaceutical companies of the need to be empathetic and desist from the production of fake drugs.
The scholars in history and oral literature help remind people of their ancestry, value system, artefact, heritage and how such can be leveraged to facilitate an indigenous developmental approach that suits the African reality.
How do we downplay the scholarly contributions of the likes of Danoye Oguntola-Laguda, a renowned professor of religions who logically argued that Esu in Yoruba mythology is not the Lucifer talked about in the Bible or the shaitan in the Qur’an? Which field outside humanities would provide a replacement for Professor Francis Egbokhare and his linguistic contributions to the development of his Emai language, including a dictionary for the language? If humanities were as redundant as some think, who would replace the Professor Harrison Adeniyis of this world with their expertise at creating metalanguage for scientific and technological discoveries in the Nigerian indigenous languages?
To think humanities is irrelevant is to take a myopic view to the business of scholarship and academia. A professor of English in Obafemi Awolowo University, Rotimi Taiwo, submits in one of his recent social media posts that it is ignorance that will make anyone say that English is not relevant in today’s world. It may not be professional in the sense of some other courses but it is foundational for many careers.
English graduates are some of the best of journalists, screen writers, public relations experts, marketers, copywriters, social media managers, teachers of English, broadcasters, business people, brand strategists, advertisers, diplomats, script writers, editors, etc, because they have the tool and the power of language. English graduates, can with their training, develop skills needed mostly by employers such as: managing information, reading critically, dealing with complex problems,
summarising ideas,
managing a project from conception to completion, finding solutions to intricate problems, perceiving the world from multiple points of view,
establishing hypotheses,
gathering information
using original sources,
interpreting data,
summarising and presenting information,
evaluating results,
analysing texts and information, writing creatively, creating persuasive messages
using precise language,
assessing an audience,
writing concisely,
drafting documents in accordance with guidelines, editing, and many others. Many graduates of English are doing very well in these different professions.
As an individual, I am a university lecturer, columnist, content creator, humourist, public speaker, compere and actor, and all of these are made easy by virtue of my expertise as a graduate of English. All of the things I do do not include many other engagements that can be aided by studying English such as being a voice-over artiste, writer of literary and non-literary works and host on podcasts. One then wants to ask if the training in English which facilitates these many skills will be included in the engineering, law or finance curriculum. I mean no disrespect if I make known that many of those calling for the end of English and other courses in humanities seek the expertise of English scholars to write and speak better.
When many researchers write their scientific reports, they want to be sure their language conveys their thoughts and ask for the editorial help of the English language scholars. One wonders who serves them in this capacity when English language lecturers are chased from the university.
It must be mentioned that a first degree in any course at all is to provide the requisite intellectual capacity to function in different life endeavours and to move upward in intellectual pursuit. Whoever wonders what humanities has to offer the world may make it a study to obtain the number of graduates from the respective humanities courses who work in banks in Nigeria. Such inquiry will make clear that intellection and intellectual development are features of all scholarly fields and anyone with the requisite intellectual growth can function meaningfully in Nigeria and anywhere else. I will close with the words of J. Irwin Miller that the calling of humanity is to make us truly human in the best sense of the word. To end humanities will be to have taken a giant step in gradually ending the human race.
(c) 2025 Ganiu Bamgbose writes from the Department of English, Lagos State University.
