The Department grew from what then was the Sub-Department of Government in October 1960, with Dr. James O’Connell, M.A. (N.U.I.), Ph.D (Louvian) as its Acting Head (1960-1963) to become a full-fledged Department of Political Science by October 1963, with Professor Joseph E. Black, B.Sc. (Utah State), A.M., Ph.D. (Northwestern) as its first substantive foundation Head (1963-64). Professor E.U. Essien-Udom took over as Head in 1964, and saw the Department through most of those "crisis and conflict" years of the immediate post-independence period. The Department runs a virile post-graduate studies programme at both Masters and Ph.D levels. An important contribution that the Department had been making in this area over the last 15 years or so is in providing training for junior and intermediate academic staff on study-leave from other Universities' sister Departments. The Department can boast of teaching and research expertise in most of the important areas that can be considered as being central of Political Science. The specializations also cut across at least two or more of the four major sub-divisions or fields in the discipline. The areas of specialization referred to include: Civil-military relations, Defence cum development studies, Electoral studies, Federalism and Ethnic studies, Diplomacy and international law, Peace and conflict resolution, Local government and urban studies, Administration and public policy, Human rights law, Political economy of development, Communication and political analysis, Constitutional engineering and democratic governance. A major feature of the Political Science programme at lbadan is the analytical depth, creative thinking, as well as critical perspective it seeks to foster among most of its staff and students.
