From my titling days in secondary school, I have forever wanted to be an historian, this thought and passion was influence by my father who by default was a traditional historian, going always to him through my curious minds, and getting some clarifications shaped the way and manner I see things, events and happenings as time evolve.
To take this passion forward, despite not having encounter any formal class in History in my secondary school, only informal class from asking thoughtful and meaningful questions about the past, I set to study History, despite in 2014, I wrote jamb and applied to study History and International studies at the better by far university (University of Ilorin), I was denied admission therein, this incident, was among my first disappointment in life.
The next year which was 2015, I decide to try my luck and apply to Kogi State University, same course (History and International Studies). I did not know what really influenced my decision to choose KSU, though, but one thing was certain: to get close to my ancestral home. I got in, scoring among the 10% highest scores for that year.
Getting in, far from home, I met wonderful burning minds with a desire to be school and emancipate from the darkness of ignorance, we followed the daily routine of survival and curriculum carved for the discipline, later in life, I started seeing the gaps these curriculum in our tertiary institution has done for us, not to make us an independent thinkers, but made us rely solely to depend on, and the system carved or wired our thinking to believe or to work with our certificate and become an employee and not the other way round of becoming an established employer of labour.
Even the curriculum set aside for the Entrepreneurship Development Skills (EDS) is not really helping matters; it’s just another empty space. Moving from year 1 to year 2 in the Department of History and International Studies, as well as the whole Kogi State University, now Prince Abubakar Audu University, we were used to hearing a name called Dr. Patrick. L.I. Ukase and associate professor then, his kind of academic strength and prowess is not normal among other distinguished academic don therein, his name set a standard alone, his exposure and thought rightly set him unique in his jurisdiction.
Despite the notes he taught us in year 1 and year 2, many students hold him in awe and reverence; his movement towards undergraduates, none has the choke absolver to withstand his passion, though that is the way many students define him from afar.
Entering into year 3, interfacing with him one on one, and getting to observed his class was a master piece, he taught us HIS 311 and HIS 315, Research methodology 1 and Philosophy of history, his class is always 2 hours, he will make sure he uses that hours enough, and he love to hear comments and questions at the end of the class, which was actually an indication that no matter being an a cademic don, he could also learn from his students.
I always look inquisitive and curious in his class because he always looks serious whenever teaching historical antecedents. I believe his interest in politics came as a result of working as a legislative aide in the Benue State House of Assembly, before venturing into academics fully. Needling to know that, Professor Ukase got his PhD in 2007 and was adjudged to have the best PhD thesis by National University Commission (NUC) for that year, he got this while still working as a legislative aide.
Professor Ukase also loves politics; no day in class goes by without him talking about the prevalent issues of national importance. There were some of his arguments I accepted, and there were many that I disagreed with, though that is the beauty of academia. In one of the classes in year 3, he made mention of the Historical Society of Nigeria (HSN), which for years he was a council member of the North Central region, before presently being the secretary and a fellow. By 2018 I did not really know about the HSN. I went home on that day of the eye-opener from Prof., and I searched a lot about it, and I got to cherish and be interested in the Association.
Professor Ukase style of teaching actually inspired me secretly, I could remember going to him in my level 4, I went to discuss the progress about the Students Historical Society of Nigeria (SHSN) conference in 219 after I served as the Secretary of the Constitutional Drafting Committee, he outrighly recommended a positive and value based recommendation that helped cement the success of the conference at University of Uyo in 2019.
In year 4, I remembered asking him a question about the dynamics of gender imbalance after the class he was handling, HIS 412; Gender Studies, the question stirred a little uproar in the class, and Prof. did justice to it and contribute to our formative years of historical scholarship. A moment of despair and pressure, when I doubted my intelligence prowess due to some departmental politics, he asked me for my matric number, I was kind of scared, and I told him, he came back from an office and let the cat out in an amusing way, “Presido, I taught you would do better than this”, well I said to myself that, examination is not actually the true test of brilliance and intellectual rigour, neither do speaking an impeccable English suffice also.
Every time I was with him, either in formal class, informal settings, Historical conferences, something about him always stood out, not just the mastery of historical facts, but the way he handled knowledge as if it were a living force, not a dead archive. He had a habit of asking questions that unsettled our assumptions: no wonder he is a consultant to many government establishments as well as a resource person to the Legislative Mentorship Initiative, the Nigerian Army Resource Center, and the National Defense Academy, among other notable agencies and organizations.
At that time, I didn’t fully grasp the depth behind sitting with him or next to him, but as my intellectual capacity, exposure, and expertise unfold, through the shift in Nigeria’s political landscape or observing the institutional weaknesses, as well as where national memory seemed to collapse into cycles of repetition, the anticipation to be with him rises. My encounter with him became a catalyst in my intellectual formation, the moment became clearer when I started understanding that history is not just about what happened; it is aboutwhat keeps happening when we refuse to understand what happened.
As a student of his, I watched him embody the very theme of his convocation lecture on Tuesday, 25th November, 2025, at Prince Abubakar University, Anyigba, Kogi State “Does History Really Matter? Knowledge and the Historian in a Society in Transition.” He taught us that a society in transition is a society in danger, because transitions without memory lead to confusion, mistakes, and circles of repeated wounds. Throughout his class, he had challenged us to reflect, to question assumptions, to trace patterns, to connect dots, and to ask deeper historical questions using the 5Ws and 1 H about the structures that produce the events we see.
Outright, my personal journey into historical awareness and awakening, critical thinking, marginalization studies, political history, and seeing patterns and structural failure, as well as deep reflective writing, all of these, Professor Ukase shared part of my development, a huge one at that. My encounter with him was not just academic; it was historical.
As Professor Ukase stands to deliver his convocation lecture, I cannot help but reflect on the privilege of having encountered him early in my intellectual life as his former student. He was not just a lecturer; he was a mirror showing us the relevance of history in understanding ourselves as individuals and as a nation in transition.
Congratulations, Professor Patrick L.I. Ukase.
Respectfully,
– Momoh Ayuba Danjumah (Pen-Chant)
Macro-Historical Analyst
