Abstract

The biennial meeting of political scientists under the aegis of the International Political Science Association (IPSA) remains one of the signposts of the discipline. According to Philippe Couillard, the Premier of Quebec, more than 3000 political scientists from 80 countries accepted the invitation of the IPSA to gather in Montreal to discuss on the theme, Challenges of Contemporary Governance. It was a vibrant and engaging experience and provided a platform for the exchange of ideas and the unveiling of important research from multi and transdisciplinary perspectives, and emerging from varying cultural, geographic and political contexts. Four faculty of the Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Babcock University attended and presented papers at the congress. Babcock University had the highest number of participants of all Universities in Africa. One of the papers presented that caught the attention of participants in one of the sessions was that authored by Professor Ajayi and Dr. Ngozi Nwogwugwu titled “Boko Haram and Crisis of Governance in Nigeria”. Dr. David Alao, another participant from Babcock University granted interview on security challenges in Nigeria requested by one of the Radio and Television stations in Montreal. Certain issues of importance from the conference are worth noting: First, donor agencies came for a session to address participants on how to access funds for research purposes particularly for master, doctoral and post-doctoral programs. An explanation was sought concerning the strategic elimination of African scholars from funds. It was however revealed that most of the donor agencies represented at the Congress expresses their willingness to fund researches from Africa rather than relying on Internet sources alone. Some donor agencies present included European Research Council (ERC), Fund de Recherche du Quebec, Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Second, initial discussion were held with several academics towards collaborating with some African institutions. In preparing proposals to those institutions, it is required that we state all areas of collaboration sought such as students/lecturers exchange, publication, research works etc. I am of the opinion that we should work towards institutional collaboration. Third, the participants from Africa met and decried the marginalization of the continent in global affairs within the IPSA. We were confronted with the reality that Association of African Political Science had been delisted for the past two years for non-performance for more than seven years. Regrettably, the Nigerian chapter has been in comatose. The participants from West Africa met and resolved to float a West African Chapter of the Association. A meeting was held with the global executive members and consent was given with the pledge to give logistic supports to the sub regional body. Dr. O. Idahosa of University of Benin and DR. David Alao were mandated to express this intention in writing to the global Executive Committee, and this was done before leaving the congress. Lastly, the IPSA is organizing another mid-term conference in Milan, Italy, July 1-3, 2015 and the call for paper opens November 15, 2014 and closes January 15, 2014. All are therefore encouraged to participate in the programme because of the immense opportunities that such international exposure affords participants.