Francis Egbokhare (born 22 September 1962) is a prolific scholar, academic linguist, writer, and professor from

Nigeria Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...

, and a fellow and the immediate past president of the

Nigerian Academy of Letters The Nigerian Academy of Letters is a national academy and apex body of arts and literature in Nigeria. It is an autonomous, scholarly and non-political state institution for advancing scholarship and public interest in the humanities at the highes ...

. He has held positions at the

University of Ibadan The University of Ibadan (UI) is a public university located in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. Initially founded as the University College Ibadan in 1948, it maintained its affiliation with the University of London. In 1962, it became an independe ...

for many years as a professor of linguistics and as the Director of the Distance Learning Centre. He lives in

Ibadan Ibadan (, ; ) is the Capital city, capital and most populous city of Oyo State, in Nigeria. It is the List of Nigerian cities by population, third-largest city by population in Nigeria after Lagos and Kano (city), Kano, with a total populatio ...

Bio and academic career

Born Francis Oisaghaede Egbokhare from Afuze in

Edo State Edo State, Edo, officially known as Edo State, is a States of Nigeria, state in the South South, South-South Geopolitical zones of Nigeria, geopolitical zone of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. As of 2024, the state was ranked as the List of Ni ...

, he attended St John’s primary School,

Igarra Igarra (also known as Etuno) is the Local Government Headquarters of the Akoko Edo Local Government Area of Edo State, Nigeria. The town is made up of the Ugbogbo, Utua, and Uffa quarters. It is beautified with rocky terrains, and is surrounded ...

, Edo State, between 1967 and 1972, and then St. Gabriel Primary School,

Agenebode Agenebode is a historical water-side town located by the banks of the Niger River in Edo State, South South part of Nigeria. It is the headquarters of Etsako-East local Gornment Area, The host of the local council and the traditional capital o ...

, also in Edo State, between 1972 and 1973. He proceeded to Otaru Grammar School,

Auchi Auchi is a city in Edo State, Nigeria. Auchi, a part of Etsako West, Etsako West Local Government Area of Edo State, serves as the Local Government headquarters. Other towns in the Etsako West local government area include: Uzairue, Afenmai ...

, between 1973 and 1978, and to Edaiken Grammar School, Okhuaihe,

Benin City Benin City serves as the Capital city, capital and largest Metropolitan area, metropolitan centre of Edo State, situated in Nigeria, southern Nigeria. It ranks as the List of Nigerian cities by population, fourth-most populous city in Niger ...

, from 1978 to 1979. He attended the University of Benin for his BA degree (1979–1983), and the

for his MA (1985) and PhD in 1990. While at the University of Benin, he met and began to work with American professor Ronald P. Schaefer with whom he went on to have a long and sustained collaboration over thirty years, and published about 35 books and essays on Emai, his mother tongue, in the space of 20 years. From 1985 to 1988, Egbokhare was Assistant Lecturer in the Department of Linguistics and African Languages,

. From 1988 to 1991, he became Lecturer II in the same department. From 1991 to 1994, he became Lecturer I, and from 1994 to 1999 a Senior Lecturer. In 1999, he became a full Professor of Linguistics in the same department, becoming one of the youngest professors in the university at age 37. His research areas are in

Ethics Ethics is the philosophy, philosophical study of Morality, moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy, it investigates Normativity, normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. Its main branches inclu ...

Historical Linguistics Historical linguistics, also known as diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of how languages change over time. It seeks to understand the nature and causes of linguistic change and to trace the evolution of languages. Historical li ...

, and

Syntax In linguistics, syntax ( ) is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituenc ...

. His columns in Nigeria's national newspapers under the title "Preying Mantis" focuses on education, politics, integrity in public service, faith, language, among others. In collaboration with Professor R. P. Schaefer, he has produced a 552-page ''Dictionary of Emai'' (2007) and two volumes of oral tradition narratives running to 1,261 pages. Egbokhare is a fellow of the

. In 2010, he was shortlisted with five others vying to become the Vice Chancellor of the university.

Head of the Distance Learning Centre

In 2004, Egbokhare assumed office as Director of the

's Distance Learning Centre (DLC). At this time, the Centre had no impact on the financial and administrative operations of the University. It had only 800 students at a point and was barely able to cover its financial needs. Under his leadership, DLC surpassed the university's Postgraduate School in contributions to the internally generated revenue of the University. At the end of my tenure, it had cash savings of more than 800 million naira and significant assets and investments. The DLC pioneered e-learning delivery, web based, radio based delivery, computer-based testing, student support operations in addition to developing and digitalizing 564 Courseware and Learning materials. The total student population grew under him to about 15,000, more than either of the undergraduate or postgraduate student population of the University of Ibadan. He engaged in extensive regulatory reforms, change management training, capacity building and program expansion (which increased from 6 to 38) with the support of Senate and Management. He mobilized academic and non-academic staff to move the DLC from obscurity (derisively regarded as Siberia) to the foremost Distance Learning operation in Africa. The DLC contributed enormously to and enhanced the positive evaluation of UI all over the world. A paper he co-wrote titled "Learners Acceptance of the Use of Mobile Phones to Deliver Tutorials in a Distance Learning Context: A Case Study at the University of Ibadan" (in ''The African Journal of Information Systems'', Vol. 5, No 3:80–93) has been downloaded more than eight hundred and fifty times.

Personal life

Egbokhare lives in Ibadan with his wife, Olayinka Egbokhare, and their two children.

Selected publications

Books

* Egbokhare F. O. 2003. ''Practical Course in Pronunciation''. Ibadan: Quasar Solutions. * Egbokhare F. O. 2007. ''Fundamentals of Oral English for Schools and Colleges''. Ibadan: Stirling-Horden Publishers Nigeria Limited. * Egbokhare, F. O. 1994. ''Introductory Phonetics''. Ibadan: Sam Bookman Publishers * Egbokhare, F. O. 1998. ''Oral English: A linguistic Approach''. Ibadan: Sam Bookman Publishers. * Egbokhare. F. O., and C. O. Kolawole, 2006. ''Globalisation and the Future of African Languages''. Ibadan: Alafas Nigeria Company. * Egbokhare et al. (eds); 2011, ''Edo North: Field Studies of the Languages and Land of the Northern Edo''. pp. 121–130. Ibadan: Zenith Book House. * ''Fundamentals of Oral English for Schools and Colleges'' (Stirling-Horden, 2007). * Schaefer R. P., and F. O. Egbokhare (in press). ''A Reference Grammar of Emai''. Mouton: The Hague * Schaefer, R. P., and F. O. Egbokhare, 1999. "Oral Narrative Samples of the Emai People". Part I and II Hamburg:LIT. *Schaefer, R. P., and F. O. Egbokhare, 2007. ''A Dictionary of Emai: An Edoid Language of Nigeria''. Cologne: Westafrikanische Studien, Rudiger Koppe Verlag.

Papers

* Egbokhare, F. O. 1990. "Nasality in Emai". ''Afrika Und Ubersee''. Hamburg: University of Hamburg. 2.73. 22–31. * Egbokhare, F. O. 1990. "Reduplication as Repetition: An Account of the process in Emai". ''Research in African Languages in Linguistics'', Ibadan 1.1. 73–84. * Egbokhare, F. O. 1990. "Tone and the NP in Emai". In F. Ingemann (ed.), ''Proceedings of the 1990 Mid-America Linguistics Conference''. Kansas: University of Kansas. 92-103 * Egbokhare, F. O. 1990. "Vowel Elision in Emai". ''Afrika Und Ubersee''. Hamburg: University of Hamburg. 1.73. 58-69 * Egbokhare, F. O. 1992. "Tone and Subjects of Emai Sentences". In F. Ingemann (ed.), ''Proceedings of the 1990 Mid-America Linguistics Conference''. Kansas: University of Kansas. 1-14. * Egbokhare, F. O. 1994. "From Fines to Figures: Socio-Economic Dynamics and the Development of Emai Counting System". In D. K. O. Owolabi (ed.), ''Language in Nigeria: Essays in Honour of Bamgbose'', Ibadan: Group Publishers 408–423 * Egbokhare, F. O. 1994. "The Form and Meaning of Nominalization in Emai". Afrika Und Ubersee. Hamburg: University of Hamburg. 77/2. 174–196 * Egbokhare, F. O. 1998. "Tone and the NP in Emai Revisited". ''Research in African Languages and Linguistics''. Ibadan: Nigeria. 4.2. 69–86

References

External links

Profile on the UI website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Egbokhare, Francis Academic staff of the University of Ibadan 1962 births Living people Linguists from Nigeria University of Benin (Nigeria) alumni University of Ibadan alumni