REASSESSING ABDULLAHI SMITH’S METHODOLOGICAL CONTRIBUTION TO NIGERIAN AND AFRICAN HISTORIOGRAPHY: THE SAIFAWA TRADITION AND THE COLLAPSE OF THE OYO ALAFINATE

Abdullahi Smith (1920–1984) remains one of the most significant yet insufficiently appreciated historians in Nigerian and African historiography. Although he is frequently associated with the Ibadan School of History, his distinctive methodological approach has rarely been examined on its own merits. This article re-evaluates Smith's historical practice through a close analysis of two of his most influential essays: The Early States of the Central Sudan (1971), which examines the Saifawa dynasty and the Girgam chronicle of Kanem-Bornu, and A Little New Light on the Collapse of the Alafinate of Yoruba (1983). The analysis shows that Smith developed a consistent historical method built on three closely connected principles. First, he treated oral traditions and chronicles as politically shaped accounts rather than straightforward records of past events. Second, he strengthened historical interpretation by carefully comparing oral, written, and material evidence instead of relying on a single category of sources. Third, he explained historical change mainly through long-term institutional developments rather than the actions of individual rulers or political actors. These characteristics place Smith between the nationalist historiographical tradition associated with Dike, Ajayi, and Afigbo and the later interdisciplinary and source-critical approaches that became influential in African historical scholarship. By comparing Smith's interpretations with subsequent studies on Kanem Bornu and Old Oyo, the article identifies both the lasting value and the limitations of his conclusions. It concludes by recommending further philological examination of the Girgam manuscript tradition, expanded archival research on Old Oyo's constitutional history, and collaborative archaeological and oral-historical fieldwork. Instead of replacing Smith's methodology, these directions aim to test, strengthen, and extend its central insight that African oral traditions and chronicles are politically constructed historical sources that deserve the same rigorous critical examination as any other form of evidence used in historical reconstruction.