Adiele Afigbo obtained his undergraduate (BA, history) and graduate (PhD, history) degrees from University College, Ibadan, in 1961 and 1964, respectively. He started his teaching career at the University of Ibadan in 1964 but left in 1966 for the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), in the wake of the Nigerian Civil War (1967–70), becoming a full professor of history there in 1973. He was the head of the Department of History and Archaeology from 1974 to 1978; dean of the Faculty of Arts from 1983 to 1984; and director of the Institute of African Studies from 1989 to 1992. He was a member of the editorial boards of Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria, Journal of African Studies, and History in Africa, among others. Afigbo is a Fellow of the Historical Society of Nigeria, Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters, and a winner of the National Merit Award, Nigerian National Order of Merit (NNOM), and Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON).

Afigbo, like his colleagues whose works are examined in this book, served in a number of public offices, including commissioner in Imo State, first for education and later for local government, 1984–87; chair of the East Central State Committee on Chieftaincy Matters, 1975; a member of the Nigerian National Archives Committee, 1974–83; a member of the National Antiquities Commission, 1974–78;