Decolonising the French Literature Curriculum at Nigerian Universities: Theory, Practice, and Resistance

Calls to decolonise university curricula have generated significant intellectual and policy debate in Nigerian higher education, yet the specific project of decolonising the French literature curriculum at Nigerian universities, with its complex entanglement of colonial textual canons, postcolonial counter-literatures, and institutional inertia, has not been subjected to sustained theoretical and empirical examination. This study theorises the project of decolonising French literature curricula at Nigerian universities and investigates the practical conditions, institutional resistances, and pedagogical possibilities for its realisation. A critical theory and institutional ethnography design was employed, drawing on decolonial theory, postcolonial curriculum studies, and critical education research. Eighteen months of fieldwork at four Nigerian university French departments combined curriculum document analysis, faculty interviews (n=42), student focus groups (n=18 groups), and analysis of reading list evolution over fifteen years. Theoretical framework development synthesised Wynter's decolonial humanism, Wa Thiong'o's language decolonisation arguments, and Mbembe's critique of African humanistic epistemology in relation to francophone literary study. Results reveal significant curricular conservatism, with colonial-era metropolitan French authors remaining dominant in reading lists despite stated departmental commitments to diversity. Faculty attitudes toward curriculum reform were divided along generational and training-institution lines, with scholars trained in France showing greatest resistance to decolonisation approaches. Students expressed strong demand for more francophone African and Caribbean texts. The study proposes a framework for decolonised French literature curriculum development applicable across Nigerian universities. Keywords: decolonisation, French literature curriculum, Nigerian universities, postcolonial studies, curriculum reform