Professor Wande Abimbola is President and Founder of Ifa Heritage Institute. He served as Vice Chancellor (President) of the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) from 1982 to 1989. From 1992 to 1993 he was Senate Majority Leader of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. From 2003 to 2005, Professor Abimbola served as Special Adviser on Cultural Affairs and Traditional Matters to the President of Nigeria. Wande Abimbola was installed as Awise Awo ni Agbaye (Spokesperson of Ifa in the Whole World) in 1981 by the Ọ̀ọ̀ni of Ife on the recommendation of a conclave of West African Babaláwos.
The Awise was born in Ọ̀yọ́, Nigeria. His late father, Abimbola Iroko, a veteran of World War I and a renowned hunter whose brave exploits are celebrated by Ijala artists, was the Asipade (Leader of the Ogun Community) until his death in 1971. His late mother, Sangodayo Ifagbemisola Awele, a high priest of Sango, lived mentally and physically well until she departed the earth in 1987 at the age of 109.
The Awise Agbaye taught in three Nigerian universities — the University of Ibadan from 1963 to 1965, the University of Lagos from 1966 to 1972, and the University of Ife from 1972 to 1991. He has also taught at many universities in the United States, including Indiana University, Amherst College, Harvard University, Boston University, Colgate University, and the University of Louisville.
Wande Abimbola received his first degree in History from the University College, Ibadan in 1963, when that was a college of London University. He received his Master’s Degree in Linguistics from Northwestern University, Illinois, USA in 1966, and his Ph.D. in Yorùbá Literature in 1970 from the University of Lagos. He became a full Professor of African Languages and Literatures at the University of Ife in 1976. The Awise’s academic background is rooted equally in oral tradition: he was an apprentice in Ifá chanting and ritual long before he began formal schooling at the age of twelve.