In his opening address, the Dean of FAHUMSS, Professor Joseph Omoregbe, welcomed the Vice-Chancellor of the University, Professor Christopher Odetunde and other principal officers, as well as staff and students of the institution to the event. He pointed out that quality of teaching is enhanced by the quality of research that is carried out by the academic workforce of any institution and that the seminars have been structured to be intellectually stimulating.

In her speech, the Chairman of the Seminar Committee, Dr. Grace Evbuomwan, said “the choice of pairing presenters from the two departments is to give seminar participants the benefits of deepening their grasps on business financials and investment, and at the same time, enable participants to draw from scholarly analysis in the investigative world of literature in the genre of prose fiction.”

She added that the seminars are expected to be a highly engaging bi-session academic exercise where a robust cross-pollination of ideas among teaching staff and students of the various departments of the faculties in the University will continue to be sustained.

The papers presented were “Financial Reporting Quality and Economic Value Added of Listed Companies in Nigeria” by Dr. Theophilus Aguguom and Mrs. Ebun Olanipekun  and “Masculinities in Selected Novels of Chinua Achebe and Buchi Emecheta” presented by Dr. James Onyeashie.

In the first paper presented by Dr. Aguguom and Mrs. Olanipekun, the study encouraged investors to be watchful of the consistencies, or otherwise, of the reported earnings in the financial books of companies since discretionary earnings could be reported by managers as real earnings in an effort to cover their incompetence. The paper concluded by recommending that companies must conduct corporate valuation periodically not only to select effective strategies, but also to determine its shareholders’ value.

In Dr. Oyeashie’s presentation, the study showed that how male characters fit in and carry out their roles or otherwise can affect their recognition and placement in the hierarchies of masculinities in the chosen novels. Furthermore, the study demonstrated that the view has now been recognized that change in historical forces can create new masculine normative cultural values, ego ideals, fractured egos, and ego shifts, therefore, have very deep influence on masculinities in particular characteristics in the selected novels.

The seminar was interactive, as students and staff asked salient questions germane to the studies presented.