The Department of French was established in 1983, a year after the inception of the University.

The first Head of the Department was Dr. Debe Osaji, of the University of Lagos, who was then on Sabbatical Leave. There were then five lecturers. The first set of students graduated in July 1997 (six of them). As a result of logistic problems, the Department was phased out in 1989 after producing three sets of graduates of French (Single Honours). Why? Explain briefly the logistic problems.

With the establishment of the Nigeria French Language Village, Badagry, in 1992, French Study was resuscitated in the University and a Combined Honours degree programme was introduced. Since then, the Department has produced 14 sets of graduates. The Department is at present having 8 (eight) full-time lecturers, and 5 adjunct lecturers.

Over the last decade, the Department has added full-time and part-time postgraduate programmes in Masters and PhD. Courses available at both programmes are Translation Studies, Comparative Literature, French Literature, African Literature and French Language and Linguistics. The Department has produced nine (9) PhD holders and twelve (12) M.A. graduates.