[6]: 212  He is credited with "having played the leading role in creating a generation of African historians who could interpret their own history without being influenced by Eurocentric approaches.

During the 1960s, as a member of the University of Ibadan's history department, he played a pioneering role in promoting African leadership of scholarly works published on Africa.

As the head of the organizing committee of the First International Congress of Africanists in Ghana in 1963, he sought for a strengthened meticulous non-colonial focused African research, publication of research in various languages including indigenous and foreign, so as to introduce native speakers to history and for people to view African history through a common eye.

He focused on internal African factors, especially defensive measures undertaken by the delta societies against imperialist penetration.

[16] A biography entitled Life and Thoughts of Professor Kenneth O. Dike was authored by Alexander Animalu.