The reaper in the tower

Understandably, we have all been consumed by the elections and their aftermath. In the process, we have lost sight of other news items which ought to engage our attention. My specific reference here is to the spate of deaths that has besieged the Nigerian university system. The reaper has certainly been busy in the Ivory Tower. The departed vessels of knowledge include Professors Ade Ajayi, Emmanuel Ayandele, Nwokolo, Dayo Akeredolu-Ale and, much more recently, Adekunle Amuwo.

In various ways, these individuals served meritoriously in our first generation universities. The first two, i.e., Ajayi and Ayandele, were leading members of the Ibadan School of History. It was indeed a School, because these two historians along with their contemporaries espoused an Afro-centric perspective on History. As scholars, what they encountered as History was a condescending attitude on the part of western scholars. According to such western scholars, Africa had no history before the coming of the white man. But these two scholars along with their peers said no! Therefore, they brought into play a novel historiography which, among other things, stressed oral history. In the process, a new corpus of knowledge was built up and the Trevor-Ropers of this world were given a much more comprehensive insight and education about the notions and methods of African History.

Specifically, Ajayi edited, with lan Espie, A Thousand Years of West African History. In this work, Ajayi and his colleagues impressively demonstrated that an authentic African past existed before the Caucasians came calling. As regards Ayandele, it is apposite to recall his groundbreaking work, The Educated Elite and the Nigeria Society.

In a rather interesting and revealing way, Ayandele showed up a unique situation in which the supposed dregs of society, who were taken away as slaves, eventually returned to the Nigerian space, with new skills and attitudes which enabled them to dominate the Nigerian society. He went on to demonstrate how education has in fact been used as a tool of exploitation of the Nigerian society, rather than as an instrument of emancipation. These thoughts could well have been uppermost in the mind of this historian who, after a thoughtful examination of the various sub-national groups in Cross River State, declared that this was an atomistic society that was perpetually at war with itself. In a Freudian way perhaps, Ayandele could have been speaking about the entire Nigerian social formation itself.

Beyond the core indices of teaching and research in academia, these two historians also played prime roles in university management at the highest levels. Ayandele’s pioneering role at the University of Calabar will continue to be remembered and cherished by all the stakeholders of higher education in Nigeria. As an Ogbomoso man, he was certainly not in his own primordial territory. But times have changed and not necessarily for the better. Universities have since become mere ethnic enclaves in which the post of vice-chancellor is reserved for the son of the soil.

It is arguable here that this ethnic flavour or sheer ignorance could well be responsible for the rather muted response to the passage of another intellectual icon, Professor Nwokolo. Nwokolo was a Professor of Medicine at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. On reading the obituaries of this accomplished academic, it was evident that in the medical profession, Nwokolo served the entire country. This was clearly evident from the advertisement put out by the Nigerian National Post-Graduate Medical College. Hundreds of Nigerian medical doctors across the country benefitted from his tutelage and forensic profile as a lecturer and examiner in the area of Medicine.   

News also filtered in that another Nigerian academic, a sociologist, Professor Dayo Akeredolu-Ale, also passed on. In these times, entrepreneurship happens to be the buzz-word. But a measure of amnesia exists here. It is hardly remembered that the scholarship on entrepreneurship was largely pioneered by Akeredolu-Ale.

Perhaps the most numbing dimension of this narrative relates to the demise of Professor Adekunle Amuwo. Compared to the other professors, he was relatively young. He died rather early at the age of 59. Since we are in the same generation, I am more familiar with him. Kunle, as he was popularly known in academic circles, was vibrant, full of energy, and earnest about the Nigerian condition or non-condition! The latter variable could have been responsible for his early demise.

Kunle Amuwo virtually left the University of Ibadan in a huff. He subsequently moved on to a variety of academic jobs in Southern Africa before settling in at the Brussels-based, International Crisis Group (ICG) from where he headed to Covenant University (CU), Ota. It was in CU that he died a week ago. He was a worthy intellectual sparring partner. Certainly, the intellectual community within and outside Nigeria will miss this great scholar.

Taken together, Professors Ajayi, Ayandele, Nwokolo, Akeredolu-Ale and Amuwo in their respective ways nurtured the tree of knowledge in Nigeria and the wider world. May their souls find peace in the beyond and may the good Lord in his infinite mercies comfort and protect their primary and secondary relatives.

Kayode Soremekun