We in ASUU can boldly submit…that BJ lives forever both as an iconic scholar and as a revolutionary activist. Biodun Jeyifo cannot die on either front. His legendary intellectual products, his outstanding records of humanistic interventions, and his teaming mass of achiever-mentees within and outside the academia will be there to speak for him. Live on, Comrade BJ!
So much has been said and written about the iconic Comrade Biodun Jeyifo, fondly called BJ, since his passing on 11th February. Many more would still be written and said about his humanism, his scholarship, and his activism. But no account would be complete without referencing his imprints on the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU). It was in ASUU that Comrade Jeyifo’s humanist, scholarly and activist credentials were most productively tested within the Nigerian firmament. As the pioneer president, he held everything about ASUU very close to his chest – mentoring many presidents who came after him – until he breathed his last.
BJ was a revolutionary Marxist who saw the need for a movement that would outlive him and his contemporaries. He knew that it is only people who make things happen, and that nothing will change if the people themselves are not changed. He embraced praxis and indeed tested his revolutionary thoughts along with trusted comrades at the then University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), Ile-Ife, and other Nigerian universities. They got actively involved with students, labour, artisans, market men and women, as well as public intellectuals, to work for the socialist transformation of Nigeria. They took military dictators headlong and got severely bruised on several occasions in the 1970s/1980s. They experimented with the idea of “communes”. They championed resistance to neoliberal educational policies and teamed with students to drive the “Ali-Must-Go” national protest. And they transformed the lame-duck National Association of University Teachers (NAUT) into a vibrant and ideologically-driven union of intellectuals, which ASUU has remained since 1978.
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It was not out of personal desire or inordinate ambition that BJ became the pioneer president of ASUU, it was a responsibility bestowed on him in recognition of his self-sacrificing commitment and sanctimonious dedication to making the union an intellectual vanguard for resisting the capitalist invasion of Nigeria’s intellectual, economic and socio-political life. So, it is stating the obvious to say that BJ and his generation laid the philosophical foundation for ASUU’s engagements beyond the four walls of the university or what infamously became “teaching-what-you-are-not-paid-to-teach”. In actuality, BJ’s generation taught us the rudiments of what it means to make a difference in an organisation, in a system, and in the society: clear vision, passion and commitment; collective leadership, accountability and transparency; unity of purpose, selfless service, and resilience; among others. Another past president of that generation, late Festus Iyayi, was to later codify these tenets into five clusters: (i) integrity, transparency and accountability; (ii) professionalism, objectivity and hard work; (iii) courage, sacrifice and total commitment; (iv) internal democracy, team work and group solidarity; and (v) patriotism, anti-imperialism and working class solidarity. By all known standards, BJ exemplified and espoused ASUU principles all through his work-life.
Biodun Jeyifo’s academic profile is intimidating to the uninitiated. Beginning with a First Class in English at the University of Ibadan in 1970, and strengthened by graduate studies at the New York University, where he obtained the Master’s and doctorate degrees in 1973 and 1975 respectively, BJ rose phenomenally to become a formidable global scholar. He began his teaching career as Lecturer II at Ibadan in 1975 and transferred his services to Ife in 1977. At Ife, his recommendation to the rank of a full professor by the Senate was halted when Jeyifo resigned for the university’s failure to grant his research leave for a commissioned book project on Wole Soyinka and moved to America in 1987.
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Jeyifo’s skilful deployment of a profound intellectual prowess in his decades of discursive journalistic space served more than pedagogical purposes; it provided (and still provides) useful platforms for generating ideas to address complex socio-political problems. His optimism in the possibility of the Nigerian revolution, when viewed against the recorded impacts of revolutionary thinkers like Amilcar Cabral, Frantz Fanon, and Paulo Friere, is not in any manner whatsoever misplaced.
BJ was appointed professor of English by Oberlin College the same year and later moved to Cornell University where he plied his trade until 2006. He was subsequently appointed a professor of African and African-American Studies and Comparative Literature at the Harvard University, before serving as emeritus professor at both Cornell and Harvard. In all of this, BJ did not prioritise career advancement but his exceptional brilliance won him placements in world class universities and attracted several national and international awards, honours and fellowships that took him to many countries and continents across the world.
BJ’s scholarship is multidimensional. He was a poet, an essayist, a literary critic, a revolutionary thinker, and a newspaper columnist – all at the same time. His methodology is rooted in mythology and cultural theory. While receiving an award of D. Lit (Honoris Causa) at Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) in 2018, Jeyifo spoke of his profession and methodology through, “the Afro-Cuban myth on the body of Truth and the head of Falsehood”. He said, “in my profession of critical theory and literary studies, this is the kind of ambiguity, conundrum or enigma that we love to work on”. He went further to counsel: we “must see Truth and Falsehood not as mere opposites but as inevitable contradictions that we must do our utmost best to decipher in order to make the contradiction work for us and not against us.”
Home or abroad, BJ never lost touch with “the talakawa of the land to whom restitution and justice will come one day in our country”. His weekly Talakawa Liberation Courier column in The Sunday Guardian from inception in 1983 and the Talakawa Liberation Herald in The Nation forty years later, was dedicated to this underprivileged class, the poorest of the poor, who are neglected by the opportunistic and egotistic ruling elites with insatiable appetite for state-enabled privileges and corruption. In both America and Nigeria, BJ saw the conditions of the talakawa declining each day, not for the lack of resources but for the denial of access to the basic necessities of life. Barack Obama’s 2014 State of the Union address, in which the president copiously acknowledged the existence of poverty and inequality in America, prompted BJ, in one of his essays, to remark: “there is the widespread phenomenon of the working poor as a social and economic category distinct and separable from the jobless, non-working poor. Indeed, in Nigerian parlance, I would call the former the talakawa of America and the latter the almajiris of the USA.”(The Nation, 2 February, 2014). The two-part essay underscores BJ’s abhorrence of the ills of capitalist exploitation everywhere and anywhere, noting “that the inevitable great climatic differences should not obscure the common sources (and) the linkages between inequality and poverty in our world”.
Jeyifo’s skilful deployment of a profound intellectual prowess in his decades of discursive journalistic space served more than pedagogical purposes; it provided (and still provides) useful platforms for generating ideas to address complex socio-political problems. His optimism in the possibility of the Nigerian revolution, when viewed against the recorded impacts of revolutionary thinkers like Amilcar Cabral, Frantz Fanon, and Paulo Friere, is not in any manner whatsoever misplaced. To overcome the expected ambush of reactionary state agents like Chris Ngige, BJ passionately stressed the imperative of organic solidarity among those working for socialist alternative – calling for a deeper and clearer understanding of the dialectics of change. Contradictions are bound to arise, but they must be quickly dispense with, lest they derail the struggle for the talakawa’s liberation. BJ’s last major assignment for ASUU hinged on resolving such complex issues.
The transition of our teacher, mentor and pathfinder from mortality to immortality presents a rare opportunity for us to act in unison to reclaim the lost glory of our universities and reposition ASUU for the progressive transformation of the country. His inability to achieve a united collective of scholars in his last days was perhaps one of BJ’s greatest regrets. He would turn for joy in his grave if we give him this well-deserved honour now that he is no longer with us!
As the lingering crisis at the OAU branch festered around 2016/2017, BJ saw the split in Ife and quickly stepped in to avert its snowballing effect on ASUU nationwide. At the Ife convocation in 2018, he openly expressed his displeasure at the way OAU authorities and academics were handling the crisis. Specifically, he noted with regret that “Ife is the birthplace of ASUU; today, ASUU is in a state of profound and crippling crisis at the University.” He did not stop at that. He relocated to Ile-Ife for days, engaging the dramatis personae in order to reconcile the warring parties and reconnect detached members with the national body of ASUU. He expressed shock when presenting the report of his efforts to the ASUU national leadership in January 2019, saying: “while historically ASUU had had many local and national crises, none was as critical as the current ASUU-OAU crisis”. He went further to stress that “no previous crisis in ASUU to date had ever led to the formation of a breakaway faction that had taken its separation from ASUU to the point of seeking the registration of a rival national association of Nigerian academics – named, in this instance, Congress of Nigerian University Academics (CONUA).” He made far-reaching recommendations that could have laid the matter to a permanent rest if the arrow-head of the separation move had seen reason with BJ. Unfortunately, the splinter group remained adamant and rebuffed all his reconciliation efforts.
Once more, ASUU invites the breakaway group to honour the memory of Comrade BJ by returning to the fold. The greatest honour that Nigerian academics can do to the memory of BJ is not to approach his graveside as a divided community. His immutable admonishment is very instructive:“contradictions are there not to crush us if we study them carefully”. The transition of our teacher, mentor and pathfinder from mortality to immortality presents a rare opportunity for us to act in unison to reclaim the lost glory of our universities and reposition ASUU for the progressive transformation of the country. His inability to achieve a united collective of scholars in his last days was perhaps one of BJ’s greatest regrets. He would turn for joy in his grave if we give him this well-deserved honour now that he is no longer with us!
The renowned historian and African scholar, Toyin Falola, organised an international event to celebrate the life and times of BJ on Sunday, 22nd February, where it was asked if BJ would be remembered more for his scholarship or his activism. We in ASUU can boldly submit, like many participants did at the event, that BJ lives forever both as an iconic scholar and as a revolutionary activist. Biodun Jeyifo cannot die on either front. His legendary intellectual products, his outstanding records of humanistic interventions, and his teaming mass of achiever-mentees within and outside the academia will be there to speak for him. Live on, Comrade BJ!
Christopher Piwuna is the president of the Academic Staff Union of Universities.
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