Biodun Jeyifo: The intellectual as a revolutionary, By Owei Lakemfa

The inaugural lecture of Professor Wole Soyinka in the 1980/81 period at the then University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University, was expectedly explosive. Its title, “The Critic and society: Bathes, Leftocracy and Other Mythologies”, left no one in doubt that this was an ideological offensive.

It was the famous writer’s nuclear-powered intellectual attack against Leftists who had asserted themselves as a dominant force in the academic and student circles on campus.

Although the missiles were targeted at the Left community led by respected historian, Dr. Segun Osoba, some were also fired at academics who seem to have one leg in the Leftist camp, and the other, outside.

A student journal in reporting the lecture and the fireworks had a section on lecturers sitting on the fence. It was a poetic reporting style that ran like: “TP, TP. Take Position, Take Position. Leftocracy or Rightocracy. TP, TP. Take Position, Take Position.” This was directed at an identified lecturer.

Later, Akin Akingbulu, Editor of ‘Voice’, another student journal, interviewed this lecturer and asked him his reaction to the report. He replied that it was written by one of his students and he was handling the issue. The Editor pressed further and the lecturer said the offending piece was written by Owei Lakemfa. Akingbulu immediately sought me out in the hostel and told me I was in big trouble. He knew I did not write the report as he knew who did, but could not tell the angry lecturer.

I went to Gordini G Darah, a lecturer in the Literature Department to narrate the story and ask him for advice on how I could be saved. I didn’t mind facing the consequences of my actions, but I did not want to be held liable for what I knew nothing about; I was just a victim of my notoriety on campus. Darah told me the person who could save me was Dr Biodun Jeyifo. BJ, as he was popularly called, was an intensely intellectual person who was known not to back away from any necessary fight whether in academics or politics. Although a mentee of Soyinka from his University of Ibadan, UI, undergraduate days, he was regarded the fiercest critic of Soyinka’s works. BJ had also become the National President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU. He had transformed ASUU from its moribund origins as the Nigerian Association of University Teachers, NAUT, to a fighting union shaking the foundations of the country’s universities and putting the Shehu Shagari administration on its toes on matters affecting academics.

The no-nonsense, but charismatic BJ was loved by students, and any gathering he was featured to address was bound to be full. I narrated my story to him and he asked if I was sure. I answered in the affirmative. He stood up and asked me to come along. He drove me to my lecturer’s office. BJ without knocking, barged into the office. The startled lecturer stirred and asked what the mattered was. BJ replied: “I hear you want to victimise Owei. In this campus?” The rattled lecturer turned to me: “Owei, is it true?” I stammered; said not really and narrated what transpired between him and Akingbulu. The lecturer replied it was nothing: “I thought you wrote the report and but when I reread it, I concluded you were too intelligent to have written it.” I thanked him, genuflected to BJ and melted away. Case, closed.

There were inter-communal clashes in Ife, the university’s host community in April 1981 in which a number of lives were lost. It was under this circumstances a headless body was found on June 1, 1981 in the town. Three days later, the victim was positively identified as Bukola Arogundade, an undergraduate of the university. The enraged students on June 7, 1981 organised a protest march on Ife town. The police attacked the students mainly with teargas leading to the death of four of the students: Mr Paul Longe, 40; Miss Wemimo Akinbolu, 23; Miss Fatimo Adebimpe, 22; and Miss Dorcas Ojewole, 19. Two other students from other schools who happened to be travelling on the Ife road that day were chased by the police and died in a resultant car crash.

The students were livid and decided on revenge. Some began to form groups to abduct policemen. The university authorities had lost control and even if it ordered a closure, it was likely to be in vain as the students had decided that the university must be kept open. The government of course could not control the situation and the student union leadership under Femi Kuku had also lost control, and had been shoved aside by the students. Some former student union leaders like one-time President, Wole Olaoye, ex-Public Relations Officer, Femi Falana and former Secretary General Greg Obong-Oshotse, tried to reassert control over the students. That was when ASUU, under BJ, stepped in. It had the courage to call a rally of the students and managed to control the overflowing crowd. It promised to bring all those responsible for the deaths to justice, ensure decent burial for the victims, defend student interests and establish an independent inquiry. ASUU said all it was asking for was for students to agree that the university be shutdown. Like magic, we agreed and moved peacefully out of the campus. Such was the influence of the local and national ASUU and BJ.

When I arrived Ife as an undergraduate, one of the first names I learnt about was BJ. You can imagine my shock when a few months later, a man called Tony Engurube, who was visiting Ijaw students, asked that I accompany him to see an old friend called BJ. I asked if it was the same person, and he affirmed it. We went to BJ’s house on campus, and soon both men were locked in embrace. It turned out that they had been members of an underground revolutionary group who some years earlier had been wedded to carrying out a revolution in the country. In later years, I came to know some of these dedicated men and women who wanted to create a human-centred, rather than profit-motivated society. These included the couples, Sehinde and Dunni Arigbede, and Eddy and Bene Madunagu.

So, BJ was not just a lecturer, literary critic, author, actor and playwright who made giant strides across universities like Ibadan and Ife in Africa, Oberline, Cornell and Havard in the United States and executed projects at the Free University, Berlin and Peking University, PKU. He was also a practical revolutionary.

His revolutionary praxis had led him over decades to maintain columns in newspapers under the pseudonym: Bamako Jaji. On 11 February, BJ at 80, transited into an Orisha, an African god.

Owei Lakemfa, a former secretary general of African workers, is a human rights activist, journalist and author.