I knew Comrade BJ for more than three decades. Before our first meeting, I had heard and read a lot about him, from his exploits as the president of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), an affiliate of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), his intellectual, academic and literary prowess, but more importantly his radical struggle for a humane and egalitarian society. The last part I learnt from his close comrade and collaborator for more than five decades, Comrade Edwin (Eddie) Madunagu, my mentor and teacher.
Comrade Biodun Jeyifo (BJ), who will be interred on Wednesday, 4 March, in Ibadan, Oyo State, was a man of many distinguished parts: First class student, professor emeritus of English at Cornell University and professor emeritus of Comparative Literature at Harvard University, journalist, author, literary critic, president of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), labour activist, revolutionary, and chair of the Board of Trustees/Advisers of the groundbreaking Socialist Library of Nigeria (SOLAR) in Calabar, Cross River State.
Almost two months ago, on 5 January, comrades, scholars, activists, friends, students, and admirers, gathered at the Agip Recital Hall of the Music Society of Nigeria (MUSON) Centre, Onikan, Lagos, to mark Comrade BJ’s 80th birthday, with a lecture by one of his students, Priyamvada Gopal, a professor of Post-Colonial Studies at the University of Cambridge, titled “Who Is Afraid of Decolonisation? Pedagogy, Curriculum and Decolonisation: Then and Now,” a reflection of Comrade BJ’s lifelong interests and struggle. It was a fitting moment to honour the legacy of a brilliant and remarkable scholar. We have the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ) to thank for that important gathering, which turned out to be Comrade BJ’s last public outing.
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I am grateful that I didn’t miss it. Earlier scheduled trips and flight disruptions over the Christmas and New Year holidays had made travel plans quite hectic. I arrived Lagos at 2:00 a.m. on 5 January. By the time I got to my hotel at about 3:30 a.m., I had just a few hours before heading to MUSON Centre. I wanted to arrive early so I could discuss with Comrade BJ official matters of the Socialist Library and Archives, of which he was board chair. I didn’t have the opportunity. Comrade BJ was too busy to entertain such official conversation.
The Comrade BJ I saw was ebullient, almost unrestrained, a sharp contrast to the frail 78-year-old Comrade I saw at the same venue on 13 July, 2024, at another event hosted by WSCIJ to mark the 90th birthday of Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, and again in January 2025 in Calabar at the funeral of Comrade Bene Madunagu. He greeted visitors fervently, took pictures, and expressed joy at the gathering and the faces that had come to celebrate his birthday. It was the same energy he exuded when he was called upon to speak at the end of the event. It was a feeling of satisfaction and fulfilment, not because Comrade BJ was given to revelry. I remember in late December 2025, when he informed the SOLAR team that he had returned to Nigeria, I replied jokingly, “Welcome home, Comrade. Compliments of the season. Happy birthday in advance. Any Aso Ebi?” His reply, 23 minutes later, was quintessential Comrade BJ: “God forbid!” with three Yawning Face emojis. Looking back, I am happy Comrade BJ’s 80th birthday event happened. For many years he struggled with health challenges. I don’t remember the number of times he excoriated Comrade Kayode Komolafe (KK) and I for sending him messages on his dialysis days (Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday). His joy on 5 January was more of the fulfilment of expectation, of years of sustained struggle, of not giving up, and the hope that the struggle would continue now that it looked like he could no longer go the next step.
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I knew Comrade BJ for more than three decades. Before our first meeting, I had heard and read a lot about him, from his exploits as the president of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), an affiliate of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), his intellectual, academic and literary prowess, but more importantly his radical struggle for a humane and egalitarian society. The last part I learnt from his close comrade and collaborator for more than five decades, Comrade Edwin (Eddie) Madunagu, my mentor and teacher.
In the late 80s and early 90s, The Guardian newspaper where Comrade Eddie served as a member of the editorial board was my second home, literally. I would visit, spend hours reading The Guardian and watching prominent citizens stop by to submit their opinions for publication or visit members of the influential editorial board. It was on one of such visits to The Guardian that I ran into Comrade BJ. I think he had just returned to the country from the US, where he was teaching, and stopped at Rutam House, Isolo, Lagos, the home of The Guardian, to see Comrade Eddie. I was in awe of Comrade BJ. He was simple and self-effacing, his influence in the intellectual and literary world in the country and outside notwithstanding.
As mentioned, it was through Comrade Eddie that I came to know about Comrade BJ’s interventions, beyond his journalism and critical essays or literary work, in the quest for a just and egalitarian society. I learnt of the active role that he and his comrades played “in the strengthening of the foundations and early development of a post-Civil War revolutionary, Marxist formation in the Nigerian students’ movement; the revolutionary conscientisation of peasants and other rural populations in an area stretching from Ode-Omu to Oogi, Ede, Oyo, Ogbomosho, Ife, Ifetedo and Okeigbo [in the South West] between June 1976 and May 1977; the ‘Ali Must Go’ students’ protest of 1978 and its aftermath; the radicalization of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) in the early 1980s; and the formation, on revolutionary foundations, of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS).”
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On Sunday, 22 February, one of Africa’s preeminent historians and the anchor of The Toyin Falola Interviews, organised a robust panel of colleagues, friends and ex-students of Comrade BJ. In his intervention, Dr Ogaga Ifowodo, whom Comrade BJ taught at Cornell University, in Ithaca, New York, spoke about the “rigour” that Comrade BJ brought to bear on his works. In furthering that position, I had noted Comrade BJ’s consistency, which defied age, time and physical location.
Interestingly, ten years ago, one of his teachers at the University of Ibadan, Professor Dan Izevbaye, in his tribute to Comrade BJ at 70, had spoken of the “unrelenting consistency of his intellectual and scholarly activism.” Typical of Comrade BJ, he did not consider the “praise” as an “achievement he had to strive for.” As he noted in his tribute during the 75th birthday of Comrade Edwin Madunagu titled, “The Most Humanistic and Scientific Socialist of Our Generation: For Edwin Madunagu @75”, “being consistent was completely in the nature of things that I had seen and observed in the lives of many others in the Nigerian Left – and in other parts of the world – who had been as consistent over the entire course of their biological and intellectual adulthood as I had striven to be.” Comrade BJ was right, partially. Yes, he strove for consistency till the very end, but not many people who had the opportunity and intellect that Comrade BJ was endowed with stayed the course. Very few scholars could make the connection between their work and the emancipation of the downtrodden, the way Comrade BJ did till the very end.
I end this tribute by highlighting two interventions by Comrade BJ that exemplified how comfortable he was with theory and praxis. In 2006, I was travelling in the US when I reached out to him that I was thinking of putting together some of the essays of Comrade Eddie into a collection for his 60th birthday. He thought it was a great idea, and asked how easily we could get the soft copies. I told him I had started saving the soft copies of Comrade Eddie’s essays the moment The Guardian began its digital transition, and that we could type out any that wasn’t available online. The outcome was the book, Understanding Nigeria and the New Imperialism: Essays 2000-2006 (edited by Biodun Jeyifo, Bene Madunagu, Kayode Komolafe, Chido Onumah), a critical intervention and “lucid exposé of the policies, worldviews and assumptions fuelling the operations of [the] so-called ‘international community.’” Comrade BJ wrote the foreword, which I recommend to readers. His son, Olalekan Jeyifous, did the cover design and art for the book.
Fifteen years later in 2021, on the occasion of the 75th birthday of Comrade Eddie, Comrade BJ was instrumental in founding the Socialist Library and Archives (SOLAR) in Calabar, Cross River State, which seeks to collect and preserve books, pamphlets, journals, newspapers, and documents that capture the intellectual, political, and social struggles of workers, activists, and progressive movements in Nigeria and around the world. This intervention has its origin in the Combined Archives and Libraries of Edwin Madunagu & Bene Madunagu, a product of the joint life of Edwin Madunagu and Bene Madunagu since 1973.
As the Chair of the Board of Trustees/Advisors of SOLAR, Comrade BJ walked the talk. His devotion to the success of SOLAR stemmed in part from the loss of his books and documents to the elements, but more importantly his belief that the torch of revolutionary struggle needed to be passed on through such enduring initiatives like SOLAR. Three years ago, as SOLAR struggled with sustainability, Comrade BJ provided a lifeline. He told the management that he had been contracted by a publishing house in the US to do a book on Professor Wole Soyinka and that he was going to donate the proceeds from the assignment – minus taxes – to SOLAR. He did exactly that. Today, SOLAR is not only collecting and archiving materials, it has started digitalising them. Many of these materials exist only in hard copy. Age, humidity, frequent handling, and limited storage conditions place them at serious risk of deterioration and permanent loss.
SOLAR represents decades of socialist thought, labour history, and impact of social justice movements. It is the repository of out-of-print publications, educational resources for students, researchers, civil society groups, and activists; a historical record of struggles, ideas, and organising that shaped not just the Nigerian society but the world. It is a deliberate effort to ensure that knowledge, ideas, and lessons of our individual and collective struggles are not lost, but are made accessible to current and future generations. We have Comrade BJ to thank for his leadership and support in this regard.
When he was given the opportunity to speak as his 80th birthday lecture came to an end on 5 January, it seemed Comrade BJ was saying goodbye. He struggled to speak, overwhelmed with emotion, promising to do a series of lengthy interviews to tell his story. What I heard Comrade say, not verbally, was that a new Nigeria, indeed a new world, is possible. It was captured in these words: competition would have to take a backseat to cooperation. There has to be a post-capitalist approach to development. We can’t survive as species under the present system. There must be a restructuring (retribution) of wealth to reduce economic and social inequality in Nigeria and ensure human dignity.
Not many Comrades at the “departure lounge of life,” as Comrade BJ liked to describe himself, could be that forthright!
Chido Onumah is the Coordinator of the Socialist Library and Archives (SOLAR) and author of We Are All Biafrans, among other books.
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