By Magnus Akarue
A tribute on Prof Peter Ekeh is a wide canvas. Your brush strokes can only paint a corner. Perhaps, it will take another intellectual to portray the whole. It was a man of great learning who once told Ekeh’s young in-law, ‘you guys don’t know who you have’. In the 1980s, prof and his colleague were being driven 30 kilometres an hour to Benin. His young in-law was in the front seat. When Prof asked why the vehicle was crawling, the colleague said he had told the driver to go very slow to give Prof Ekeh ‘enough time to think about colonialism and the two publics’, his most cited essay. Ekeh jocularly replied: ‘But that’s not fair’.
If we accept the definition of a university teacher to his class in the 1980s that to be called a professor meant you were patient with people, then Ekeh would be a prof many times over. Ekeh was patient with his students. As they would testify, he personified humility in class. He explained political systems bottom-up and break down complicated topics.
Prof Ekeh was the quintessential academic but there was no stiffness about him. Whether at home, school or in his study if you happen upon him, he shared a moment of mirth with you. A good natured personality, his face always beamed with his trademark smile. He was caring as a father, husband, and was a wonderful counsellor and help to countless students.
A notable professor once described a graduate student as unteachable (unable to grasp knowledge), but would Prof Ekeh ever referred to anyone as such? No, he would not. A patient teacher, he would guide you through a difficult terrain, meeting you at your level.
This intellectual giant, our Urhobo trove of knowledge, passed on in the United States on Tuesday, November 17, 2020. All who knew him would tell that the Urhobo nation had lost one of its leading lights. He was born in 1937 at Adarode, a satellite village of Okpara Inland (Agbon clan) in Ethiope East Local Government Area of Delta State. But his original ancestry was Orogun in Ughelli North Local Government Area. After his early education at Catholic Central School in Okpara Inland, he got admission into St. Peter Claver’s College, Aghalokpe, in Okpe Local Government Area. A bright pupil, he showed great promise. He passed his Cambridge school certificate in high grades.
Prof Ekeh graduated from the University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Oyo State, in 1964, with a BSc degree in Economics. He had his Master’s (1967) at the University of Stanford, Palo Alto, and PhD (1970) at the University of California, Berkeley. Both were in Sociology. He was a Rockefeller Foundation scholar for his graduate studies, and served in the faculty at the University of California, Riverside, from 1970 to 1973.
Prof Ekeh’s sojourn to America began in 1965, travelling with his new wed wife, Dr Helen Ekeh. Coming back in 1973, he had a brief stint at the Research Centre of the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. In 1974, he moved to the University of Ibadan, and was head of Political Science Department in 1978 till 1983. His modest disposition ran through all his assignments. He chaired the University of Ibadan Press in 1983-1988, and College of Education, Benin, Edo State, at some point. Prof Ekeh had always set a high moral tone and would never bring his office to disrepute.
“In his later academic life, he left Nigeria for the United States where he joined the faculty of the State University of New York at Buffalo, New York, in 1989. He also spent some time (1988-1989) at the Woodrow Wilson Centre for International Scholars.
“He retired from Buffalo as the professor and head of Department of African American Studies in 2001, after serving for eight years. It was while at Buffalo that he pulled together a group of Urhobo intellectuals in North America to found the Urhobo Historical Society, to document and promote Urhobo history and culture, and to defend the interests of the Urhobo nation.”
Prof Ekeh loved ideas. He rejected arguments that Classics, a study of ancient systems. civilisation and literature, was a ‘dead’ course of no material relevance. The University of Ibadan was and is the only institution in Nigeria offering the course. He had always seen Classics as a discipline ‘that teaches ideas’, from which states could develop and grow enviable systems. The late Gamaliel Onosode, among other men of distinction, was a Classics graduate, and he remained the only Nigerian yet to be referred to as boardroom guru.
Prof Ekeh never forgot his roots, and cherished trips to his village. Perhaps, this love for humble beginnings could well be why he asked his young in-law not to reject his national service at a village school in Ibadan in 1984. This was done in good faith, and through his usual mirth: ‘ Magnus, don’t be a spoilt child, go and serve in the village’.
His early research interests were in sociological and psychoanalytical theories. In 1974, Prof Ekeh wrote Social Exchange Theory: The Two Traditions. But he later developed special interests in African politics and history in which he had some leading publications. He wrote one of the most cited essays of our time: Colonialism and the Two Publics in Africa: A Theoretical Statement, in 1975.
As the years wore on, he devoted more time to advancing the cause of his Urhobo people. With others, he founded UHS in August 1999. In books, essays and write-ups, Prof Ekeh and other members raised the tempo of Urhobo discourse to give their people a foothold in a lopsided nation.
