Professor Femi Kayode (1939-2020): Economist beyond the ivory tower (1)

Segun Ayobolu

In a scathing interview published in the 1970s, in which he responded to the academic critics of his novels and short stories, that masterly chronicler of the fun, foibles and follies particularly of urban city life, Cyprian Ekwensi, urged those with negative perceptions of his literary themes and style to ‘quit their cloistered ivory towers and live’. He thus inferred that a secluded academic life may insulate the reclusive scholar from the realities of life and living so vividly captured in many of his works such as ‘Jagua Nana’, ‘People of the City’, ‘Beautiful Feathers’, ‘Restless City and Christmas Gold’ or ‘Lokotown’. Indeed, the same advice can easily be given to many academic economists, whose preoccupation with the cold logic and mathematical as well as analytic rigidities of their discipline, make their theories far removed fom the existential realities of millions of people whose material well being it is supposedly the lot of the economist to enhance.

The same thing can certainly not be said of the frontline economist, Professor Mathew Femi Kayode, who passed on to eternal life on August 10, 2020, in Ibadan, the famous city where he rose to become professor of economics at the University of Ibadan in a productive career spanning four decades. An indigene of Egbe in Kogi state, Professor Kayode had his primary and secondary education at the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) primary school, Egbe, and the illustrious Abdulazeez Attah Memorial College, Okene, respectively. He obtained his Higher School Certificate (HSC) at the prestigious Kings College, Lagos, showing early intellectual promise by winning the school’s economics prizes in 1961.

Graduating with a Second Class Upper Honours degree in economics from the University of Ibadan’s Economics Department in 1965, Professor Kayode thereafter obtained postgraduate degrees in the discipline from the London School of Economics and the Harvard Business School, Cambridge. In 1972, he earned a PhD degree in Economics from UI becoming the first doctoral graduate of the institution’s economics department. With this sterling academic grounding in his beloved discipline, one would have expected Professor Kayode to delight in the often arcane and obscurantist theorizing as well as esoteric discourse intelligible to only fellow members of the disciplinary cult.

But what do two of his students and mentees who later became professors in the discipline tell us about Professor Kayode’s philosophy of and approach to economics? In the words of Professors Abdul-Ganiyu Ajani Garba and Kassey Garba,“Professor Kayode made economics more real to man and much livelier than the abstract body of thought that economics has been designed to be. He always cared more about how the issues in economics affected people. He was never content with the very abstract nature of the discipline and would often distinguish between the letters and the spirit as he mapped out a range of options using ‘scenario analysis’. He would often look for different ways in which economic phenomena could have a human face”.

It is perhaps not surprising that Professor Kayode specialized in Business and Management Economics, which enabled him to make practical and enduring contributions to the real world of business and added tremendous value as a consultant and/or member of the board of diverse public and private sector organizations. I have heard post graduate students of economics and Business management fulsomely praise his magnum opus, ‘The Art of Project Evaluation’, published in 1979 by the Ibadan University of Ibadan Press and which is considered an indispensable Bible for students of Business and Management Economics particularly with specialization in project management. Although I have not read the book myself, its subject matter indicates the more pragmatic and practical rather than essentially theoretical bent of the professor’s scholarly orientation.

Professor Kayode was one of the country’s foremost exponents and exemplars of productive interaction between the scholarly gown and the societal or communal town. No wonder, President Muhammadu Buhari, in his tribute to the late economist, commended him for his “willingness to leave the university to share knowledge, wisdom and experience with governments’. Apart from serving as a Special Adviser to the President on economic matters between 1988 and 1992, Professor Kayode served on the boards of several bodies adding tremendous value to their operations. At various times, he served as Chairman, Kwara State Investment Company (1985-1987), Member, National Revenue Allocation, Mobilization and Fiscal Commission (1988-1992), Chairman, Think Tank Committee for Strategic Projects, National Raw Material Development Council (1989-1992), Member, National Capital Issues Commission (1976-1978), Member, Technical Committee, Vision 2010, (1997), Member, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Board of Directors (1999-2007) and Chairman, Board of Trustees, Foundation for Economics Education, (1975 – 1981).

Other committees and boards of organizations on which Professor Kayode served at various times include Afribank Economic and Financial Review, Nigerian Association of Management Education and Training (NASMET), Kwara State Government Planning Council, Broad Express Nigeria Limited, Trade Bank PLC, African Economic Research Consortium (AERC), Nairobi, Kenya and National Hospital Insurance Fund for the Kenyan Government. On the academic terrain, he was at various times, Head of the Department of Economics, University of Ibadan, President, Nigerian Economic Society (NES), and Editor, Nigerian Journal of Economic and Social Studies (1975-1981).

Given his essentially non -rigidly ideological disposition to scholarship, I was surprised that Professor Kayode was one of the speakers at the proceedings of the Third Memorial Programme in honour of the late Professor Claude Ake, organized by the Centre for Advanced Social Science (CASS) in conjunction with the African Centre for Democratic Governance (AFRIGOV) in November 1999. The theme of the programme was ‘Ideology and African Development’ and the paper delivered by Professor Kayode was titled ‘African Development and the Ideological Sword’.

Summarizing Professor Kayode’s presentation, the organizers wrote, “While not dismissing the relevance of ideology to African development, Kayode believes that “the key to eventually overcoming the ideologically imposed burden of African underdevelopment does not amount to using any single known ideological brand”. He stresses the need for a development strategy that would not only bring out the best in the individual, but also engender the competitive and community spirit in every African. Such ideology is one that positively drives a dynamic and mixed economy. It is one that accommodates both private initiatives and public interests, he argues”.

The concluding part of this tribute will focus on the book, ‘Managing Change in a Nigerian University Setting: The Ibadan Experiment’ published by the Ibadan University Press in Y2000 and in which Professor Kayode recounts his experiences as the pioneer Director of the Consultancy Services Unit of the University of Ibadan as well as the pioneer Director of the university’s Centre for Resource Management and Consultancy (CEREMAC), which managed all the institution’s profit centres between 1979 and 1984.