Renowned anthropologist and first woman president of Lincoln University, Prof Niara Sudarkasa, died in May and was buried on June 8 at Lauderdale Florida, United States. She was 80. She brought on board some academics, such as Prof Ropo Sekoni, Prof Iz Osayimwese, Emmanuel Babatunde and Levi Nwachukwu, to further internationalise the university. PROF EMMMANUEL BABATUNDE writes on her life and time.
The academic world joined the city of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to give a befitting three-day burial service to Niara Sudarkasa, the world-renowned anthropologist, administrator, native daughter and the doting mother of an only child, Michael, on Thursday the 6th, Friday the 7th and Saturday the 8th of June, 2019; after which she was committed to earth, the final resting place of all mortals.
It was the Bahamian descendants’ Nago community of Fort Lauderdale who nurtured the child prodigy and made it her mission in life to empower the people of African Descent by reconnecting those in the Diaspora — the land of encounter — with their kinsfolk on the African homeland — the land of origin; by revealing the continuities in their practices, be they commerce or the strength and sacrifice of mothers as the true foundation of the community. Niara was, in the language of Molefi Kete Asante and Clenora Hudson-Weems, an African-centered womanist in her life and actions. Womanism, unlike feminism, is family-centered rather than female-centered in thought and action. People of African descent do not believe in putting their daughters down in order to make their sons succeed or vice versa.
In the language of African spirituality, as encapsulated in the Yoruba Omoluwabi or the Tswana Botho or the Igbo owner of Ikenga, Niara Sudarkasa was an ancient spirit from bygone times, a reincarnate of a warrior-ancestress whose duty it was to come back to rekindle the fire of achievement in the youth by enlisting the strength of the black fathers and mothers to lay and nurture the foundation of success in them. Omoluwabi – the epitome of good character in the person — and Bortho – valuing the humanity in others — are spiritual concepts that reiterate the importance of hard work, intense humanity demonstrated in caring and sharing — respect, responsibility, restraint, reciprocity, reverence, reliability, reason and reconciliation (Sudarkasa 1996: 146-148). These concepts, when put into practice, insist that all behaviours be directed in valuing the human in others. They avoid reducing the human to the crass material benefit and how they can be exploited for what they have. This is why the Igbo conceptualise these in terms of physical ownership of the Ikenga — the symbol or certificate of decency as bestowed by the community on an individual.
As the eleventh and the first female president of Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, Professor Niara Sudarkasa was a shrewd administrator who not only set a strategic goal to revitalise the legacy of Lincoln University, the first degree-granting historically Black University or College, but also used her enormous understanding of the flow and ebb of the fortunes of academic institutions in West Africa to buttress and revitalise the Lincoln University legacy.
Political instability in Nigeria, caused by military intrusion into the democratic life meant that the life of discourse, research and analysis were not tolerated by the military ‘command and obey’ orientation. Most academics, who had studied in the best institutions in the world (thanks to generous scholarships given to Nigerians as well as others), saw the climate as not conducive to survival. They, who went back home joyfully upon completion of their studies in the 1970s, had by the 1980s, begun to regret their decisions. They started to go back to Europe and America to energise their cooling professional life.
Professor (Dr.) Levi Wachukwu, formerly of University of Maiduguri and the University of Michigan, was recruited to transform the curriculum in History at Lincoln University. Professor (Dr.) Oluropo Sekoni, formerly of Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) in Ile Ife, Nigeria, was recruited to teach English and serve as the Director of Comparative Literature. Professor (Dr.) Safro Kwame, formerly of the Department of Philosophy, University of Ghana at Legon and the University of Cincinnati in Ohio, was recruited to revitalise the Philosophy Department. Professor (Dr.) William Dadson, formerly of the University of Denver in Colorado and Morgan State in Baltimore, was hired to serve as the chair of Economics and Business.
The writer, Professsor (Dr.) Emmanuel Babatunde, formerly of the University of Lagos (Akoka) served for three years as a Fulbright Scholar at the Graduate School of Social Work in Baltimore. He was hired to teach Anthropology and, a year later, made the Director of the Honours Programme for Talented Students. Six years later, Professor (Dr.) John Chikwem would join the group by being recruited as professor of biology from the University of Maiduguri in Nigeria.
In hiring this group of distinguished West African scholars, Dr. Sudarkasa completed two major strategic objectives. The first was a neat work of social engineering to revitalise Lincoln University’s legacy of academic excellence by co-opting practiced professors, who had studied in excellent institutions in the world. The second success was that, in hiring these professors, Niara (‘the woman of purpose’) positioned Lincoln University-the Alma Mater of President Nnamdi Azikiwe of Nigeria, President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Justice Thurgood Marshall and Poet Langston Hughes –as an important player in African politics.
The late President Nnamdi Azikiwe had a special bond with Dr. Sudarkasa. He came on holidays to Lincoln University, every year of Sudarkasa’s presidency; because they shared the same desire to re-energise the legacy of Lincoln University. On one of those occasions, he donated the pipe organ that is still being used today in the Dodd Brown’s Chapel, which was built in 1866. On another occasion, Sudarkasa set up a conference on Nigeria and the development of Africa under the chairmanship of President Julius Nyerere of Tanzania. The conference coincided with the period Dr. Azikiwe and Dr. Nyerere were presiding over an ecumenical ceremony in the Dodd Brown Chapel when Moshood Abiola (whose election to the Presidency in Nigeria was being contested by the Nigerian Military) appeared, went to the front where Azikiwe was seating, knelt down and embraced him. The message was not lost on the Nigerian traditional leaders and notables, who were in attendance.
Dr. Sullivan’s African and African American Business Conference was the most empowering economic relationship between Africans in the Diaspora and African Continent (FUBU – For Us By Us). One of the many that Lincoln University Faculty attended, as active participants, included the conference in Harare in Zimbabwe.
Dr. Sudarkasa saw the achievement of excellence as the only condition for respect for Africans in the globe. She was a stickler for excellence. She used the Honours Programme for Talented Students as an instrument for preparing Lincoln University students for excellence. Each student in the programme had to study one of the four languages christened Critical Languages by the State Department — Chinese, Arabic, Russian and Japanese. Yoruba was added to the list of languages. In order to heighten the commitment of students, both to learn and speak these languages, a healthy rivalry was created among Lincoln University honours programme students. The top 20 outstanding students were given an all-expenses-paid trip to debate and have fieldwork experience with their university colleagues in select African countries at the end of each academic year. The result of these efforts was that Lincoln University students became sought-after, on account of proficiency in critical languages, in the State Department and the Foreign Office.
Ebonique Padget, a product of the Honours Programme, once served as the director of the seat of trade with China. Lincoln University Honours Programme won the Honours Programme National debate in Portland in Maine in 1994 and the subsequent honours debate competition in Philadelphia.
Dr. Sudarkasa would forever be remembered by a group of 50 talented male and female Nigerian students called Odogwu Scholars, after the great Nigerian (from Asaba) Oil Magnate, who at the behest of Dr. Sudarkasa, gave these students scholarship to complete their Masters at Lincoln University. A good number of them subsequently completed their terminal degrees and have been a great resource to the development of Nigeria.
I end this effort on a spiritual moment that bonded Sudarkasa and my humble self together as big sister and junior brother.
On August 24th, 1994, I had packed my car in front of my Lincoln University-assigned home. There was a gentle drizzle. Then I heard a big noise. I went outside to look at what had caused the noise. To my surprise, one of the healthy-looking trees planted over a hundred years ago, a few of which still populate the Lincoln University campus, had fallen and landed on the driver’s side of my car and totaled it. News went around the Lincoln campus community swiftly. Colleagues came to sympathise with me. Most of them ended their advice on the note that I sue the university to replace my car. I shook my head in surprise at the shallowness of their suggestion. In the old and rural Nigeria where I come from (Imeko), events, be they accidents or other occurrences, communicate meaning that is deeper than what the senses see or feel. What message was communicated by this even?
A mighty tree has fallen in the forest, is an African proverb that announces that a great person, who is close to one has died. Only my mother occupied this position. When John Clark, the husband of Dr. Sudarkasa, whom we all called affectionately “the First Man” at Lincoln University, came to console me, I told him that a mighty tree had fallen in the forest. He communicated that African proverb to his wife. Dr. Sudarkasa understood immediately what was implied. She left what she was doing then and came to cheer me up and say that nothing bad has happened. Then the telephone rang. A Catholic priest, who was a relation of mine, broke the news to me while Dr. Sudarkasa was still with me that my mother passed away two hours ago. Niara looked straight at me and went back home to the president’s residence. From that day on, we knew that we both shared a gift of deep insight, even though neither of us was perfect.
