‘The Noble Academic and Patriot’, a biography of Professor Akinjide Osuntokun, written by Ayorinde Olowoyeye and Matthew Omosebi, was reviewed by former Ekiti State Governor Kayode Fayemi during it’s presentation in Lagos. Excerpts:
When I was asked to do this review, I wondered why the authors decided to do so. Yes, I was Governor of Professor Osuntokun’s home state. Yes, I appointed him as Pro- Chancellor and Chairman of the Governing Council of the Ekiti State University, where he did an excellent job. Even so, I could not lay claim to being the most suitable reviewer of this biography the authors could have found since I know many distinguished Nigerians whose knowledge of Prof Osuntokun is far more authoritative than mine. I think the authors must have been serendipitously led to believe Prof and I are kindred spirits beyond what may be obvious to the ordinary eye. They must have gained some insight into my immense admiration for Professor Osuntokun beyond what was public knowledge.
And on that, they guessed right. I have known and admired Professor Osuntokun for more than forty five years. He didn’t know this but he was the main reason why I enrolled as a student in the Department of History at the University of Lagos. My uncle, the late Mr EB Bankole, the University of Lagos Librarian, was the first to mention Prof’s name in a conversation with my dad when I said I wanted to study History. Sadly for me, by the time I arrived in the Department in 1982, Prof had gone on leave of absence and only returned after I already graduated. While I found myself in the capable hands of his other colleagues like Professors TGO Gbadamosi, Antony Asiwaju, Ade Adefuye, BA Agiri, Nina Mba, Jeremy White and others, Professor Osuntokun became a role model and mentor in absentia. Like him, I attended the one and only secondary school in Nigeria, was in the same Dallimore House, headed the Press Club in the School like him, studied History with Political Science and Philosophy in my first degree and was active in campus journalism. Later, I veered into Diplomatic History and International Relations for my graduate studies before earning a doctorate from King’s College, London, the same university where he had gained admission for his PhD before he decided to follow his PhD supervisor as a Killam Scholar to Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada. By now, distinguished ladies and gentlemen, I’m sure you can understand why some cosmic forces must have propelled the authors in my direction and why I also see Prof Osuntokun as my life long teacher and mentor, even if I was never formally a student in his class. But I digress.
The authors informed us that the book project was conceived in 2018 after Professor Osuntokun served as the Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of the Governing Council of Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti. “Such was the quality of leadership that he provided and the numerous achievements recorded by the university during his time” that they decided to honour a man who obviously deserved honour. Professor Osuntokun graciously authorised the biography in 2021 by granting the authors two extensive physical interviews and two virtual interviews in addition to providing access to his library and archives.
The 140 page book manuscript in nine, crisp and concise chapters with three appendices started in the first chapter by tracing the genealogy of Professor Osuntokun’s Aro Ogeregere clan that migrated from Ajase-Ipo in present day Kwara State to Okemesi Ekiti. The authors provide extensive evidence of the family history of valour, entrepreneurial acumen and pace setting influence in the community to explain the values and attributes we later see ingrained in Professor Osuntokun. The chapter covers in great detail the struggles his bold forebears waged in the course of establishing the clan in Okemesi and their involvement in the Federating military of the Ekiti and Ijesha against the rampaging Ibadan army in the Kiriji war. Another of his forebears had fought in the first world war on the side of the British. His own father had gone in pursuit of the golden fleece as further afield as the mines of Ghana and became a wealthy, itinerant trader all over Ekiti upon his return from Ghana, in the course of which he married his mother and settled the family in Ilawe Ekiti. It was in Ilawe that Prof was born on April 26,1942 during the second world war as the last child of his mother with elder siblings including Joseph Oduola, Benjamin Oluwakayode, Edward and Taye. All his siblings went on to successful careers and the family became one of the most prominent in Ekiti land, producing pioneer educationist and regional Minister, a renowned Professor of Medicine and National Merit Award Winner, an Army Engineer and a former Auditor General of Ekiti State alongside Prof.
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Chapter Two focused on his early years in school. While university education may have arrived a little earlier in other parts of Nigeria, Prof Osuntokun’s eldest brother, Chief Oduola Osuntokun was the second university graduate produced in the whole of Ekiti after earning a first degree from Fourah Bay College, Sierra Leone in 1951, barely 75 years ago. Nigeria’s pioneer indigenous graduates were produced that same year from the premier University College in Ibadan. Despite Ekiti’s late start though, the ground covered in educational attainment in a relatively short time between 1950s and 1980s was so phenomenal that it earned Ekiti the sobriquet – Fountain of Knowledge all over Nigeria.
Fortuitously for young Jide, the return of his eldest brother(who was literally his father figure after the demise of their father) from Sierra Leone to Christ’s School as a senior tutor also saw his relocation from Holy Trinity Elementary School, Ilawe Ekiti where he started primary school to Emmanuel School, Ado Ekiti. This relocation helped instil discipline and a sense of purpose in him under the watchful eye of his brother who trained him to become an independent young man. His time at Emmanuel School also coincided with a change of the school curriculum from standard to primary school education in the Western region then led in self government by Chief Obafemi Awolowo. From Emmanuel School, he gained admission to Christ’s School, the first secondary school in Ekiti Division that produced the first generation of accomplished Ekiti and Nigerians from all walks of life. Apart from the school’s high educational standard since its founding by Archdeacon Henry Dallimore in 1933(not 1934) as Ekiti Central School, the authors accurately captured the driving tenets of the school’s uncompromising standards as religious worship, manual labour and sports since it was essentially modelled after the British public school system. (and I should know, even though I was in the school twenty years after Prof Osuntokun graduated, we still prayed on the average ten times a day, engaged in manual labour and routinely participated in sporting activities). Leaving Christ’s School as one of the best students in a set that produced the likes of Ade Adegite, Sanmi Eso, Jubril Oyeleyin, Sanmi Ajaja, Femi Elegbeleye, Niran Agbelemoge – all distinguished Professors among other successful professionals, Professor Jide Osuntokun gained admission to the University of Ibadan to study History, after jettisoning his admission to study law on account of his close friend’s (Goke Adeniji) mother’s deprecation of law as a profession for crooks and liars – (so much for the absence of professional career advisers at the time). Equally, just as I was inspired by him to study History, he too was inspired by an earlier Ekiti exemplar, Professor JF Ade-Ajayi, already a History professor at the Ibadan University and a PhD from King’s College London too, to opt for History instead of a Geography Honours degree he originally wanted to study.
Chapter Two further captures his postgraduate studies abroad and his exertions as a young husband and father. With an Upper Second Class degree in History, his love for teaching and imparting knowledge to the younger generation had surpassed any other career opportunities that might have been open to him. Having taught briefly both after his secondary education and his higher school certificate, he was keen to remain focused on an academic career. For example, he had the opportunity to take a civil service position after leaving Ibadan University at a time when only few graduates were in the civil service, but he decided against it and pursued his PhD admission into King’s College London. Simultaneously, the Nigerian Civil War had depleted the academic faculty in the University, leaving the History department with many vacancies and this opened doors for promising young scholars like Prof Osuntokun to be recruited into the Department. By another stroke of inexplicable happenstance, his assigned PhD supervisor, Professor John Flint took a distinguished professorship at Dalhousie University in Canada and offered his student the opportunity to join him in Canada as a Killam Scholar, one of the most prestigious scholarships in Canada. He completed his doctorate in record time and immediately headed to the University of West Indies in the Carribeans, pioneering the teaching of African Studies and strengthening the connections between Africa and its diaspora. It was no surprise when Professor Osuntokun played a leading role in the struggle for reparation later as Adviser to the Foreign Affairs Minister in the 1980s.
Chapter three deals extensively with Prof’s exertions as a consummate academic, moving back from the West Indies to the Jos Campus of the University of Ibadan, and from there to an exciting career at the University of Lagos where he rose through the ranks from Senior Lecturer, Associate Professor, full Professor, Head of Department and in between as Professor and Dean of Faculty in the University of Maiduguri. The chapter also captures his time as an administrator in the Nigeria Universities Commission as Director in the Washington and Ottawa offices of the Commission between 1976 – 82, a period during which he helped to broaden the scope of tertiary education as well as providing international academic linkages for Nigerian universities.
Chapter Four covers his exploration in diplomacy. Here, the authors provide a panoramic survey of Professor Osuntokun’s contributions as an academic in the field of international relations and diplomacy, his role as an expert adviser to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, General Ike Nwachukwu from 1988 to 1991 and his key contributions in the areas of reparations and economic diplomacy and in the successful campaign to get Chief Emeka Anyaoku elected as the Secretary General of the Commonwealth in the keen contest against former Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser. The chapter also explores developments during his time as an Ambassador representing Nigeria in the newly unified Germany from 1991 to 1995, a momentous time in Post Cold War Germany. In this position, Professor Osuntokun tried to put his abiding passion about the primacy of economic diplomacy into practice but the gains were limited due to the climate of Nigeria’s isolationist and reactionary relations with the external world – particularly after the annulment of the June 12 election, the ascension of General Abacha and the judicial murder of Ken Saro Wiwa and the Ogoni eight. Here again, his values of integrity and speaking truth to power found resonance. After all, he’s an Omo Akin ti o gbodo sojo. In no time, he became known in government circles as the “NADECO Ambassador” who was not ready to defend the indefensible. It was a difficult time to be the face of a pariah nation and inevitably, the government got fed up with his refusal to offer a sycophantic defence of its indefensible actions and he was eventually recalled by the end of 1995.
In Chapter Five entitled A Shuttle in the Crypt, the authors cover extensively the inhumane treatment meted out to Professor Osuntokun in General Abacha’s gulag. Prior to his eventual arrest on February 10,1998 on his arrival from a trip to Canada, Prof had been subjected to a range of subtle and not so subtle harassment and intimidation by elements associated with the ruling junta, including an assassination attempt on the Lagos – Ibadan expressway. While the junta apparently thought recalling him from his ambassadorial assignment ought to have kept him quiet, they were actually surprised that he continued to observe developments as an academic in the field of diplomacy and international relations, including making undiplomatic, even if objective comments about the state of the nation. The arrest eventually earned him almost two years detention without trial, let alone conviction at the Apapa Military detention centre and for reasons that were not explicitly stated, except for an oblique reference to an alleged, but rather outlandish bomb throwing episode by one Captain Daramola, even if Colonel Omenka kept insisting there was nothing incriminating in his file. In spite of interventions by General Ishaya Bamaiyi, then Chief of Army Staff and the then DMI Chief, Brigadier Sabo Ibrahim both on routine visits to the centre, the same Colonel Omenka refused to release Prof even when he almost died from a bad bout of cerebral malaria.
I have listened to accounts of many victims of the junta’s high handedness during Nigeria’s dark days and even I myself could have easily found myself in the gulag, having been charged with treasonable felony for running an underground radio against the junta and many, indeed, lost their lives during this period.
This was a most traumatic period for Professor Osuntokun and his family and his faith was severely tested by this unjust treatment but as the authors explain in Chapter Six, it was the same unflinching faith in God, love of his family and the courage of his conviction that kept him going. His late wife experienced betrayals from friends who abandoned the family out of fear of the junta, and indeed one of his nieces who ventured to look for him at the detention centre also detained. But faith kept the family going. As a pastor in the Redeemed church, his wife played a very critical role in Prof’s journey of faith. As a young man, Prof indulged in the usual youthful exuberance in the university according to details contained in this chapter. As he told the authors, he used to joke that all the prayers he’s been part of in Christ’s School (where we prayed on average ten times daily) should last him a lifetime. In the university, he stopped attending church and was a co-founder of a social group composed of members that didn’t want to be part of mainstream clubs like the elitist Sigma Club. The group adopted bird names as their appelletion and they were variously known as Ogongo, Ibaka, Odidere etc. Long after they left the university, the club he founded with his friends had inadvertently become known as the source of the notorious Eiye confraternity the same way the Sea Dogs founded by Professor Wole Soyinka and his friends became the source of the Pyrates confraternity they later dissociated themselves from.
Meeting his wife from the Ajanlejoko family from Ijebu provided him with the pathway to his reconnection to God. Losing his wife therefore at a relatively young age of 55 in 2003, barely four years after his traumatic experience in Abacha’s gulag was one of his lowest moments since the physical, mental and psychological torture endured in Abacha’s gulag. But thankfully, his four children tried their best to stand in the gap, even as he refused to relocate abroad as they wished he did.
Although he retired from the University of Lagos in 2005, his base since 1972, he has remained active in various areas related to academia and journalism.
He took up an appointment at the Redeemers University on the invitation of the erstwhile Vice Chancellor, Professor Oyewale Tomori. Not wanting to lose him, University of Lagos also retained him as an Emeritus Professor in 2012 which allowed him to maintain his association with the University. And of course when I came in as Ekiti Governor in 2010, I appointed him as the Pro Chancellor of our state university. His time as Chairman of the Governing Council witnessed remarkable progress in several spheres. And the authors cover this in chapter seven of the book. Appointed in the immediate aftermath of an education summit which recommended the merger of three struggling state universities in a politically volatile environment, it is a testament to Professor Osuntokun’s sagacity that he presided over the merit based selection of probably the best Vice Chancellor in the University, Professor Oladipo Aina. Both of them worked with their team on the integration of the three universities – a feat that has been described by NUC as the best example of seamless integration in the history of higher education in Nigeria. Even though initially supportive of Governor Fayose’s cancellation of the University medical school, he became the strongest advocate of the resuscitation and renewal of the medical school when I embarked on it. It is to his credit that he used his network to raise additional financial support for the University and also worked assiduously to improve the quality of teaching and research in the University.
All of these academic exertions have not stopped him from diplomatic engagement and public interventions. For example, he remained active as a member of the Presidential Advisory Council on International Relations between 1999 and 2015 whilst also maintaining a regular column in one of Nigeria’s leading newspapers, The Nation and has contributed over 800 articles, some of which are highlighted in the Appendix 2 to the book. A good aspect of the book is the appendices which provide an annotated bibliography and comprehensive resume of Professor Osuntokun. A third appendix also provides a helpful summary of his thoughts and ideas as contained in his informed commentary in newspapers and academic articles and interviews.
This is a fascinating book which is unputdownable once you start reading it. It offers a comprehensive insight into the life and accomplishments of one of Nigeria’s most respected scholar-diplomats. A recipient of the national honour of the Officer of the Order of Niger (OON) and the Presidential Honour of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea, Professor Osuntokun also holds fellowships of the Historical Society of Nigeria and the Nigeria Academy of Letters.
Perhaps an area that might have been given additional attention relates to his critical contribution to biographical knowledge as a historian who has offered some of the most insightful commentaries on leading political figures like Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Chief Ladoke Akintola and Sir Kashim Ibrahim, just to name a few.
Teacher, author, diplomat, polyglot, university administrator, newspaper columnist, Omoluabi par excellence, this is your life, a pride to your generation and to all of us that you’ve directly and indirectly mentored by your courage, self effacing humility, service to God and humanity, dedication to excellence and sheer decency. As the great book says in Matthew 5:14-16, “a city that is set on the hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candle stick and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your father which is in heaven.“
Congratulations to the authors for bearing witness to history.
Congratulations Prof for living a life worthy of emulation.
Thank you all for listening.
