Sir: On Wednesday, September 9, 2026, Professor Adebayo Williams, the renowned author, literary critic, and public intellectual, turned seventy-five. He also holds the traditional chieftaincy title of Asiwaju Otun Olufi Gbongan in Osun State. We felicitate with him on this milestone.

This writer is a student of Political Science and Anthropology. Adebayo Williams is a Professor of English Studies and Literary Theory. As far apart as these disciplinary specialities may seem, the former is a student of the latter. I am his Open and Distance Learning (ODL) student. I met him in the classrooms of Newswatch, The Guardian, Nigerian Tribune, The News, Tempo, Africa Today, and much later, the Internet. I am a connoisseur of the wine of good prose. Once I read any writer whose pieces are infused with sophisticated literary merit, I draw close to such an author like a bee to a sweet nectar.

Professor Adebayo Williams is a master prose writer. He writes with ease and elegance; his turns of phrase are sharp and witty; his expressions are full of vigour, and his cadence, rhyme and rhythm musically mellifluous. In his pen, the social sciences and humanities seamlessly interweave in the discourse of society and development. His commentaries on social theory, post-colonialism, political sociology, federalism, nation-building, culture, and democracy are conceptually deep and analytically profound. He is without a scintilla of doubt among the first flight of public intellectuals who have shaped the tenor and direction of contemporary society. 

In the era of military authoritarianism, he was a turn in the flesh. He was at the forefront of the struggle against the barbarians who had invaded the gates of our polity. The bile dripping out of his pen was so biting and painful that he was marked down to be taken on the Appian Way of Golgotha. As a clever guerrilla, he melted into the shadows of darkness and materialised in the metropolises.

It was in these climes that he deployed his pen and intellect to the service of the nation and democracy to the fullest. The imagination of the owl of Gbongan was in full flight.  His pieces in Africa Today irritated tyrants and antidemocratic forces. His piece in Africa Today, entitled The Road to Kigali, for instance, is a masterpiece that would be a leading article in any anthology on anti-authoritarianism. 

His intellectual contributions to the return of democracy in Nigeria in 1999 are massive and beyond the pale of this piece. It is deeply surprising to keen observers that his contributions to Nigeria’s democratic transformation have not been celebrated, especially under the present administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, his friend and fellow sojourner in exile. 

I will appeal to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to confer the prestigious honour of Commander of the Federal Republic (CFR) on him in addition to the medal of the National Productivity Order of Merit (NPOM). Professor Adebayo Williams should also be appointed Special Adviser on Arts and Culture to establish and manage a national arts endowment fund to mentor and develop talent.

Professor Adebayo Williams is a fine novelist. Some of his novels are: The Year of the Locust; Bulletin from the Land of Living Ghosts; and, The Remains of the Last Emperor. I read these novels while on a fellowship in South Africa in 2006. His works were popular with South African fiction readers. I stayed at the Garden Centre and observed this firsthand. At the Garden Centre bookshop, it was a common sight to see readers trooping in and out to pick up his works.

In The Remains of the Last Emperor, for instance, Professor Adebayo Williams demonstrates literature’s power as an instrument of revolutionary transformation. The forces of dialectical and historical materialism coalesce in the masses to pull down a dictator diseased by power. The novel’s lessons remain essential to the practice of democracy in contemporary Africa.

I will plead with Professor Adebayo Williams to compile all his works into book form for the benefit of readers and posterity.

We thank God for making Professor Adebayo Williams a blessing to Nigeria and humanity. We wish him a happy birthday and all the best in his endeavours.

• Atah Pine wrote from Ikpayongo Town, Benue State.