Professor Niyi Osundare needs no introduction to anyone who is a little familiar with Nigeria’s literary scholarship. Furthermore, anyone, specifically, any of our readers, who was an avid reader of our newspapers and news magazines in times past could not (and cannot) easily forget his name – as a worthily worthy columnist whose conspicuous style graced and designed more than very well the pages of the defunct Newswatch of the late Dele Giwa and company: Ray Ekpu, Dan Agbese and Yakubu Mohammed – all of whom collectively founded the Newswatch magazine in 1984.

Professor Osundare long before this time was an academic staff member/Professor of English at our premier university, University of Ibadan, where he was the Head of Department of English in the 1990s when he left our shores for the University of New Orleans, Louisiana in America where he has since distinguished himself as a very prominent literary expatriate – who visits his motherland and fatherland regularly.

This cannot but be the case as one of our honoured elder statesmen of letters such as, for example, professors Femi Osofisan, Tanure Ojaide and Olu Obafemi – all of whom, like him, are highly respectable Fellows of the foremost and most prestigious African Academy – the Nigerian Academy of Letters, whose Founding President (FP) was Professor Ayo Bamgbose. All of them, including the FP, to boot, have been awarded the Nigerian Order of Merit for their academic/literary accomplishments.

Osundare is a poet’s poet that the University of Ibadan produced in the mid-sixties to the early nineteen seventies. But I am not concerned here about his poetry, about the nature of his literary or poetic imagination and art. Of course, he knows our universities and understands them fully. What our universities were – or have been, at least, since the time he left up to his times of ceaseless and rapid visits to his alma mater (and other campuses) is what has gained my attention, and what should equally gain our readers’ attention.

The gleaner’s and glimpser’s attention is not in any way divorced from his subject’s attention, his devoted attention, to this column from his base in New Orleans or from his base in his home country anytime he makes his patriotic visits to his country your country my country our country. This column is a kind of response to his attention to the last topic that appeared here. In other words, his attention to “Nigerian Professors’ dwelling in a destitute time” and other related matters inspired this devotion to him now.

My readers, our readers, especially those who are knowing or may be knowing him now for the first time should be patient enough to accept my attempt or practice or method to record aspects of his thoughts and ideas concerning how our universities have been swayed by the inextricable combination of forces to fall from their entitled high state to their very low level today. The gleaner requires a detour before embarking on the road to Niyi Osundare’s wisdom. And the detour is in the form of a collection of selected readers’ critical contributions and understanding of the issues raised or examined last week. 

Jimbabs, Bob Majiri, Professor Owojecho Omoha, Professor Igho Natufe and Captain Jonathan Nani are the readers who came to mind. The first three entered the column last Friday. The merits of their utterances deserve to be brought to the audience.
Jimbabs speaks:

“Professor Sophia Ogwude’s observation is very apt. If everything is interpreted from those narrow prisms, then collective progress is almost impossible. The “false meaning of being” you mentioned captures the disorientation – people are surviving, not truly living, and so, hunger and hardship weaken their ability to stand firm for justice. In other words: Hunger and poverty silence voices that should challenge bad governance. Identity politics blinds citizens to shared struggles, making them fight each other instead of demanding accountability from leaders. Absence of a unifying national interest leaves Nigeria fragmented, making real nation-building almost impossible.

“Your reflection shows that the crisis is not only political but also philosophical – about what does it mean to be a Nigerian; and about what does it mean to live with dignity? These are questions our universities cannot answer now with full confidence.”

Bob Majiri makes his entry:
“It is hard for me to say anything further after everything Professor Ogwude has put down gbam. But all her wishes will not see the light of day easily, solemnly or swiftly. I thank you, Sir, for mentioning me again in your esteemed column. I hope that the university people will find the message in your column memorable and engrossing”.

Professor Owojecho Omuoha thunders:
“Indeed, this looting phase too shall pass away as your column echoes it loud and clear. Thank you for this philosophy of connectionism. Our thoughts are connected together, making my thought aptly amplified before you and all your readers. Let your column on “Die, ASUU, die to save our universities” thunder. I will read it in the manner I read you always and will ever read you.
“Thank you, thank you, and thank you, Professor Afejuku.”

Professor Igho Natufe sends his short shot from the diaspora:
“Thanks for penning this profoundly sad requiem mass of Nigeria. Your envisaged future column “Die, ASUU, die…” should be entitled “Die, Nigeria, die, to save Nigerian universities.”

Captain Jonathan Nani makes a plea from his gliding boat down the river:
“You have raised a painful truth about the drift in our universities. I totally agree that scholars should be this nation’s moral compass that should be used to steer the ship of ‘your country my country our country’ to the promised land; too often we have watched, seen, the ship drifting away from the plotted course like one that is rudderless.

“But we also cannot ignore decades of under-funding, political interference and the daily pressures that push academics toward self-preservation. The way forward is not in trading blame between government and professors/ASUU, but in rebuilding trust: government’s investment in education as a true, public good, and the need for academics to reclaim the courage to guide and inspire the next generation should be encouraged. Neither side can fix Nigeria’s universities alone. Both must choose integrity over expediency.

“Prof., may the ink in your pen never run dry. Maximum respect. I doff my hat for the doyen of letters.” It is time for the gleaner, glimpser and stirrer to enter upon the path of Professor Niyi Osundare’s strength of thought, and his keen portrayal of our universities today, and the prevailing system that is running and ruining them.
To be continued.
Afejuku can be reached via 08055213059.