USA Africa Dialogue Series - Nigerian scholar named Rhodes Professor at Oxford University [ A View on the Politics of the Rhodes Legacy]

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From: MacDonald Mopho <mij.mopho@gmail.com>
Date: 18 January 2017 at 19:27
Subject: Re: [NaijaPolitics] Re: NigerianID | Re: [africanworldforum] Nigerian scholar named Rhodes Professor at Oxford University

From Cape Town in South Africa to Oxford University in the UK, there had been several protests against the continuous posthumous honour of Cecil Rhodes who is on history record as one of the worst white racist. His statute was almost pulled down last year by protesters. It may eventually be removed with the ongoing debate to remove it gaining ascendancy. Please read article on link below: 

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/mar/09/take-it-down-rhodes-must-fall-campaign-marches-through-oxford

I think Oxford University's appointment of a Nigerian Professor to take up the Chair of Rhodes Professorship at this time is done with the intent of making Cecil Rhodes continually relevant in the face of students who are after the removal his statutes and minimising his relevance in a bid to achieve racial transformation and erase his name from the record of those befitting posthumous honour.   

The reason for appointing an African (a Nigerian) as Rhodes Professor at Oxford University at this time should not be difficult to see and it should have been rejected by the US based Nigerian professor offered the post on grounds of principle. Africans are often perceived by racist whites such as US president elect Donald Trump as a people who are unprincipled and are willing to compromise personal integrity and principles for morally repugnant individual benefits such as this appointment coming at a time when the voices saying "Rhodes Must Fall" are winning the argument. It is not unlikely that no while professor was willing to accept such a controversial chair and they now reached out to a Nigerian Professor.

It is not late for the Nigerian professor concerned to down this offer for personal reasons. 

Knowing the history of Cecil Rhodes and the current protests and debate on Rhodes Must Fall, it was not quite right that President Buhari should congratulate the Nigerian appointed to the post. He really should have been advised to turn it down! 

Let us seek the path of honour!

Thank you

MacDonald I J Mopho

London UK 

On Wed, Jan 18, 2017 at 5:39 AM, Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju toyin.adepoju@gmail.com [NaijaPolitics] <NaijaPolitics@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 

Wharfsnake,

True about Rhodes.

Do you think, then, that Africans should not work in that Rhodes professorship?

toyin

On 17 January 2017 at 23:03, 'Wharf A. Snake' wharfsnake@yahoo.com [NigerianID] <NigerianID-noreply@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 

Nonsense. This is the type of nonsense that Nigerians are good at distributing. May I remind you that Cecil Rhodes was the most racist white man ever.

Ejo ni Mushin - Prince 

Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 10, 2017, at 12:57 AM, 'abiodun KOMOLAFE' via AfricanWorldForum <africanworldforum@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Nigerian scholar named Rhodes Professor at Oxford University

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Oxford University has announced the appointment of a U.S.-based Nigerian, Wale Adebanwi, to the prestigious Rhodes Professorship in Race Relations in the School of African and Interdisciplinary Area Studies.

The appointment was recently announced in the university gazette.

Mr. Adebanwi who is currently a professor at the University of California, Davis, United States, will also be a Fellow of the St. Anthony's College, Oxford effective July 1.

Oxford University is the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world's second oldest university in continuous operation. The university has produced 28 Nobel laureates, 27 British Prime Ministers and many foreign heads of state.

The Rhodes Professorship in Race Relations is named for Cecil Rhodes, British businessman, mining magnate and politician in South Africa who served as Prime Minister of Cape Colony from 1890-1896. The professorship was established by the Rhodesian Selection Trust Mining Company in 1954 at Oxford.

Mr. Adebanwi is the first black scholar to be appointed to the endowed Chair since it was created more than 60 years ago. He was preceded by three distinguished scholars.

The new Rhodes Professor was a Bill and Melinda Gates Scholar at Cambridge University. He holds two PhDs, one in political science from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, and the other in social anthropology from the University of Cambridge, UK.

In September 2014, alongside three other former Gates Scholars, his "amazing success" since graduating from Cambridge was acknowledged by the world's richest man, Bill Gates, who funded his scholarship at Cambridge more than a decade ago. Gates's acknowledgement of Mr. Adebanwi was part of the video message he sent to a gathering of current and former Gate Scholars at Cambridge University during the Gates Cambridge Biennial 2016.

Mr. Adebanwi has published widely in the areas of nationalism and ethnic Studies, media and communication, corruption and politics, democracy and democratization, cultural politics, spatial politics, urban studies, and social theory and social thought. In his most recent book Nation as Grand Narrative: The Nigerian Press and the Politics of Meaning, published in 2016, Mr. Adebanwi focuses his multi-disciplinary scholarship on salient issues in Nigeria's troubled history, examining how debates in the newspaper press shaped the narratives as well as the configuration of power. His influential book, Yoruba Elites and Ethnic Politics in Nigeria: Obafemi Awolowo and Corporate Agency was published by Cambridge University in 2014. His 2012 book Authority Stealing: Anti-corruption War and Democratic Politics in Post-Military Nigeria was selected as one of the three "Best Books on Africa in 2013" by the journal, Foreign Affairs.

The newly-appointed Rhodes Professor is the editor or co-editor of 10 books. He has served as co-editor of Journal of Contemporary African Studies and is currently co-editor of Africa: Journal of the International African Institute. Adebanwi, who was formerly a lecturer in political science at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, is a visiting professor at the Institute for Social and Economic Research at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa. He has held visiting fellowships at St Anthony's College, Oxford, and the Centre for African Studies in Leiden, The Netherlands, and a Rockefeller fellowship for Academic Writing Residency at its Bellagio Centre, Italy. In 2005, he was a co-winner of the prestigious MacArthur Foundation Research grant.

Previously, Mr. Adebanwi served as reporter, writer and columnist for various publications in Nigeria, among them Nigerian Tribune, The Punch and TheNEWS.

abiodun KOMOLAFE, AMNIM

+234 803 361 4419  | +234 809 861 4418  | ijebujesa@yahoo.co.uk  | Skype: KOMO2412 | O20, Okenisa Street, Ijebu-Jesa, Osun State

 

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Posted by: Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin.adepoju@gmail.com>

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