Dear Professor Falola:
You have spoken well. You have said publicly what you told me years ago. You once said me that: "Adepoju is a genius and he does not know it." I came to know Adepoju through you; I think around 2011 when in a private email you brought the two of us together with others to debate an issue on death and afterlife. Like you, I see Adepoju as a highly talented scholar, an extraordinary thinker, a genius. In December 2018, I made efforts to meet with him in Lagos. I was visiting Nigeria from Boston and I had the option to land at Abuja or Port Harcourt, but because I wanted to meet with him I went through Lagos.
He is different in his approach to scholarship and I have never been afraid of people who do things differently. Like you, I have been encouraging him to systematically put his ideas in book forms and also to pursue a Ph.D. Actually he applied to Oxford and the University of London but they had problems locating an appropriate supervisor for him.
Almost every week I call him on the phone to encourage him in his work and to mutually share ideas with him. I send him books and essays.
Please permit me to give a personal testimony to drive home the point you have made. Sometimes, we need to do the extraordinary thing to allow people like Adepoju to realize their dreams. I am a beneficiary of such favors. I will not be where I am today if others did not discover me and nurtured my growth. So here is my testimony. I give it in the spirit that if I could do, then Adepoju will do. He is easily more gifted than me.
I was once like him—or still like him in many ways. I dabble into too many fields. The reason why I did my PhD in two years and came out with summa cum laude is that I had published five books and 18 articles before I even started my doctoral work at Princeton. Years before I started the doctoral program, NYU had invited me to teach as an adjunct lecturer without a doctoral degree. I was invited based on my eclectic publications. Yet after a year or so, I was evaluated and promoted to Assistant Professor of Social Sciences. Yes, in those days at NYU even adjuncts had to go through rigorous evaluations to be promoted. The reason why NYU gave me that special title of Assistant Professor of Social Sciences was to recognize and celebrate my eclectic scholarship. The scholars there did not disdain my work because it was all over the map. I taught a history and African studies related course at NYU. At the same time, I was also an adjunct professor at New York Institute of Finance where I taught two courses, mergers and acquisitions, and security analysis.
To come back to my doctoral degree: I completed it in two years. I started the doctoral program in September 2004, went through all the seminars and comprehensive examinations, and completed the dissertation in early August 2006. But I could not defend it immediately because the school was closed for the summer. I defended as soon as the classes resumed in fall 2006. (It takes on the average six years to complete a doctoral degree in America, even after your master degree. In theological studies it often takes more than six years because of language studies) After the defense I went back to pastoring a church full time in New York City for a year. I came back to the academy in July 2007, joining Andover Theological School, one of the oldest graduate institutions in North America. It was started by the Puritans, the same guys that started Harvard. I became a full professor in 2009 with an endowed chair when my doctoral classmates where still writing their dissertations.
When I was hired the Andover faculty saw my talents and started me as an associate professor with a chair. And the president of the school told me if I could produce enough work to meet the standards required for promotion I would be elevated to the rank of a full professor in two years. This was all written down and signed as a contract. He was not playing any game. By the grace of God, I did it after the usual rigorous external and internal evaluations. I became a full professor on May 9, 2009. (Aside: Andover merged with Yale University in 2016)
The year I was promoted to full professor I was elected the chair of Ethics Faculty Colloquium of the nine graduate institutions (including Harvard and Boston University) that then constituted the Boston Theological Institute. The senior colleagues in my academic field had enough confidence in my scholarship to ask me to lead them as the chair. I served in that position for three years.
Somebody like Adepoju can easily replicate what I have done. He could do his PhD in a similar record time. He could become a professor in also a record time. He far more talented than me. I thank God that American professors saw me and gave me a space to flourish. They broke all standing institutional rules to promote and celebrate me.
Professor Falola is right, let us give Adepoju a chance. He is unconventional, and let us nurture him. When he is wrong let us correct him in a scholarly and respectable way. This idea of shaming him or treating him as less than a scholar because he does not have a PhD or because he is not affiliated with a university does not help the great cause for the search for wisdom or truth. I did not have a PhD for a long time and I was accepted into my academic circles, invited to conferences. For a long time all I had was my first degree in economics (first class honors, University of Port Harcourt) obtained in 1984 and a 1992 MBA (finance and accounting, Columbia).
It was David Henige—a man I had never met—in 1997 that introduced me to Professor Falola and encouraged him to publish my essay on transaction cost economics, which I applied to explain African economic history. Henige read an essay I had written on economic history when I was an investment banker on Wall Street and he made sure it was published. That essay later brought me some fame. Henige wrote to me stating that I should send the paper to Falola, who was then editing the journal of African Economic History. Henige said his external reviewers rejected the paper because it was not "history" enough, but he thought they were wrong and shortsighted. But he could not publish it in his journal because of the rejection. I did not know the difference between history proper and economics/economic history then. I just dabbled into things that caught my fancy with only an MBA as a graduate degree. Henige did not shoot me down, he pointed me to an outlet that suited my work. I was still an ordinary "crass" investment banker when that essay was being taught to doctoral students in economic history and African history at the London School of Economics. My testimony here is that others gave me a chance to make mistakes and grow. Adepoju deserves the same favor.
I support Professor Falola in calling for a change in the way some of us on this platform discourage Adepoju's eclectic scholarship. I regularly read what his critics say and I often call him to say they are right and he should learn from them instead of quarreling with them. Two days ago, he told me that he has learned a lot from Professor Agbetuyi, who is one of his fiercest critics on this platform. I have always encouraged him to pay serious attention to Agbetuyi's objections because they would help him to grow as scholar. Agbetuyi has rendered an important service to Adepoju by holding his intellectual legs to the fire. I even told him that Professor Agbetuyi has a point about the need to be much more careful in using wisdoms from traditions other than his own. I said he should do his scholarship in ways that do not offend the owners of the traditions. My advice to Adepoju was that as a scholar he would need to pay attention to some community consensus on standards. He takes good advice. Adepoju is growing. His form of creativity is strange and fascinating. I wish him luck.
Professor Falola, thanks for this intervention.
Sincerely,
Nimi Wariboko
Boston University
From: <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Toyin Falola <toyinfalola@austin.utexas.edu>
Reply-To: "usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Date: Wednesday, December 2, 2020 at 6:51 AM
To: dialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Toyin Adepoju is a genius!
Great ones:
Your humble moderator now has to intervene! I think the direction in which the Ifa argument is going is making me uncomfortable, the inability to accept creativity, the failure to see the Esu in Adepoju---no path is straight, nothing should be concluded. Esu is the god that I have also adopted, and I did the longest book on this unique Yoruba god. All attempts to "kill" Esu (to use the concept of "kill" that Wariboko deploys), has failed.
I discovered Toyin Adepoju—Toyin Adepoju did not discover me! It was when I began to read him—the eclectic nature of his writings, his ability to turn the micro into the macro, his extraordinary talent to tap into the Nino and convert it into the mega, that I sought him out. I seek out people. It is a small contribution to the concept of the "informal" and "people" that Dr. Adeshina Afolayan of the University of Ibadan contributed to this forum that led to my knowing him. I contacted him and said we should meet at Ibadan. This is intellectual leadership. You must seek out people.
First, I thought Toyin Adepoju was a woman. As Adepoju began to talk about the vagina, I thought s/he was a lesbian. His writings can be clueless as to his identity. He can be irascible. And so what? The God of Israel was also temperamental. Blasphemy!
Thinking that he was she, an invitation was extended to him by our Art Dept to come and give a lecture. I wrote to them that I don't think he was she! I did not know how that invitation ended. I reinvited him back to Austin to be part of the Nimi Wariboko conference, but that is another story.
I extended a book contract to him to write on Ifa, as I saw new edges and frontiers in what he was doing. He signed the contract, but he did not deliver. What a shame!
I sought to meet him in person. And we met in Lagos, then at Ibadan. I had lunch with him. He interviewed me. I took him to my pepper soup joint—alas! he does not eat animals.
I advised him to register for a Ph.D. I got him a supervisor. I assured that I would fully fund the Ph.D. I nominated myself as the External Examiner. I had a three-way conversation with his would-be supervisor whom I chose for him. He thanked me and said he is not interested.
We are dealing with a genius whose ways of thinking may be beyond our realms. He may be decades ahead of us in his thinking. In the early 80s, when my talents were unfolding, only one person in the entire University—Professor Olabisi Afolayan—was able to discover it! Only one person. A year after my Ph.D., he asked the University to promote me to a Senior Lecturer. Of course, they refused. But he was the only one who saw my talent.
Let us see Adepoju as a genius, cultivate him, promote him, and see where we all land. Where he wants to convert an opportunity into money, we must back off.
For all those who are quick to criticize others, Adepoju is not my friend. The day I told Adeshina that Nimi Wariboko is not my friend; he was in shock. Moses Ochonu is not my friend. I worship talents where I see them. Even if Nimi or Moses abuse me, it is of no effect. I am manifesting my personality to locate extraordinary talents. Should they abuse me, they are displaying their own character flaws.
In the words of the Zulu, "I have spoken!"
Continue with your debates.
Stay well.
TF
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Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
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