Re: GMAIL.COM:Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - BJ

It is fascinating that you looked at him and saw evidence he was in
great shape Gloria.

Professor Jibrin Ibrahim
Senior Fellow
Centre for Democracy and Development, Abuja
Follow me on twitter @jibrinibrahim17

On Wed, 25 Feb 2026 at 01:59, 'Emeagwali, Gloria (History)' via USA
Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> wrote:
>
> I doubt that Jeyifo migrated to the US for medical treatment.
> He probably left for the US around the same time as Falola,
> and a lot of us and for the same reasons, most likely. I recall meeting
> him in the early days and he was in great shape.
>
>
>
> Professor Gloria Emeagwali
> History Department, Central Connecticut State University
> Chief Editor- Africa Update: https://sites.ccsu.edu/afstudy/archive.html
> Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries: www.vimeo.com/gloriaemeagwali
> website: www.africahistory.net
> 2014 Distinguished Research Excellence Award in African Studies
> University of Texas at Austin
> 2019 Distinguished Africanist Award, New York African Studies Association
> Founding Co -Chair, Sengbe Pieh AMISTAD Committee
> Founding Coordinator, African Studies, CCSU
> http://www.vimeo.com/938058353
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovadepojuifa@gmail.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2026 1:05 AM
> To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
> Subject: GMAIL.COM:Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - BJ
>
>
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>
> Beautiful from Jibrin.
>
> I'm puzzled though
>
> I got the impression that BJs sustained Soyinka scholarship emerged after Soyinka got the Nobel and before BJ left for the US.
>
> As for the claim that BJ left for the US bcs of medical treatment this is the first time I'm reading it. I don't recall even he saying so.
>
> In the Guardian interview on his leaving Ife, "Jeyifo's Nunc Dimmitis at Ile-Ife" and his own later reflections on migration of African scholars to the West, "One Year in the First Instance" I don't recall him making that claim.
>
> It would be great if the facts of these issues could be ascertained.
>
> Thanks
>
> Toyin
>
> On Sun, Feb 22, 2026, 4:44 AM Ibrahim Abdullah <ibdullah@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> A good lesson on how not to write history.
> A lutta continua!
>
> ----
>
> On Sat, 21 Feb 2026 at 2:07 PM, Jibrin Ibrahim <jibrinibrahim891@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Biodun Jeyifo (BJ): Fond Memories of a Committed Intellectual
>
> Jibrin Ibrahim, Deepening Democracy Column, Daily Times, 20th February 2026
>
> We lost Prof Biodun Jeyifo, or BJ as we fondly called him last week,
> not long after we organised an 80th anniversary symposium in his
> honour. At the event, his bosom friend. Dr Yemi Ogunbiyi explained he
> was not supposed to have reached the ripe old age of 80 as much
> earlier in life, he had been diagnosed with a disease that was
> supposed to guarantee a much shorter life-span. It was for this reason
> that he relocated to the United States to have access to better
> medical facilities. We thank God for giving him a long and fulfilled
> life.
>
> I had known BJ as a young Marxist student in Ahmadu Bello University,
> Zaria, who travelled frequently to Ife, to engage with the relatively
> large number of student and lecturer comrades who flourished within
> the university community. I always found him to be an inspirational
> figure with total commitment to revolutionary struggle. He loved
> polemics and was never one to shy away from an argument as he was
> endowed with the gift of the gab. BJ also never hesitated to criticise
> the older generation of Marxists, who he felt had failed in their task
> of leading the country into the desired socialist future we deserved.
>
> I remember a meeting of Nigerian revolutionaries, a word we used to
> describe ourselves in those days, a big debate over who had the
> correct understanding of the social forces in the country and how to
> combat them and open a path for genuine revolutionary struggle. The
> meeting which took place in Jos was strongly marked by an age divide
> which crept up between BJ and Eddie Madunagu on the one hand and the
> older comrades on the important question of revolutionary capacity and
> strategy. As often happens in such situations, labels emerge to
> counter stronger arguments and BJ and Eddie were labelled with the
> "insult" word of Trotskyites to delegitimize their arguments. Maybe
> one day, I will write about my recollections about labelling in
> Nigeria's left history- the Trotskyites, the labour aristocrats, the
> opportunists, the Stalinists, the Maoists, the suspected state agents
> and other false pretenders. It has been a significant baggage for left
> movements throughout history.
>
> This is the reason why after over a century of organisation, at no
> time did the left ever develop a unified movement. The numerous
> conferences and movements starting with the Zikist Movement which was
> denounced by Zik himself in the 1950s, Tunji Otegbeye's Socialist
> Workers and Farmers Party in the 1960s: The Movement for People's
> Democracy (1975), All Nigeria Socialist Conference, Zaria (1977 and
> !978) all failed to achieve the unity goal. The left has been in a
> situation in which its objectives were always clear – building a
> better life for the masses of our people after displacing the ruling
> class that has neither the intention nor capacity to do so has always
> floundered.
>
> As a young lecturer in Ahmadu Bello University in 1980, I was already
> in the progressive caucus when Biodun Jeyifo, (BJ), and Uzodinma
> Nwala, newly elected pioneer President and Secretary of ASUU, stormed
> our Samaru campus to bring the good news. The transformation has
> occurred, they proclaimed, by the law of 1978, the Nigerian
> Association of University Teachers, then existing in the five pioneer
> universities, was dead and from its grave emerged the Academic Staff
> Union of Universities (ASUU), a trade union. We were in exquisite
> excitement as BJ explained to us that intellectuals can now join the
> working-class struggle as trade unionists and bring our intellectual
> support to the larger struggle to improve the educational system, but
> even more important, make our contribution to creating a progressive
> Nigeria. We celebrated the irony of a repressive military regime
> accidentally creating favourable conditions for the revolution.
>
> I was in the team that dashed off to the Department of Electrical
> Engineering to inform Prof Buba Bajoga, the last head of the
> association, that a new regime had arrived and his association had
> been annulled by law. Always a gentleman, he accepted the new state of
> affairs and moved on. We organised elections and George Kwanashie and
> Raufu Mustapha emerged as the first leadership of ASUU in ABU, the
> bedrock of campus radicalism in Nigeria. We immediately engaged in
> organising the first ASUU strike and in 1982, I spent months in the
> Ibadan headquarters providing support for the ASUU negotiating team.
> In 1983, I became the secretary of ASUU in ABU with Yahaya Abdullahi
> as Chairman and the struggle continued.
>
> BJ's core argument was that with a joint umbrella coordination of the
> organizational work of workers and intellections, an opportunity could
> be created for a revolutionary vanguard to emerge and create the
> necessary impetus for the Nigerian revolution, which could completely
> transform the entire African continent. It would be recalled that
> before "fabricating" ASUU from a law that the universities were not
> even aware of, BJ and some of his comrades had established the Ogi
> commune in rural Osun State where they worked with the peasantry
> hoping to emulate the Maoist revolution in Nigeria. The commune failed
> and ASUU became the next revolutionary stepping stone.
>
> The revolution did not happen then. BJ moved to the United States,
> became one of the world's finest literary critics and constructed the
> poetics and aesthetics that justified why Wole Soyinka deserved the
> Nobel Prize for literature. Thanks to BJ's work, Soyinka got it and
> placed Nigeria on the literary map. As BJ joins the ancestors, his
> footprints and polemics continue to inspire revolutionaries and others
> with the gift of the gab.
>
>
>
>
>
> Professor Jibrin Ibrahim
> Senior Fellow
> Centre for Democracy and Development, Abuja
> Follow me on twitter @jibrinibrahim17
>
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