WEST AFRICA REVIEW ISSN: 1525-4488 Issue 9 (2006)

Uduma Kalu

The venue said it all. The event was for a man of books. And the venue was appropriate, what with its books and musical CDs. But that was not a surprise either. The Jazzhole is a book and music centre at the Falomo area of Lagos. Its books in their different volumes and sizes easily defined the kind of man being hosted there, Professor Biodun Jeyifo who was 60 that Thursday. The event was a birthday evening for Jeyifo, one of the most important critics from Africa. The hall in the large room was big and filled to the brim. And the discourse was rich, full of memories, all couched in laughter. And that is what happens with time. It heals all things. For many things discussed there in light manners were, perhaps, hot issues in their times of occurrence but with time they have become humorous things that people laugh over.

And those that spoke did not try very much to hide it, that the celebrant was acerbic, and challenging, fearless and bold, almost to the level of arrogance in his written works. The charge was made by Dr. Rueben Abati, Chairman of the Guardian Editorial Page. Some of those advertised to speak at the evening such as Prof. G.G. Darah did not attend. So others spoke instead. But perhaps what did not go down well that evening with some people was the complaint on the panel of discussants not well chosen. Almost everyone of them that spoke was on the scholarly aspect of the celebrant. Even then, the bulk of the talks centred on Jeyifo's work on Soyinka. And that was the problem, perhaps, with critics: that the writers they pick on swallow the life and works of the critics. For example, a google search for texts and photographs on the critic displayed mainly his favoured subject, Wole Soyinka, and his books. So little was on the man himself, indicating that Jeyifo needs a personal web site for a detailed and accurate information on him for researchers.

But this was not pointed out, and members of the audience were not asked to comment. Some of them might have made some useful commentaries. so Abati brought a new angle to the night. He discussed Jeyifo as a newspaperman, a columnist who brought scholarly discourse to the public thereby destroying the myth of the university as only fit for the intelligentsia.

Abati began by explaining that the birthday was a celebration of the one of the most remarkable critics of African literature. And that Jeyifo was one who made the critic look as a friend. As an undergraduate, Abati said though he did not study at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, where Jeyifo taught, there was no literature student that did not come across the works of the citric. In this sense, Abati said all those that studied literature are all students of Jeyifo.

While studying drama, Abati said he read Jeyifo. And the critic was respected for his research on popular Yoruba theatre as well as his great works on Wole Soyinka. Jeyifo, he went on, has a new book on Wole Soyinka, which he defined as a major criticism. “Not everybody has opportunity to have three great books in his life time. He is committed. He has the passion, and it is worth celebrating,” Abati told the gathering which was made of different people from all areas of the arts, including Professor Femi Osofisan, Odia Ofeimun, Dr. Edwin Madunagu, Tunji Sotimirin, Yemi Ogunbiyi and his wife. There were Duro Oni, Promise Okekwe, and many others as well.

Abati spoke on the life, career and contributions of the critic to the Nigerian society. He acknowledged that though Jeyifo is known as a critic, little is known about him as a journalist. He also asked of the stage of Nigerian criticism today saying that there is a dearth of criticism in the country. He remembered a charge by Osofisan that illiteracy is the problem and wondered whether that was so or whether the problem was with the collapsed university system. He went on to say that the travelling theatre was relevant but the troupe is not as vibrant as it used to be because of the economic situation in Nigeria. He did not forget the state of Nigerian literature, saying that people write but they do not have an outlet for publishing, thereby giving rise to vanity publishing.

Then he went into his discourse, asking, “Where are the Marxist?” According to him, anytime he asks that question, he gets into trouble. He read Madunagu and wondered what he means when the Marxist talks about Marxist movement. “Where is the movement? Is it the west that has won the movement or what?” He said that Jeyifo wrote for the African Guardian as a Contributing Editor, then for The Guardian Op-ed Pages under pen names. Then, the contributor looked different from the looks he wears now. At the event, Jeyifo was in long sleeved blue shirt tucked into a pair of brown trousers with a black show to match. He had his transparent glasses on, while his trade mark bushy sideburns had been replaced by clean shaven chins. But when he write for The Guardian in those days, his photographs, as Abati said, were those of a bushy face. And he appeared in different disguises. He remembered Jeyifo's essay in the Guardian Literary Series on Abiola Irele, and said that all that the critic wrote on Irele when he was 50 could as well be said of himself today at 60.

He then began another discussion on Jeyifo as a journalist and as public intellectual. In those days, the likes of Jeyifo, brought dynamism into journalism as a critics and many of the generation of Abati looked up to them as intellectual and social commentators. Going through the materials he saw in the library of The Guardian, Abati said Jeyifo cuts across as one that is self confident, bordering almost on arrogance. He defined this as positive arrogance, though, based on the good of society. Jeyifo, he said, is a critic, ready to take on anybody and that he sees his own position as truth. There was one such exchange of hot arguments between him and Ofeimun. The argument was on Marxism and Jeyifo had written a reply to Ofeimun as a neo Marxist socialists. . . . “It is nothing,” he wrote.

“He does his job without malice,” Abati said. The Jeyifo-Ofeimun controversy was a five part-series, said the columnist, remembering also another piece of the critic, “The Young Shall Grow,” where Jeyifo took on Prof. Michael Echeruo, another institution in African Literature. Echeruo had written on the young students suffering from a kwashiorkor of the intellect. Jeyifo had praised Echeruo's ideas but went for a kill. The young ones, Jeyifo said, got the disease from their elders. According to him, if Echeruo was working right then those around him were not working that right. Jeyifo also talked on the collapse of the university system. And those were the days of General Olusegun Obasanjo under the title, “The Legacy of Obasanjo.” He also attacked Olu Falae who said that Nigerian economy could be jumpstarted through foreign investment. But the critic had asked that the government should do something and not wait for foreign investment. He asked them to face development, questioning also Falae's postulation that looters of the Nigerian funds be encouraged to invest at home, saying that such does not question the morality of looting.

There was a piece where the critic engaged a motor driver to x-ray Nigerian problem. Abati then read a reply Jeyifo wrote to Madunagu in 1987 and another where he lamented the cost of Volkswagen cars which then was N10,000 but jumped to N40,000. Today, it's worse, Abati continued. He also discussed another Jeyifo's article on “What I am Paid to Teach” as a reaction from some corners that teachers are not teaching what they are paid to teach. But the critic said he was teaching how much he was paid to teach, saying also that the bulk of what he teaches on African literature shows that African leaders are doing poorly and they show little hope for the continent. The critic, said Abati, wanted to join the police. "Thank God he didn't," he said. Abati then decried the ravages of brain drain or exile, saying that since the 1990s not much has been seen from the critic in the media.

Before Abati spoke, though, those like Madunagu spoke. The Guardian columnist had reconstructed his revolutionary struggles with Jeyifo on Marxism. Describing Jeyifo as a consistent activist, Madunagu said that their over 30 years struggles as Marxists was for the good of society. Professor Akinwumi Ishola who read a short story for Jeyifo wanted to present a talk but was asked to do so in Yoruba. Noting the different composition of the audience, he decided to read a story in English on the struggle between English and Yoruba which some of the audience saw as humorous.

For Ofeimun, one of the great things that fascinates him about Jeyifo's criticism is that the man began it at the university as a distant admirer of/critic of Soyinka. As he got older, his works on the playwright show a deeper understanding of the Nobel Laureate. Based on this, the poet said Jeyifo's information on Soyinka makes the critic an interpreter, which is also another way of understanding the critic through Soyinka.

He remembered a story on Orunmila, a Yoruba name of God who broke into pieces with each piece becoming a deity. Jeyifo, he said, thinks that Soyinka, like Ogun, is not a complete god. To bring him to completeness, the past, present and future must be reconstructed, he pointed out, remembering also Soyinka's dramatic theory of the Fourth Stage. He called Jeyifo Denizen of the Fourth Stage saying that Jeyifo was critical of myth in human affairs but today, he makes it his preoccupation. Ofeimun also recalled a book that uses Greek's mythical gods to interpret management, saying that in the book, it is said that if somebody conquers a city but does not have a bureaucracy, another man will rule that city. But the mythical analysis, he said, matches the Yoruba gods. In his view, the critic sets out looking for a completeness saying his criticism was practical and for the future. "But all of that is narcissist in a lot of ways," he pointed out.

He did not forget Jeyifo's different ways of looking at society as the way he looked at Soyinka as archetype. He also recalled why he joined the Jeyifo group; because they were producing minds the way it should be at the university. And many times, he engaged the Marxists and often times they quarrelled. But their quarrels were not about persons but on how ideas fitted society and how to handle those ideas. Ofeimun was looking for a literary group to fit in then and for him, Jeyifo made a difference in his life. Those were the days of Bala Usman in the north, one Egwu at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, among others. Jeyifo, he went on, challenged the old ways of gathering knowledge using the Marxist coda. But Ofeimun never regarded himself a Marxist.

Everyone was all ears as the celebrant stood up to talk. Before then, a saxophone played for him a happy birthday. Jeyifo began saying that he was overwhelmed by what had been said of him that evening. "If am arrogant based on the positive commentary for society, I plead guilty," he said. He looked at Osofisan and recalled what the playwright and former general managing director of the National Theatre told him that he would live long but he would go back to Jesus. "It was a challenge and a complement," he said.

Jeyifo counted himself blessed but said that it is not God that blessed him but friends, as well as students he touched and those that touched him. He told a story about Madunagu who came to his "house as my prisoner and cooked yam." But the Marxist had used engine oil to cook the yam when Jeyifo went out. Jeyifo ate the yam and commented on its deliciousness. But Madunagu told him it was engine oil he used and so should not complain.

He also recalled why Osofisan was bundled out of the Postgraduate Library of the University of Ibadan. Jeyifo said Osofisan was his best friend. And Osofisan had said that together at Ibadan, they did many things. Another of their group was Kole Omotoso and they looked alike so much that people did not know who was who. Then Osofisan was not as robust as he is now. And Jeyifo was not robust either as he was weighed down by sickness. Omotoso remained slim as well. And all had bushy faces.

Osofisan's light story was on how he suffered the misfortune at the library because of Jeyifo, based on their look alike-image. And when Jeyifo saw him and asked what happened, Osofisan had told him but the critic laughed and later told him what caused the embarrassment. The reason, Jeyifo told the gathering, was that at the library, a lady who happened to be the wife of the vice chancellor was making a phone call loudly. The critic had told her, "If she wouldn't mind, madam, this is a library," to which the lady flared up and threatened him. She asked him to apologise but the young man refused, making the library authorities decide to sanction him. Osofisan was only punished after being mistaken for his friend, Jeyifo. And that was why the critic laughed. That night was one of jokes, and Jeyifo said he had many stories in his pouch.

Originally published in The Guardian (Nigeria), Friday January 13, 2006.

Citation Format:

Uduma Kalu. “Amidst Laughter, Friends Fete 'Arrogant' Jeyifo,” West Africa Review: Issue 9, 2006.

Copyright © 2006 Africa Resource Center, Inc.