J.F.A. Ajayi: The Herotodus Of Africa Goes Home

By Kola Johnson

I remember my first attempt at the West African School Certificate exam in the 70s. The horrible outcome was a veritable culmination of a veritably horrible performance.

Subjects like Economics, Bible Knowledge and the like, that pass off as easy match-over, even for less than the average student, were for me like a carmel passing through the eye of the needle.

On this, I need not detain my readers with causative explanations. The creative nature of my mind; bordering on an almost eccentric obsessiveness is such that is averse to the boring conundrum of rote learning.

This was why at whatever point in time, I was always carried away, amidst the hypnotic spell of my imagination chimera.

This again is why even till today, I remain etched more than ever before, in the universe of my individual solipsism; in terms of the oddly bent of my world view, eccentricism, iconoclasm and peculiarity.

Ironically, a redeeming air of cheers in this general run of gross underperformance was as it turned out, in the face-saving haul of ‘C4’I made in history with an almost effortless ease for that matter.

The reason for this is not far-fetched. I’m a faddist of history. A freak of history. Freakishness bordering on pathological intensity.

I remember those good old days of the 60s while in the primary school. Such was the standard of education in those halcyon days of yore that the romance with history started for primary school pupils, right from primary three.

In those days, at a supposedly formative, trajectory of existence, my impressionable mind was titillated by evocative historicisms as the Jihad of Usman Dan Fodio; Jaja of Opobo, Nana of Itsekiriland, Overamwen of Benin, the 1897 invasion and destruction of the ancient Benin empire.

But curiously enough looking back with the benefit of the illuminating messianism of later conscientisation by the dynamics of history and the dialectical linkage circumscribing the spatial frame of the past, present and future – it beats me hollow to recall that a considerable baptism of the thematic treat extant in those days were of exotic foreign stuff and derivation.

I remember as if it were yesterday, such supposedly alien themes like Albert Schweitzer, Ronald Ross, Hellen Keller and a host of sundry foreign nature – which we went through right from the primordial phase of formal learning, in primary three!

I got into the secondary school only to be greeted with a diametrically different scenario. It all began with The Revolutionary Years – that magnum opus of historical peregrination of a bewilderingly engaging depth and profundity – and to be sure – the culmination of the distinctive genius of J.F. Ade Ajayi – the erudite patriarch, legend and intellectual linchpin of the drive at African socio-historical renaissance.

My baptism with the fire of African historicism, on such specific themes as the great empires of Western Sudan, namely the ancient Mali, Ghana, Songhai, including the Oyo, Bornu, Asante, Fante, Benin and Dahomey among others – were such that exuded a tremendous appeal as was too much for me to resist.

Such was the persuasive proselytism of such a grippingly engaging appeal, that was to usher a new dawn of mental and intellectual revolution – supplying in turn, the motivating font of impulse for the resurgence of the primeval self-esteem of the African personality, hitherto languished in centuries of lamentable trauma, limbo and atrophy.

Under Ajayi, the Ibadan school of history attained the salutary apotheosis of world fame and glory – charting new vistas and frontiers of illuminating socio-historical rediscovery on those momentously inspiring epoch of the grandeur of African historical past, and its unique place on the larger global macrocosm as an organic integral of the dynamics of world history and civilization.

Rarely within the vast chronological frame of human existence had the world been greeted with an exemplarily inspiring quintessence of unremitting life-long engagement with a worthy cause, as the bewildering zest and gusto; indefatigable doggedness, unwavering zeal and sacrificial altruism which this iconic scholar of formidable leviathan frame and stature had deployed to the epistemological proselytism of the primeval elevation and dignity of the African personality – predicated on his unique role in the mainstream of world civilization – as exemplified in the distinctive genius, brilliance and prodigy defining the corpus of Ajayi’s pontification, exegesis and dissertations on the unique theme of African historiography.

While it is true that the Ekiti-born patriot and illustrious son of Africa, might have traversed the triumphal lane of remarkable signal achievement; with equally outstanding sterling integrity – one may assume with a modicum of obviously reasonable assumption, that the fulsomeness of joy supposedly defining his exemplary trajectory could not but be averse to lamentable susceptibilities – as especially evoked in his unceremonious sack in the wake of the Ali Must Go Crisis, during his stint as Vice-Chancellor, University of Lagos.

Second is the lamentable atrophy of the vibrant spell, robustness and versatility of the Ibadan school of history, which soared to enviable global eminence, during the epoch of golden memory of this distinguished scholar of world acclaim – in terms of the scholarly brilliance and engaging intellectual efflorescence converging as its defining hallmark – which today, basks at best – to borrow the popularly over-beaten cliché – in the shadow of its old glory.

Thirdly, if not the most traumatic and devastating, is the progressively decreasing emphasis on the importance of history in the school curricula – which attained a high – water mark under the Jonathan misgovernance – the gravity of which becomes poignantly manifest in the face of Jonathan’s trail – blazing feat – perhaps a euphemism for the ominously portentous ill-luck – of being the first doctorate degree holder to preside at the apex of political authority of the macrocosm of the Nigerian federation. What a tragedy.

I remember some decades ago I was going through the papers I stumbled on a news feature; reporting the gathering of Old Boys of the famous Igbobi College. Along the line, I was suddenly enraptured with a most memorable one: the nostalgic recall by Professor Kwaku Babatunde Adadevoh, a distinguished Professor of Medicine and later Vice-Chancellor University of Lagos and father of Dr. Stella Ameyo Adadevoh, the Hippocratic martyr of blessed memory.

Going down memory lane, Professor Adadevoh recalled that when in 1946, his elder brother and he were enrolling as fresh students into that reputable institution, it was J.F. Ajayi, then a HSC student in the upper six and also their House Prefect, who welcomed them.

As my mind goes back to that distant mist of golden memory and the startling finality of the reality of Ade Ajayi’s earthly departure, I cannot help but be awakened and on a rude note too, to the temporariness of life, which essentially impels us to imagine why the Divine mind could not bestow the mystique of immortality on iconic legend and titans in the mould of the Ade Ajayis, in order that they could live for ever and continue by that token, to inspire the mass of humanity with their welters of sterling qualities and exemplarily ennobling feat.

Though, exit in the flesh, the consummate story teller, master narrator, a great patriot, statesman, wizard of African historical renaissance, fertile mind; illustrious son of Africa, and jewel of academic excellence lives for ever.

Adieu J.F.A. the immortal Herotodus of African history. May your great soul rest in perfect peace.

•Johnson is a writer and journalist.