“African Historiography and Diaspora Studies: The Influence of Prof. Julius Adekunle”

By Tony Afejuku

Since the first part of the gleaner's conversation with one of our very faithful readers last Friday appeared here, a few additional exchanges have taken place between then and now, and these will be incorporated into the whole at the end of the day - that is, after this second part.

Gleaner: You said you "got into the classroom to be shocked." Do you mean that the newsroom in any or every journalism medium or establishment is better than the classroom in any or every university here or elsewhere? Please throw some light on this, at least for the sake of practising journalists and lecturers, professors, in our universities.

Reader: Only 3% of the entire population of the academic (and non-academic) personnel is resolutely ruthless, when it comes to nation-building. 97% of the population consists of bandits. So, I evolved a self-defensive-mind-tightening bunker. I mean that whoever you are, and whoever you maybe and wherever you are: as a cleaner, a politician, a lecturer, a trader, a civil servant and even a housewife, make a good mark, first, for your nation, for without a nation, we have no location, and then, second, for yourself. Where I am now in the university as a professor, I mercilessly deal with academic bandits. When I strayed into politics… and I found myself in the Intervention Group, intervening in all human circumstances, again, I encountered bandits in their extremity. Indeed, the mind is a hollow place. It holes the unthinkable. I think, for sure, we cannot continue this way, turning Nigeria and Nigerians homeless, and, to off-ramp. Something good, prompted by man or nature, must happen in 2027. This looks like a wishful prayer. While prayer is good, a prayer without action, human or natural, amounts to self-deceit. We have deceived ourselves for too long in Nigeria - and especially in our academia! Again, I say: the mind is a hollow place. It holes the capacity for thunder!

Gleaner: You have grappled with many issues outside the explicit scope of the question posed, as a matter of fact, outside the scope of the issue you raised, outside the scope of the issue you volunteered. How or why is journalism better than academia? Are there no bandits in journalism?

Reader: Of course, there are bandits as well as I shall illustrate later. But the bandits in academia, in our universities, are really horrible. The bandits in journalism are inferior to those in our universities. I am clever enough to discern that you need full disclosure from me. If not now, but certainly later I shall provide it. But know this: how I practised as a journalist and, why I left for academia, thinking that academia was better only to be shocked that what I found and still find in the classroom made (and still makes) me wonder aloud and silently to myself: "Is it worth it? Or is it worth hiding? Or is it worth contemplating…?"

Gleaner: I won't press - "pressure" - you further on this, at least for now. Yet I should want to observe as follows: Before your intended "full disclosure," I do not know if I should disclose your identity or to do this column without disclosing your identity for your own good - I do not want the sharks to devour you - no matter, as you disclosed to me not long ago, the poison your emblematic/symbolic name may emit to eject or to free you from their strong bite, tentacles and stronghold. Your powerful name may possess the power to neutralize their poison or…

Reader: The sharks are always there, are always everywhere, in the academia. Indeed, I practised journalism, from 1980 to 2nd January, 2007. That's 26 years of staying on, not of leaving, the job I loved so much. The world hates the truth, something journalism basically acknowledges, and does not shy away from dwelling on. Our academia is inferior to journalism in this wise. The world hates truth, hates the truth. That is the battle I face in the academia right now, even though I am not an angel and don't pretend to be an angel.
Gleaner-glimpser-glitterer, may your approach to, your delivery on, Academic Bandits, on Academic Sharks, be the expression of a fictional or a non-fictional character, throwing tantrums in a federal university in North Central Nigeria. I detest the "namu, namu" culture, the "our own, our own" culture destroying our essence as human beings and as scholars that should uplift our country and academia. We must reject all drawbacks to our ambition to be a super great nation. Incompetence and even less mediocre fellows should and must be disallowed from messing us up henceforth. Disclose my identity. There is no libel in what I say or will say. As a creator of creators, I have faith in your judgment, your creative, critical and journalistic judgment, and what and what you can do and make of our conversation. You are frank, fearless, very persuasive; and a high being of consciousness.

Gleaner: Our conversation has gone on very fine. May I have the gem, the needed inspiration, to ink it well if it invites me to do so. May the imagination appear to rescue me or…?

Reader: As for the coming of imagination, it is like a baby. It comes in so many ways. For sure, it will come.

Gleaner: You are right about your allusion to imagination as a baby. But for now the baby is not prepared to be born. Or it is not wanting to be born from this end. Your country's colour which it has perceived between Easter and now, between Easter and this moment of our conversation, is shrinking its hope of a birth in my anxious imagination that wants to ink it out for your compatriots my compatriots our compatriots in and out of journalism or/and in and out of our academy to have a glimpse of what it should have a glimpse of. Now let my questioning imagination request you to create a little flower of your journalism years and your years in academia as at now to give currency to your consciousness as an efficient ex-journalist and as an insightful scholar. Give the gleaner-glimpser-glitterer, in other words, your thoughts on or on theory of an efficient journalist and of an effective scholar. I hope my imagination is not astray or going astray by asking you what it is asking you. The baby is shooting out at last.

Reader: I will, without hesitation, do as you have requested. Grant me time to do so. I mean that you should allow us to continue our conversation on this score at a later time you may wish to appoint, sound thinker, Tony Afejuku, high profile columnist - and a highly respected creator. This is not flattery because Professor Owojecho Omoha is not a flatterer.

To be continued.

Afejuku can be reached via 08055213059.