*Tribute to Prof. Obaro Ikime, Icon of Ibadan School of History*

[Toyin Falola]

*Tribute to Prof. Obaro Ikime, Icon of Ibadan School of History*

Gani Adeniran

Professor Obaro Ikime was perhaps the last of the first generation of Ibadan (Nigerian) historians whose ethos loomed large when we were students in the 1980s partly because he was also a sports enthusiast always looking very smart and athletic.

I became his fan and admirer on or about 1988 at the University of Ibadan Alunmi Association where he served in various capacities at the Ibadan branch level and later at the National such as National Secretary and National Vice President during the tenures of the Cicero Bola Ige and Surveyor Olukunle Kukoyi, both of blessed memory, and Chief Izeaputa Osita Okeke. You cannot miss the history of Obaro of Ikime at UIAA. He was always blunt, assertive with tinge of self-esteem and carriage which his peers often interpreted in different ways. As the National Vice President, he supervised the UIAA National Secretariat on behalf of the National President together with late Professor Vidal Nottidge during the experimental stage of the independent Secretariat and the appointment of the full-time Administrative Secretary.

It was delightful to watch Professor Ikime, Mama Olafowokan and Justice Atinuke Ige discussing UCI/UI matters passionately at NEC meetings. In 1990 he was arrested on campus by the IBB military junta on the allegation of being an accessory to the coup d'etat of the time. He was alleged to have criticised the military government and supported the Gideon Orkar Coup openly at the Chapel of Resurrection grounds. I was already a lecturer. I was one of those UIAA members that visited him at his Imo Street residence after he was released. He narrated his horrible experience; how he was packed with the genuine coup plotters, wore the same clothes for about 3 months and how he appeared before the Military Tribunal that tried the plotters. He told us how Gideon Orkar and other ring leaders were picked up amongst them in the wee hour of the day to be executed and how he was set free after about 3 months in detention and summarily retired from the University services.

Professor Ikime loved the University of Ibadan passionately and would probably have loved to hold office beyond the Dean of Arts but for his premature exit. He was always telling the story of how he assisted a foremost playwright at the Institute of African Studies to rise up the promotion ladder despite his limited qualification but huge latents during his stints at the Institute. At few occasions that we met at the Chapel together with his inseparable soulmate, Sister Hannah, he was always full of admiration for me and as I was for me. Sometimes in 1998 when his fellow historian Professor Afiele Afigbo of Abia State University Uturu came to give the 3rd in the series of Sultan Bello Distinguished Lecture, he gave me valuable tips. This is just the little I know about Professor Obaro Ikime. I am sure that better tributes will flood the media space very soon. May his soul rest in perfect peace. Ire o!

Gani Adeniran

https://dailytrust.com/reminiscences-with-professor-obaro-ikime/#:~:text=06%3A34%20WAT-,Professor%20Obaro%20Ikime%20is%20a%20former%20president%20of%20the%20Historical,University%20of%20Ibadan%20Governing%20Council.

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[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

The playwright is likely to be Wole Soyinka. Those “limited qualifications” are likely to be a BA, an MA and few publications of the conventional academic type. 

A dilemma.

Soyinka’s three major essays in Myth, Literature and the African World are great works in dramatic theory, Yoruba philosophy and perhaps philosophy in general.

What kind of academic recognition would such poetic, impressionistic and yet great works get in academia for its author even though academia is compelled to study that book on account of its significance?

On Ikime, my mum has never stopped talking about his pedagogical genius and his superb scholarly writing skills from her encounter with him when he was at the University of Benin for a sabbatical 40 years ago or more.

I mentioned that sabbatical to Ikime’s son and he remembered it as an event of long ago, which is not so for his former student for whom the creative impact is evergreen.

I had a similar experience with Dan Izevbaye from UI during his sabbatical with us at the University of Benin.

When I mentioned that sabbatical to Izevbaye at UI about 10 or 20 years later he recollected it as something that happened long ago, in the distant past.

I smiled within myself but did not tell him I could still almost visualize him striding onto the podium on that first day of lectures in our third year of the BA, smart, agile,  conservatively dressed in his customary French suit, delivering lectures the sheer power of which kept the class always full.

We salute great teachers.

Thanks

Toyin

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