Akin Ogundiran
Toyin Falola
Professor Akin Ogundiran: The Serenity of Strength, By Toyin Falola
Michael Afolayan
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Oluwatoyin Adepoju
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Patrick Effiboley
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Akin Ogundiran
Akin Ogundiran
Oloye Falola has done it again! What do you do when you wake up to read this about yourself, coming from the most exalted scholar of our time with many accolades? What do you do when your teacher writes this laudation about his living student and mentee? Moreso when the write-up is so random and so unexpected. In my case, I went back to lie in bed this morning. That was all I could think of doing. I was confused. My wife asked whether something was wrong. “Are you not feeling well?” She asked. I mumbled: “I’m just tired.” I just wanted to be alone and reflect on Oloye’s superlative words.
I convinced myself that I didn’t deserve this accolade. Well, I say that to almost everything good that happens to me. This is not a vain humility. It is just that I know deep down that I could be a better scholar, a better mentor, a better citizen, a better husband, a better father, a better son, a better brother, a better friend, a better teacher, a better colleague, etc. I know I am not there yet, not because I have self-doubt about my abilities. Far from it. I'm too old for that. I'm just preoccupied with how to stretch my abilities as far as possible to improve myself and the world around me. I don’t want to be the best. I just want to be better.
I am shy of publicity. It takes me enormous time and energy to process adulations like this.
Well, to assure my wife that I’m fine, I got up from bed and read Oloye’s write-up over and over again. I know Professor Falola is a very busy man. Because of his travels, we have not spoken in nearly three weeks. Maybe we have exchanged emails on two occasions since late July. I know he’s managing his health in the middle of a grueling lecture schedule across the US, Nigeria, and Europe. How did he find time and energy to write such a beautiful laudation of me with very basic accomplishments? This is Pure Love. I am blessed to be in his orbit.
I saw the then-gangly but always ebullient Falola on the University of Ife campus in the mid-1980s. I initially attended some of his lectures for reasons other than learning history, but his lectures captivated me. Indirectly, he introduced me to political economy as a conceptual tool. Later, through Babatunde Agbaje-Williams, I met others in the Ife radical network—Mallam (Olufemi Taiwo), Jacob Olupona, Olufemi Babalola, etc. I was a fly on the wall. I began to connect the Ife radical politics of that time with social theory and history. But Oloye Falola’s Political Economy of Ibadan gave me the language to express myself. That was an education I will never forget.
I was not close to Oloye at Ife; he didn’t even know I existed. It was in 2001 that he became aware of my existence when I attended the inaugural Africa Conference at Austin. The rest, they say, is history. We later learned that our ancestors came from the same part of Ibadan. We spent our youth (at different but overlapping times) in Aremo/Ojagbo Axis. We have discovered that Abimbola Adelakun, the scholar and columnist, is from the same source. Historian Olufemi Vaughn is also from the axis. If we dig deeper, I won’t be surprised that Saheed Aderinto is related to the Aremo-Ojagbo axis. What water did they serve us in that inner part of Ibadan?
Oloye Falola has been a benevolent mentor, friend, and father figure. He has guided hundreds of us on how to navigate the American academy. He has opened many doors of opportunities that many of us initially thought were not accessible. His work ethic belongs to the spirit world. He works at the speed of light. But he is gracious and lends a helping hand even when you are not looking for it. He celebrates the young and the old. I don’t have the appropriate words to thank Oloye Falola. Some call him Prof; others call him Oga. I to call him Oloye (Chief). Mentally, I’m on the floor prostrating before the teacher, mentor, and father (Baba), soaking in all the blessings that are loaded in this essay.
I thank you all for adding to the laudation. It is noteworthy that many of you are my elders. You are a divine presence in my life. So, I say ÀṢẸ to all your words. I am blessed. May your evening be more glorious and peaceful than your morning and afternoon, Àṣẹ.
Now that Oloye Falola has broken the news: Yes, I’ve moved to Northwestern University. The journey continues there. There, we will continue to work on the history of the Oyo Empire, Osun-Osogbo Grove, and the Early Iron Age society we recently discovered in Old Bara, 2,400 years old. A new Material History Lab has been built to support this initiative, the first such lab in a History Department in the US.
I pay homage to two preeminent Africanist historians, David Schoenbrun and Jonathan Glassman, who have shaped the African history trajectories at Northwestern over the past 30 years. I will join two fantastic nineteenth-century and modern African historians, Helen Tilley and Sean Hanretta, to train the next generation of students. I will be covering Early African history.
I thank all of you who have been part of my journey, recently or in the “deep” past. I especially thank The University of North Carolina at Charlotte for all it gave me over the past fifteen years. I salute my senior colleague at Charlotte, Eminent Professor Tanure Ojaide, for being a great mentor and friend.
Thank you to the USA-Africa Dialogue family.
Akin Ogundiran
Northwestern University
Tanure Ojaide
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Mr. E. B. Jaiyeoba
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Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
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