Gbemisola Adeoti: Celebrating a Laurel of Letter @ 50
In the early months of 2015, the legendary bats of Obafemi Awolowo University were hovering in the multitude of historical greatness around a tall big tree that has, since the time immemorial, served as the reposeful homeland for these ugly and bizarre-looking but yet wonderful creatures always gathering like traces of darkness at nightfall. It was second semester part 4, and we were at Odududuwa Lecture Theatre popularly known as ODLT waiting for the lecturer who would show us the light of maiden intellectual exposure to Shakespearean Literature.
Everybody was busy, enamoured of the usual business of breaking gist whenever we were waiting for the lecturer’s arrival, not knowing he was already in. “hun hun.” Like lightning, a voice travelled through the whole class in a second through the microphone. When we raised our heads, it was a short dark-skinned and lightly chubby handsome man with that colourful smile of an august rainbow. He was the lecturer for the day, and his name Gbemisola Adeoti, a Professor of Literature whose name we all knew as cowries to olden days before gaining admission into the university.
To commence the business of the day in his usual interactive method of teaching, the first thing he did was to ask us who William Shakespeare, that great Bard of Avon –and perhaps the greatest English writer ever –was. Then he asked, “when was Shakespeare born.” But unfortunately, nobody knew it. Not that we’ve not come across the name that we used to describe the bookworms of our secondary school days, it was just that we never envisaged such question at that moment. To brighten the mood of the class, GRA, as mostly be called, brought out a new one thousand naira note. “Anybody who knows the answer to the question has this.” It was a tense moment of wrong rambling responses.
Then, a lady stood up, “it was 1564 sir and he died in 1616.” She was right — a hero of the day — as she briskly walked out from the middle aisle to collect her money amidst the chant of “we shall all share it together.” The class continued with the text Julius Caesar which the man used to analyse the political situation of Nigeria to the utmost conviction of all students through his satirical and clever way.
That is the special being of the English Literature Professor –a simple and humble typical African man, tolerant and naturally refined in all ramifications. For those who have passed through the tutelage of Professor Oluwaremileku Gbemisola either as students or casual passers-by, one fact is unanimously known of the man whose life has been dedicated to intellectual scholarship and prolific academic commitment: he’s a tower of light and laureate of letters. This is evidential in his background from the time he was a reporter/researcher for The News Magazine in Lagos till his present endeavour as an academic staff of Nigeria’s most renowned University, Obafemi Awolowo University.
In his (OAU 275) Inaugural Lecture held of the 26th of May, 2015 titled “Literature and the Act of Shaving a Man’s Head in His Absence”, Adeoti analyses how literature has served as the engine room of national consciousness. He similarly decries, laments and challenges the dishevelled national history, in what signposts him as a pen activist, revolutionary writer and harbinger of hope.
There is no way GRA will interact with a text without drawing extra-textual semantic layers to the contemporary socio-political situation. Apart from doing this in other writers’ texts, he has also demonstrated this artistic bravura in his own works. Protesting the Nigeria’s mess, in one of his poems ‘Ambush’ he metaphorically describes Nigeria as “a giant whale that swallows other sinker/ with hook, line and bait/aborting dreams of good catch”, while also using the metaphor of love to call for divine intervention to the ugly quagmires that have tied Nigeria down the loin of ugly political and social realities in his poem ‘Absence.’
Similarly, there is no way we will write the history of Nigeria education without mentioning Gbemisola Adeoti for his restless commitment to academic renaissance and his immense contribution to Nigeria’s educational history. Apart from being a lecturer of rare bred; of highly reputable erudition committed to shaping the Nigerian youths, Adeoti — following the footsteps of his admired mentors like Ahmed Yerima, Femi Osofisan and Remi Raji — has re-shaped the modern Nigerian theatre in the process he himself describes as ‘School-to Street.’ His work, Voice Offstage: Aesthetics of Adaptation in Contemporary Nigerian Drama and Nigerian Videos Films in Yoruba is a testimony to this fact.
Thus, recognising his pivotal academic contribution, the admission-giving body in Nigeria, Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has consecutively picked two of his poems, ‘Naked Sole’ and ‘Ambush’ as part of the Board’s Literature syllabus. Ambush is still in use after years of Naked Sole gracing the syllabus of JAMB.
The writer and Prof. GRA during Prof. Adeoti Writing Workshop @ Institute of Cultural Studies, OAU.
Taking Prof. Adeoti from his enviable leadership skills, it can be said that assuming the esteemed position of Dean, Faculty of Arts, OAU immediately he dropped the baton of Director, Institute of Cultural Studies of the same institution is an indication of a leader with perfect blueprints GRA is. Before taking the mantle of the Deanship, he was the President, OAU Staff Club (2010–2012). Having performed beyond expectation he was made the Director of Cultural Studies Institute where, through new innovations — and by building on existing status quo — brought reforms to the once anonymous Institute. Within 2012 to 2014, the Institute hosted the first ever Conference of Nigerian Playwright; organised D. O. Fagunwa Colloquium. It also hosted A Moonlight Play with Beautiful Nubia, among others.
And as a Dean, a position he assumed on August 1, 2016, he hosted the Guest Lecture Series and reviewed the Faculty of Arts Lecture Series with the founder of Splash F.M, Ibadan Bayo Akande and the Minister of Information and Culture Lai Mohammed respectively. What defines a good leader if not his enviable achievements and ceaseless crave for success?
Lastly, in terms of human relation GRA, though fallible since he’s not God, has a close-to-perfect human relation. There was a time some part-one students got to his office, and an argument ensued about the gender of the personality they read his ‘Naked Sole’ as admission seekers, not knowing he was in office. He came out like the snail out of its shell, told them he was the one. Those students were stunned by his gestures, having introduced themselves as ‘freshers.’ The story became the cynosure on campus and till today there is still an occasional re-visiting of the incident.
Without any scintilla of doubt, it is not just by coincidence we have people like Gbemisola Adeoti in Nigeria’s academic realm. He’s a manifestation of such; a typical man the nation needs not only in academics but also in every sector. The professor of Dramatic Literature, Literary Theory and History is an enigma and a lover of African culture which is reflected in his dressing. He is a son of the land. That is why it will be remembered that Association of Nigerian Authors, OAU organised a Writing Workshop and Inter-University Poetry Contest in his name.
As he mounts on the back of new age, standing on the minaret of Golden Jubilee this Month of May, may the four historical hills of Ebedi, Atamafo, Oluofi, and Eyinjue that womb Iseyin land, and the Ogba rivulet that dissects it continue to preserve his life, so he can have more years of dutiful use for the land. More years ahead of death in fecundity, health, wealth and honours.
** Rahaman Abiola Toheeb, a former President of Association of Nigerian Authors, OAU, is a writer. He writes from Iseyin.
