By Tanure Ojaide
Introduction
Professor Unionmwan (popularly called Union) Edebiri’s life provides a window for looking at education and the responsibility of the Nigerian academic. He had a meaningful education as an academic, an asset which deserves not only celebrating but also emulating. My presentation in his honor on “the Intellectual and Society” is not a new topic in public discourse, but it needs to be re-interrogated in the context of the moment. The topic was examined in relation to colonial, as well as postcolonial times, by scholars, public intellectuals, and writers. Literary writers and academics like Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka, among others, discussed the writer as the society’s teacher and custodian of mores respectively. Nnamdi Azikiwe, the first President of Nigeria, and Essien Udom, the radical professor of political science, saw the country in terms of Black Nationalism/Pan-Africanism, with Nigeria later becoming a shining star in the constellation of world nations. However, a country, like a human being, grows and, by a certain adult age, one can judge his or her achievements. Particularly now in Nigeria, the zeitgeist and the national question make the role of the intellectual pertinent for discussion. I want to re-open a conversation that we need to be having. The Nigerian academy today needs to be retooled with a positive force. My talk could make many Nigerian academics and intellectuals and you listening to me uncomfortable because it is high time we told inconvenient truths. What I have to say is focused on the humanities, but my point is also applicable to Nigerian intellectuals of the social and hard sciences.
The former President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel, describes the role of the intellectual in society as one who “. . . should constantly disturb, should bear witness to the misery of the world, should be provocative by being independent, should rebel against all hidden and open pressures and manipulations, should be the chief doubter of systems … and for this reason, an intellectual cannot fit into any role that might be assigned to him … and essentially doesn’t belong anywhere: he stands out as an irritant wherever he is” (The Voice of Hope: Aung San Suu Kyi: Conversations with Alan Clements). Suu Kyi agrees with Václav Havel and adds that “. . . to become an intellectual you’ve got to have a questioning mind…. Intellectuals are very important in any society. Because they are the ones who . . . are provoking people, opening them to new ideas, pushing them along to new heights” (idem). Important in the role of the intellectual are being provocative, rebellious, doubtful of systems, irritants to open people to new ideas and pushing them to new heights. We used to have many intellectuals, but I don’t know about the situation now. There seems to be many silent academics and others too cozy with the establishment to be described as true intellectuals.
Where are the Eskor Toyos, Yusufu Bala Usmans, Essien Udoms, Omafume Onoges, and others of their time in Nigeria today? When I was an undergraduate in the late 1960s and early 1970s and through my early career as a university lecturer (the 1980s), one did not need to be in the same department or even university to know or hear about such names. Today, Nigeria suffers from a dearth of intellectuals of the caliber that energized and influenced public discourse with their bold and visionary socio-political and economic propositions. Currently, what are the goals of intellectuals that justify their humanistic learning/studies? They appear to have reneged on the ethical side of their responsibility to society. What do you give to the society that nurtured you, especially as most had scholarships and emoluments from their people or their governments? Do you speak out to improve humanity, engage society in a positive way? Professor Unionmwan Edebiri might not be a saint, but his intellectual ideals and practice are worth celebrating and emulating. I would say with a very strong sense of conviction that Professor Edebiri’s life is an example of an inspiring academic and intellectual.
Unionmwan Edebiri’s Education
After Unionmwan Edebiri’s first degree in French at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, in 1965, he went abroad for graduate studies. Upon the completion of his MA program in 1968, he studied French at the Sorbonne where he received a Ph.D. in 1970. He was the first Nigerian to receive a Ph.D. in French language and literature at the Sorbonne. As I said in an earlier tribute, his French was impeccable. He knew and studied the Ivorian writer, Bernard Dadie (1916-2019). In addition to several articles, Edebiri wrote a book celebrating him titled Bernard Dadié: hommages et études (Ivry-sur-Seine, Editions Nouvelles du Sud, 1992). He also knew Leopold Sedar Senghor, the former President of Senegal, who with Leon Damas and Aime Cesaire, postulated Negritude. He was a friend of both Nourreini Tidjani-Serpos (Benin’s delegate and senior official in UNESCO), Olabiyi Yai (who also served as Benin’s delegate to UNESCO), and Elisee Soumonni (historian of the transatlantic slave trade). He also remained in touch with Paulin J. Houtundji, the Beninois academic and philosopher. From Professor Edebiri’s study of French and his association with Francophone academics, writers, and politicians, we can take away two lessons. Firstly, he served as a necessary bridge between Francophone and Anglophone Africa at a time that Africa needed unity after its balkanization by European imperialists. He had collaborations with other African scholars. Secondly, he emphasized the imperative of translation among Africans to know what others are doing. His major literary essays appear in Literary and Translation Studies in Africa (2023). I hope Nigerian/African academics of French or Francophone African literature and other disciplines will emulate his efforts to publish his works covering half a century and leave behind a compendium of scholarly work for contemporary and future scholars.
Edebiri travelled extensively in Africa and was highly cosmopolitan. He was a purveyor of Africa’s potential to turn its Western languages into a means of collaboration, unity, and a spring of knowledge to strengthen the continent. He was involved in diplomatic meetings and knew many politicians of Francophone Africa. Edebiri thus had the type of education that was functional and which he deployed to the service of humanity.
He contributed to shaping the direction of Francophone African literature. He has been described as one of the forerunners of French Studies in Nigeria. In fact, his success in this area has not been fully acknowledged for its significance. In addition to introducing writers such as the Guinean Mohamed Alioum Fantoure, the Ivorian Bernard Dadie, and the Beninois Jean Pliya to Nigerians, he also embedded the French language and literature as a significant aspect of the Nigerian educational system. His scholarly work, La Langue Francaise et la Litterature Africaine Francophone au Nigeria, bears testimony to his contribution in this area.
Translation, Writings, and Multilingualism
Professor Edebiri possessed the resources of multilingualism which came handy for his use as an intellectual. Please take note that I do not credit him with bilingualism but with multilingualism. A Benin with a rich Edo imaginary, who acquired English from elementary school onward, and then a doctorate in French from the Sorbonne, Unionmwan Edebiri possessed multilingualism, a forceful part of his intellectualism and cosmopolitanism.
In a recent MLA Newsletter (vol.56, no 1, Spring 2024), Valerie Loichot of Emory University writes: “Monolingualism kills. Multilingualism—this eagerness for alterity, intellectual curiosity, thirst for discoveries—is at the heart of our scholarly and pedagogical praxes, as humanists, artists, and as scientists” (p.5). To Ngugi wa ’Thiongo, the ability to speak several languages is a form of empowerment (from a lecture titled “The Joycean Paradox Revisited: Language Empires and Literary Identity Theft” hosted by the Indigenous Language Media in Africa at North-West University in South Africa, August 15, 2024). Also, to Ngugi, “multilingualism is the oxygen of all cultures” (idem). One can therefore say that Edebiri inhaled the oxygen of all cultures. His appointment as Director and Chief Executive of the Centre for Black and African Arts and Civilization (CBAAC) is one of the most appropriate of Nigerian Government appointments of academics into state-supported cultural units. With his proficiency in the two languages that most African governments adopted and his innate Benin love of art, he was a shining star in the administration of the cultural office. In his CBAAC position, he served as the cultural standard-bearer of Benin, Nigeria, Africa, and the entire Black world.
Let me summarize Edebiri’s contribution in multilingualism, translation, and writing. He worked together with Abiola Irele and Victor Aire to initiate and consolidate the teaching of French by Nigerian academics and not only French expatriates. I was taught French at Ibadan by the Battestinis, French expatriates, who were bent on our not only understanding the French language but also French culture and politics. Those familiar with French Studies in Africa could see the shift brought about by the likes of Edebiri and other confident bright African scholars. There was more emphasis on Francophone Africa and the Black World than just the culture, language and literature of France. He and others of his persuasion showcased those African talents like Léopold Sedar Senghor, Birago Diop, Bernard Dadie, Ahmadou Kourouma, Tchicaya U Tam’si, and Ferdinand Oyono, among others. He was proud to have exposed these writers to not only the Francophone area but also other Africans. African literature was not just the work of Nigerians, South Africans, and Kenyans at the time but also includes the works of Senegalese, Ivorian, Beninois, and other Africans writing in French. Les Soleils des Independances (The Suns of Independence) that won the Grand prix litteraire d’Afrique noire in 1969 showed how the promotion and teaching of African literary works had been taken seriously in World Literature. One can say that Professor Edebiri helped to propagate the ideas of other Africans and Blacks (especially of the Caribbean region) to rekindle the spirit of Pan-Africanism.
He was instrumental along with his friend and colleague, Professor Ekundayo Simpson, in the formation of the West African Institute of Translators and Interpreters (WAITI) and was very active in the association. They had annual meetings in different places. It was Professor Edebiri’s suggestion, from his experience in the African Literature Association, that the Association set up a journal which was distributed to members of the Association to justify their annual fees and give them an intellectual validation. Professor Edebiri was at a time President, Modern Languages Association of Nigeria; Chairman, Forum of Professors and Heads of Departments of French in Nigerian Universities; and Foundation President, West African Institute of Translators and Interpreters. He was conferred with the Leopold Sédar Sénghor Research Fellowship. Among his other Francophone awards were the Ouidah’92 Award conferred on him by the President of the Republic of Benin and the Special Award for contributions to Africa’s Renaissance by the President of Senegal. In 2009, Professor Unionmwan Edebiri was conferred the National Honour of Officer of the Order of the Federal Republic (OFR) by the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
I also want to associate Professor Edebiri with the work of Alliance Francaise in Nigeria. The French Village in Badagry is the work of committed French teachers such as Unionman Edebiri.
The Role of the Intellectual
The intellectual should be the catalyst for ideological cohesion and development in a nation. However, the impulse in Nigeria today is to trivialize any intellectual discourse that elevates the mind. It is only crass materialism that matters to most academics—a disposition that makes them to be silent in the face of corruption and cozy with the government of the day. There is naked pursuit of material acquisition. “Na book I go chop?” becomes the mantra. The academy has been hobbled by this philistinism. Most Vice-Chancellors of state and federal universities appear to see their five-year tenures as opportunities to amass wealth rather than implement a vision of development for their respective institutions. In many universities, some teachers extort money from students by whatever methods they could device. They ask students to pay for supervision of their theses and disobeying them could lead to academic persecution. Some male teachers harass their female students and punish those that do not succumb to their pressures. As for students, they join “Yahoo” groups to get rich, mostly through criminal means, to “get on”, as some female students do “runs” and could be more out of classes than in.
Within universities, sectionalism has played a pernicious role along ethnic, regional, and religious lines. This is palpable in state and federal universities where either one group or religious leaning (Muslim or Christian) group holds power. In the contest for Vice-Chancellorship in recent times, there had been movements that only particular subsets of an ethnic group could head a federal university. Other such federal universities have been effectively captured, at virtually all levels, by members of the ethnic group in whose area the institution happens to be located. Many academics are tribal and religious bigots and hamper national cohesion and development. There is a toxic atmosphere in many Nigerian universities. There is also the disturbing imaginary that recognizes only three ethnic groups (Hausa/Fulani, Yoruba, and Igbo) in Nigeria and delegitimizes the existence and talent of the more than two hundred other groups. It is both counterintuitive and unfortunate that the “ivory tower” can serve as the home of those who negate those social ideals whose pursuit should enshrine national justice and equity.
I said earlier that many academics are silent on major national issues and are very cozy with the Government. Many academics appointed to positions in government or government-controlled parastatals do not behave as if education has rubbed off on them. Rather, they are as corrupt as others or do not do anything different from what the regular politicians do. Many of those from the universities appointed to supervise or run state and national elections have failed and seem to have been bribed to go along with rigged figures they are given. I applaud the courage and discipline of the female vice-chancellor who refused all pressures to do the opposite of what is right. Governor Otti of Abia State is there today because of one intellectual’s will to affirm what is right. Why should university vice-chancellors and professors not refuse to participate in such government-appointed roles in which they betray the ethics of true intellectuals? Also, look at the National University Commission’s accreditation of departments in Nigerian universities. Nobody will tell me that NUC does not know the shenanigans related to their accreditation exercises—on their side, that of the university host of NUC accreditation exercise, the NUC-appointed team of professors conducting the accreditation, and the specific department’s window-dressing by putting in names of academic staff who are not there as their workers and changing the statuses of those there!
Opposing the unfair and inequitable imaginary of the three groups at the expense of all Nigerians, Professor Edebiri helped to undermine and reduce the stranglehold of the majority groups over members of minority ethnicities in his pursuit of cultural pluralism. He felt that the Nigerian Academy of Letters was of mostly scholars of one ethnic group and campaigned to broaden membership to be more reflective of the Nigerian federation. He served as the Honorary Solicitor of the Nigerian Academy of Letters. It is to his credit that today NAL is more representative of the nation and one can attribute the future presidency of Professor Andrew Haruna to his efforts in diversifying membership of the Academy. There are other internal changes which have taken place that could be attributed to him. They include making disciplines with larger academics to be represented among the academy’s officials. Also, reviewers for the Nigerian Merit Award which used to be overwhelmingly from a section of the country are now from more areas. The dissemination of information for non-majority groups to field candidates for the National Merit Award has made it possible for people like me and Owena Bruce Onobrakpeya of minority origin to be nominated for and win the national merit award. Those who were close to him observed how he insisted on quality. He did not only speak out against the tyranny of the majority groups but also acted towards transformation of those unfair systems. Many academics would keep quiet, but Professor Edebiri spoke out and was heard. His strong ethics which his legal profession reinforced and the strong moral imperative that his Catholicism imbued him with all made him a true intellectual warrior for social justice, equity, and inclusion.
I started with names of Nigerian intellectuals who are still remembered and revered. They were not united by ethnicity or religion. No, they were united by socialist ideology. They were Socialists/Marxists. Today, there is no progressive ideological group that benefits from the power of cohesion and solidarity. Whenever ASUU calls for a strike, not all universities get involved. In the last long strike, federal universities and a few state universities went on strike. Many academics in state universities did not join the strike and even gloated that they were at least receiving their salaries, unlike the strikers who were not being paid and undergoing severe economic hardship. It has always been the practice that at the end of such strikes, if the protesters won concessions in economic terms, those who did not participate in the strike would share in the benefits. I tried several times at two state universities to impress upon colleagues how unethical it was for them to pull out of a strike and therefore not suffer any consequences, and yet would want to enjoy the benefits resulting from the struggle in which many made sacrifices. One asks, what type of students would such unethical university teachers produce? Their students would be dodging the social contract of contributing to something to enjoy its benefits. Professor Edebiri held that university teachers should know that they did not teach the students to only pass exams but also to have exemplary characters.
The Character and Virtues of the Intellectual
Loichot sees the intellectual as possessing the features of “eagerness for alterity, intellectual curiosity, thirst for discoveries.” Despite his education and travels, Unionmwan Edebiri realized that there was much more for him to do as an intellectual. His hunger for more knowledge made him to also study law. He knew that by being familiar with the law, there was much good he could do publicly and privately. Law helped to consolidate his innate sense of ethics and morality which his native Benin culture and adoption of Roman Catholicism already inculcated in him. He fiercely defended the truth, which he told even when inconvenient. He was not an ideologue to tout Marxism, but he ranged on the side of the common people. He advocated a highly democratic dispensation when it came to political and economic issues. I can recollect in discussions how he was pained by the systemic corruption which made Nigeria to be stunted rather than grow, unlike Malaysia, South Korea, India, Brazil, and other nations that were at the same developmental level with Nigeria in the early 1960s but by the1980s had overtaken “the giant of Africa” plagued by military coups and pervasive malfeasance in governance.
I already mentioned that he was a great bridge-builder on many levels. It was not only through marriage because he wedded a Yoruba princess but also his openness to other groups in the country. He attended Urhobo College, Warri, when he could have gone to a secondary school in Benin City. He went to the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. He worked at both Obafemi Awolowo University, Ife, and University of Lagos where he retired. He had a post-retirement stint at the Department of French, University of Benin.
He was proud of his Benin heritage, showing it in his simple white emblematic dress and adornment with coral beads. He won the Benin Achievers Award. He was committed to the Niger Delta/the South-South geopolitical zone. He acted as a mentor to younger academics from that region. When Dike Okoro and I were editing The Niger Delta Review and he learned about it, he contributed an essay on Emotan, a Benin woman who attained the status of a heroine who sacrificed herself to bring justice to kingship succession in Benin.
At the same time, he was a Nigerian patriot. He was an Officer of the Order of the Federal Republic (OFR). He was very loyal to friends. He made many phone calls checking on friends across the country. He made friends of Hausa, Kanuri, Igbo, Urhobo, Itsekiri, Yoruba, and almost every ethnic group. He was also in constant touch with his friends across Africa, especially in Benin, Senegal, Mali, Cote d’Ivoire, and the rest of the world. Like the proverbial water he had no enemy. He had an infectious cheerfulness which attracted him to those he met. He showed respect to his classmates at Urhobo College who had occasions to celebrate or grieve together. He did not allow his veteran status as an academic or professor to wait for junior academics to reach out to him. He reached out to many and advised on life experiences and the academy.
Professor Edebiri was principled, as progressive intellectuals are expected to be. Jean-Paul Sartre, the French novelist, on principle rejected the Nobel Prize for Literature that he was given. Similarly, Chinua Achebe rejected the Nigerian National Award on principle. One can say that principle is not a common commodity in the Nigerian academy today. How can the academy rescue the sinking ship of Nigeria without principled lofty ideas?
It is mostly academics of Edebiri’s temperament that can help to fashion and fulfil those goals that will make Nigeria to develop. I said earlier that what I am saying about the intellectual in the humanities applies to those in the social and hard sciences. Why are Nigerian academics not challenging their disciplines? What are the professors of biology, chemistry, and pharmacology, among many others, doing to make use of local resources in the forms of herbs, barks, leaves, and others to make medicines for which outsiders come here to collect the formula and manufacture for us to buy at an expensive price? There are now bitter leaf capsules and packaged chewing sticks sold in the United States, not made by any of the academics at home.
Conclusion
Professor Edebiri was not laid back in the comfort of his Benin royal heritage and connections, his elite Sorbonne education, his management of CBAAC, his multilingualism, and professorship, among other advantages. He was not content with mere academic achievements for personal pride and fulfilment. He earned a degree in law and read wide. He engaged society to correct what he perceived as anomalies of unfairness, inequality, lack of diversity, and ethnicism in a selfless struggle for all to do the right thing. He was a quiet activist. He wanted to make the world better than when he met it. He had a questioning mind, he was provocative, bold, rebellious, and doubtful of establishment matters. He challenged many of his colleagues to be open to new ideas, as he pushed many of us to new heights. He was able to deploy the intellectual virtues he nurtured with care to make a difference in public and private spheres. He was a bright light that restored vision to a bleak environment.
He accomplished much as a humanist, scholar, university teacher, and promoter of human excellence. He did this on many levels, including as a true Nigerian and dignified Benin man, firmly standing the ethical and moral ground for integrity. He also distinguished himself as the true intellectual who worked hand in hand with visionaries in politics, such as Bernard Dadie of Cote d’Ivoire, who would consistently challenge on sociopolitical issues President Houphouet-Boigny whose Minister of Culture he had been for decades.
Professor Unionmwan Edebiri should be assured that we acknowledge his contributions to humankind and rank him as a very worthy Nigerian academic and intellectual.