Death hit the Nigerian academia and the
literati hard on Tuesday as non-conformist scholar and writer, Prof.
Festus Iyayi, passed away in a road accident.
The death of the one-time president of
the Academic Staff Union of Nigerian Universities and winner of the
Commonwealth Writers Prize occurred about seven months after the country
lost another legendary writer, Prof. Chinua Achebe.
While it had also lost some other
writers – including Larinde Akinleye and Femi Fatoba – and many other
people in road crashes, the violent circumstance of Iyayi’s death may
also remind followers of African literature of that of Ghanaian writer
Kofi Awonoor-Williams, who was killed in Kenya by terrorists in
September this year.
But what many would find instructive is
the fact that Iyayi died in the course of prosecuting the battle in
which ASUU has engaged the Federal Government, fighting for the
revitalisation of the university system, in the past four months. He
was on his way to Kano, alongside other members, where they wanted to
attend a congress that would take a decision on the possibility of
calling off the ASUU strike.
People who believe in the prophetic
power of writers may thus find cause to, in retrospection, attach more
importance to one of the popular statements from Iyayi’s novel, Heroes —
“… those who carry the cross for society always get crucified in the
end …”
Yet, the fact that the bus that Iyayi
and co. were said to have been hit by a car in the convoy of Kogi State
Governor, Idris Wada, has compounded the anger and frustration of many
Nigerians who are lucky enough to be living – and not dead – witnesses
to the recklessness that convoys of many political office holders
display.
Reacting to the news of Iyayi’s death,
the President of the Association of Nigerian Authors, Prof. Remi Raji,
says the development is a sad commentary on not just the contradictions
in the country’s educational system but also manifestations of political
recklessness.
Raji says, “That Prof. Iyayi’s death is
linked to the recklessness of the convoy of a governor once again shows
the irresponsibility of many political office holders. We have talked
about it many times. It is about what I call siren senselessness. You
have to clear the way because somebody is going to buy yam for a
governor’s wife.”
Meanwhile, while Raji notes that Iyayi’s
portrayal of bourgeoisie characters gripped his imagination as a
university student, other stakeholders have paid tributes to the
deceased. Poet and critic, Odia Ofeimun, says Iyayi was a man “who
should not be dead.”
According to Ofeimun, he was a good person who never betrayed the people he stood by.
He adds, “Festus Iyayi saw life as a
struggle. He believed that those who struggle must stand by their own.
This is part of what defined his relationship with ASUU. Whether he lost
his job or jailed for the cause of ASUU, he stood by the union all
through. The last time I saw him, it was on the television. That was
when the lecturers were demonstrating in Benin. He was with them in his
academic gown.”
Ofeimun says Iyayi also remained a
committed writer till death. He notes that although social struggle ate
deep into his time, he kept writing, to the point that he had works he
had not published.“When it mattered to talk about
commitment in literature, Iyayi wrote sensible literature, something
sensible to anyone who believes he should not be afraid of his belief,”
he explains.
Similarly, a Senior Lecturer at the
Department of English, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, Dr. Chijioke
Uwasoba, describes Iyayi as a great man in the field of literature,
while US-based scholar and writer, Prof. Okey Ndibe, says Iyayi was one
of the most “intrepid social voices” the country has ever produced.
Born in Edo State in 1947, Iyayi’s
family is said to have lived on little means but instilled in him strong
moral lessons about life. According to a profile, he started his
education at Annuciation Catholic College in the old Bendel State
popularly known as ACC, finishing in 1966, and later proceeded to
Government College Ughelli. He was a zonal winner in a Kenedy Essay
Competition organised by the United States Embassy in Nigeria. He left
the shores of Nigeria to pursue his higher education, obtaining a M.Sc
in Industrial Economics from the Kiev Institute of Economics, in the
former USSR and then his Ph.D from the University of Bradford, England.
In 1980, he went back to Benin and became a lecturer in the Department
of Business Administration at the University of Benin.
A reviewer, Susie deVille, writes that Iyayi’s three novels, Violence, The Contract, and Heroes, as well as his collection of short stories, Awaiting Court Martial, expose the abject penury and disenfranchisement that constitute the social reality of the majority of Nigerians.
“In language that is often vitriolic and
stinging, Iyayi’s protagonists potently display his contempt for the
rampant corruption that strangles contemporary Nigeria. Business
persons, politicians, generals, and other officials hoard the country’s
wealth and power at the expense of the working class. This base
depravity of the ruling class,” deVille says.
Source: The Punch
