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For Anthony Asiwaju, It’s a life of immeasurable grace

By Muyiwa Adeyemi (Head South West Bureau)
20 April 2019   |   3:35 am
Emeritus Professor Anthony Asiwaju will, on April 27, 2019 clock 80. The eminent scholar and historian, who has been in the forefront of advocacy by international scholars seeking solutions to border-related issues and crises in the world, is grateful that in his nearly four decades of existence on mother earth, life has been overwhelmingly more…

Asiwaju

Emeritus Professor Anthony Asiwaju will, on April 27, 2019 clock 80. The eminent scholar and historian, who has been in the forefront of advocacy by international scholars seeking solutions to border-related issues and crises in the world, is grateful that in his nearly four decades of existence on mother earth, life has been overwhelmingly more on positive than negative side. What gladdens his heart is the recognition of the social relevance of his sustained research engagement.

That effort, he recounts graciously, has occasioned a wide-ranging high-profile public appointments or assignments, first, as pioneer Commissioner (International Boundaries) of Nigeria’s National Boundary Commission, and later, Consultant to Mali, ECOWAS, African Union as well as such UN entities as the Regional Centre for Peace and Disarmament in Africa, Lome, Togo; Centre for Regional Development,  Africa Office, Nairobi, Kenya; and the UN Office for West Africa (UNOWA), all in relation to the diverse border and borderlands development initiatives being undertaken within the respective agencies at different times, mainly between 1987 and 1996.

He reminisced further, “It all began with our nativity of an African cross-border area on the Nigeria-Benin borderlands in Ogun State, moving up to formal academic preparation in Ibadan and an entire academic career in Lagos. It’s a journey that has lasted our whole life, so far.”
But why did he study History and not any other subject, such as Law or Medicine?

“The choice was at the beginning essentially instinctive, if not entirely fortuitous. History has been my best subject from primary school to college and the University. Later in life, especially after secondary education in a Grade Two Teacher Training College and run-up to university admission, an Honours Degree in our own days carried far more prestige than other options, including Law. Besides, graduates in history has a wider array of employment opportunities in the public and private sectors of the economy. In academia, especially in this country, historians, more than any others, dominated the leadership cadre as Vice Chancellors, registrar’s.”

How would he describe the curricula at primary and secondary schools in relation to History as a subject?

“In the decade, 1949 through 1959, when we successfully completed our primary and secondary education, History was of central distinction in the curriculum at each of the two levels of education. It ranked among prescribed  compulsory subjects requiring to be passed to earn the certificate at each level. In our days, that’s the tail end of the colonial era, in the primary as in secondary schools, a teacher- training college in our particular situation, the perspective was understandably European. We were taught the history of Europe and of England, the European power that colonised Nigeria. Little was learnt about our past as Africans. The closest we came to African history was in the inclusion into the curriculum of the history of European activities in Africa, notably those of early European explorers and Christian missionaries.
 
“Though the movement for the decolonisation of the curriculum in history was in the air by the years of the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, it was in the years immediately following political independence in 1960 that full decolonisation was entrenched. We were in the pioneering set of students of the independent University of Ibadan to fully benefit from the Africanisation of history and also ranked among graduate teachers to teach the decolonised curriculum at secondary school level in mid-1960s.”

His childhood days, he reminisced with nostalgia, were richly fulfilled and well enjoyed. “The years prior to adolescence and adulthood, primarily the ten years from birth in 1939 to starting school in 1949, were spent in typical Yoruba village settings and in the bosom of very loving and caring peasant parents and in the midst of other equally affectionate adults in each of the two distinct villages in which I spent my pre-school days, namely: Ekunkan in Imeko area from birth in 1939 to 1947; and Oyede in Ado Odo, from 1947 to 1949.

“Serious Roman Catholics, our parents spared us and siblings the disadvantage of  polygamous homes that we saw around. While parents, especially father, were disciplinarians, we were allowed freedom of association with peers as playmates and friends in the villages and respective reference Yoruba central towns, first Imeko and later Ado Odo. Our Parents were of modest means, but we were well fed and  were modestly clothed and sheltered in father’s own structures everywhere he took the family. We were also fortunate to have parents who lived relatively longer than many of their peers. We were therefore spared the agony of many of many of our  playmates who lost one or both parents while we were all growing up.”

Was there any inkling while growing up that he would be 80 years? “None at all; not at anytime! Though in my days as a rising academic and young man, as a student in Ibadan in the 1960s and lecturer in Lagos in the 1970s, thoughts about death hardly crossed my mind. As years rolled by, I became and have become increasingly aware of the transience of life and the ever increasing chance of it ending anytime soon. 

As a matter of fact, in late May 2001, I had a serious premonition that my time was up, but my wife, a more serious Christian and a prayer warrior, mobilized the household into a period of fasting and prayers of supplications. When she then died, totally unexpectedly, intrasurgery, in the University of Lagos Teaching Hospital in January 2003, my thoughts went back to May 2001, less than two years before; and I came to the conviction that she died a Christ-like death, in substitution for a friend she loved so dearly, her husband also loved and still loves her equally dearly. Thus, to be spared to live this long has been an act totally of grace.”

He is happy that the story of his grass to grace coming from a rustic community and becoming an Emeritus Professor has been captured vividly in his autobiography, BRIDGING BOUNDARIES: MY HISTORY OF UPLIFTMENT FROM THE MARGINS, scheduled for public presentation at the University of Lagos on Thursday, April 25, 2019 as part of activities lined up to mark his octogenarian age.

He speaks further, “It has been a divinely guided and inspired journey, characterized by a uniquely sustained focus of an explicitly uncommon policy impact and influence, locally and globally; and one that has brought in its wake a bounty harvest of local, national and international recognitions and awards.

The reference is to our unmatched status as Africa’s pioneer Comparative Historian and lead Borderlands Scholar.”

He waxes philosophical on memorable moments in his life generally. “Bitter sweet, Sweet bitter, that’s what life is really! Though we always wish it joy all the way, the otherwise occasionally interjects, perhaps, to keep us in constant awareness of the essential uncertainty and inherent transience of our human situation and the need for faith in God and dependence on Him.  

“While this confession may not find accommodation with some of our readers, it has helped us to understand life better and be able to face the challenges with courage. Fortunately, life for us has been overwhelmingly more on the positive than negative side.  Safe for devastating deaths of loved ones, notably wife in 2003 and parents earlier (caring dad in 1972 and loving mum in 1990), it had been, overall, a life of immeasurable grace of a successful career, blissful marriage and happy family (nuclear and extended), robust health and, now, longevity. 

“We are not wealthy but, certainly, we are not poor; and, on occasions, when challenges had to be faced, there were providential compensations, like becoming a delightful father in September 1972, when my son was born, barely a month after losing my dear father in August; or when the practice of mourning my wife every first day of February when she was buried was turned into one of happy birthday anniversary for one of my delightful grandchildren, Taire Dime, born that day four years after her maternal grandmother! Praise God!”

What he considers greatest accomplishment in life “is giving birth to the new inter-discipline of Comparative African Borderlands Studies and the rare opportunities we have had to give it an unparalleled policy effect and visibility at all levels of public-decision-making arenas: locally, for Yewaland and wider Ogun State of Southwestern Nigeria through functions successively as Member of the State’s Boundary Committee from inception in 1997 to 2011 and elevation as the State’s Boundary Commissioner from 2003 to 2011; Nationally, in Nigeria, through a well documented tenure as pioneer Commissioner (International Boundaries) of the National Boundary Commission; Regionally, in West Africa via prominence of consultancy services to the Paris-based OECD’s Sahel& West Africa Club and, on occasions, directly to ECOWAS Secretariat/Commission; Continentally, as a foundation member of the African Union Border Programme Steering Committee and, in the first decade of the AUBP operations from 2007 to 2016, as lead consultant to the Programme; and, finally, internationally through Consultancy work for such key UN Agencies as the Regional Centre for Peace and Disarmament in Africa, Lome, Togo; the Centre for Regional Development, Africa Office, Nairobi, Kenya; and the UN Office for West Africa(UNOWA), Dakar, Senegal, all in connection with varied border cross-border policy initiatives of the different agencies.

These involvements have always filled us with enormous sense and feeling of self-fulfillment as a scholar, a historian, of a longstanding and highly sustained academic career that has held out boldly for all who care to see the social relevance of  an academic discipline that ill- conceived policy-making has for so long relegated to the back- burner of Nigerian, nay, African education.

“One lasting impact we have had the grace to make relates to our producing the locally commissioned historical research in 1994/1995, which formed the basis for the change of the identity of a whole historic zone and of the hitherto dominant constituent subethnic group in the Nigerian southwestern border region, the border area of Ogun State, from Egbado Division and Egbado to Yewaland and Yewa respectively.

“The reference here is to our smallest but most seminal publication, ‘The Birth of Yewaland: Studies And Documents Relating to the Change of a Yoruba Sub-Ethnic Name From Egbado to Yewa in Ogun State of Southwestern Nigeria’(Ibadan:Starco, 1995), which formed the basis of the public proclamation of July 1, 1995, in Ilaro by the people of the entire border region in Ogun State, formally enacted in the Legal Notice published in the Ogun State Government Gazette,  No.51, Vol.22, Abeokuta, 18th December 1997, Page 109. Nothing has pleased me more than the opportunity which this publication has offered us as a historian to cast a permanent footprint, so to speak, on the sand of time of our homeland border region in Nigeria.”

He has a piece of advice for the younger generation, “Walk the common adage of  ‘work and pray’. They need to embrace industry and determination to succeed. They need to be focused and disciplined, and not seek to cutting corners. They do not always have to toe lines of least resistance, but, rather, be prepared to face challenges that make for distinction. Above all, I would pray that they come the way of great mentors and be rightly guided. They must avoid bad companies like vermin. I pray that they be blessed, even as I have been so much blessed.”

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