Olukotun ( 1953- 2023): Remembering the complete public intellectual
SAMUEL Ayodele Olukotun’s early aspiration for professional or academic excellence was thankfully fulfilled. Friends and acquaintances alike were struck by how his rare and wondrous faculty for achieving great feats and for making others feel greater than they really are was accomplished. His conduct lifted the spirit of everyone and especially so of his students each time they were face- to- face with him at tutorials where they sought to unravel one knotty issue or another in their assignments.
At the end of every engagement with him, his wards felt so intelligent, so skilful or so ingenious; all the things they could not possibly be. Despite Olukotun’s deeply or seriously thoughtful concern for the fate of Nigeria, he remained a contented or satisfied man in his private life. Professor Olukotun possessed all the qualities that qualify him as a perfect gentleman - empathy, sensitivity, grace and charm. His ability to persuade, delight and arouse admiration remains, even in his transition, a delightful talking point.
Olukotun’s extraordinary power of concentration ironically became his albatross as it drained him of his natural reserves so much that his conversations, his holidays or relaxation times were all directed solely to the aim of meeting programmed publication dates or targets. The forced leisure of long road travels gave him some time for peroration ahead of his attendance of his many events or programmes.
As his self- assurances grew, his repartee or quick witty response to diatribes or unfair criticism became more sharp, accurate or precise but in his trademark bon homie. As Olukotun grew older, he relished more and more the companionship of his peers. He always surrounded himself with congenial debating partners often persons who had opposing views to his.
As a raconteur or skilful narrator of the events of his growing up years, Olukotun had no rival. He would re- tell the story of his Ife studentship, for instance, with bubbling wit and fellow students would wonder if they ever caught the Great Ife charm. Belonging to many discussion groups which met at regular intervals of three or four times a year, the central theme of which discourse was the state of the nation, Olukotun neither missed his keen social sense nor abandoned disarming social smile.
Financial security eluded Olukotun and disallowed him from satisfying his generous impulses. The general poor remuneration of the nation’s eggheads or of tertiary institutions’ teachers and researchers prevented Olukotun from acquiring any fortune - substantial or otherwise. He abandoned his hope of sponsoring doctoral students in History, Diplomacy or International Relations or of endowing a chair of Media Studies, by whatever name called.
He was however generous in kind and cash within his means to friends and colleagues. Among his many mails are dozens of letters thanking him for gifts ranging from meals at eateries to tuition fees. He took special interest in orphans who managed to secure admission to college but who have no means to see themselves through financially. They were often in and out of his office and residence. Olukotun stood in loco parentis for many of them. He would discuss books with them and ask them questions on the materiality or contextuality of the issues to contemporary life.
Olukotun was enamoured of history, especially autobiographies and their more objective variant, biographies. There is probably not a single political figure of note whose works he did not read. He was also intimate with the classics - the ancient Greek and Roman philosophy. In literature, Olukotun had a passion for English romantic poets and nineteenth century novelists.
Emily Bronte’s narration of the interplay of passion, love, and vengeance in her Wuthering Heights was Olukotun’s forte. His distinctive understanding of the text stood him out as a potential outstanding literary critic. The delight in finding one’s own thoughts expressed in language more clear and convincing than one could hope to express by himself was Olukotun’s captivating flair for writers in the novel genre.
Religion remained for Olukotun an area that was best entertained outside of intellectual rigour or interest. In his later years, Olukotun attended church regularly and had even gone once or twice to the revival meeting conducted by Pastor Adeboye at the Redemption Camp. He maintained a tenuous relationship with church as a result of his ‘ out of station’ engagements. He had hoped when he turned a born again Christian that he would be saved so he could sing in the celestial choir whenever his bell tolled.
Olukotun believed that the universe is ruled by immutable laws that are not set aside for the benefit or displeasure of any individual. All humans have equal treatment regarding the laws. No special favours attend any group or sect. Olukotun had a scholar’s knowledge of the Bible and more than a nodding acquaintance of the Koran, the Talmud, the Pentateuch or the Torah and other religious works. He was at home over abstruse points of interpretation and translation as he engaged in numerous exchanges with friends and curious dilettante.
Olukotun’s scholarship gives us a great fund of talking point. He remains a solid contributor to the requirement to enlarge the surface area of public consciousness. Olukotun’s goal was to awaken our consciousness to the nascent reality of our democracy. In many of his works and particularly in Authoritarian State, Crisis of Democratisation and the Underground Media in Nigeria, he proposed the terms of engagement of an anti- people administration.
He explored and expanded the theme of the relationship between the media and the government of the day in Repressive State and Resurgent Media Under Nigeria’s Military Dictatorship 1988 - 1998. Olukotun carved new perspectives regarding the development of the media in Nigeria.
All through his works, Olukotun lamented how Nigeria has fallen below expectations compared to the starry- eyed projected development of her processes against her peer groups in Asia as of the 1960s.
Olukotun’s vision of a new Nigeria resonates with the cleareyed ideological position of ‘ devolution of power to the subnational governments’ which idea has willy- nilly returned to the front burner of the national question interrogation in the popular guise of ‘ true federalism’ or ‘ Restructuring.’ Never did Olukotun express his faith more eloquently than in his weekly engagement with the public in his Friday Musings which was eagerly awaited from week to week.
May the gentle soul of Ayo Olukotun continue to rest in peace.