Interpreting Adeoye Akinsanya

Ademola Adebisi pays tribute to the erudite scholar and professor of political science at age 73

The University of Ilorin is today, one of the most sought out Universities in Nigeria. This is because of the stability of its academic calendar and also for being on the fast lane of modernisation of its teaching and learning processes. On the other hand, to a faction of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) in the University and its sympathisers , the university is a hotbed of ultraethno-religious conservatism and a citadel of intellectual primitiveness which deserves no other treatment than the kind of ostracisation and the scrapheap the national ASUU body has consigned it to.

While this obviously is an extreme view, one had, long envisaged the kind of division and clash that today prevail in the university. This was because, during the cold war era which fell within the period of its existence, particularly in the 1980s, the university also had its taste of polarisation and harboured potential for clash within the rank and file of its intellectuals even beyond the East and West ideological divide.

I could recall vividly as a student of the university between 1983 and 1987, that, among the lecturers, there were the liberals, the leftists, the centrists and Africanists. To the liberals, the individuals must enjoy their liberty and in most cases, they were pro-establishment and there were christians and muslims within their ranks. They were numerous. Notable among them were Prof. Eyitayo Lambo, a Professor of Business Administration who later became a Federal Minister and Prof. Ifeyori Ihimodu, a Professor of Economics, who later became the Director-General of the Ilorin-based Agricultural and Rural Management Training Institute (ARMTI). The banner of Africanists was carried by scholars like late Prof. (Mrs) Zulu Sofola and her late husband, Prof. J. O. Sofola; late Prof. A. M. Obayemi, who later became the Director-General of the Centre for Arts and Culture; late Prof. Oludare Olajubu, a Professor of Yoruba Language and Mrs. Veronica O. Ofuyah. They believed so much in the African ways of doing things and they personified this. The leftists existed in several. Yet they were loud on the campus. Their high sounding anti-capitalists language and the free socialist tracts and literature they circulated, attracted a good number of students, to their fold. Notable among them were Remi Medupin and Prof. S.O. Oduleye. They were critical of establishment; and they readily provided resistance to any perceived form of oppression by the university authority. One was not therefore surprised that they spear-headed the resistance that led to the imbroglio that has today turned the university into a coat of two colours. The centrists were sizeable in number. They understood the limitations of liberalism or capitalism and socialism and chose to espouse realistic positions on issues as they unfolded. Yet, they believed in democratic socialism and they were progressive. Prominent among them was our Head of Department then, that is the Department of Political Science, Prof. Adeoye Akinsanya. He had a disciple in Prof. Arthur E. Davies who was his first Ph.D candidate at the University of Lagos. Outside the department were Prof. Olu Obafemi; and Dr. D.O. Atteh, among others. Because of their centrist position, they often acted on the breadth of evidence on issues. Prof. Akinsanya a progressive and an erudite scholar will be 73 on June 5.

Born on June 5, 1944 at Ikenne in Ogun State, Adeoye Akinsanya became a professor at the age of 38 years having taught at the University of Lagos before joining the services of the University of Ilorin. I cannot but celebrate a teacher whose style of teaching and carriage in class fired my long –nursed ambition to become a “doctor”. Putting us through his courses on Multinational Corporations (MNCs) and Nigerian Government and Politics was exceptionally rigorous, but highly rewarding. In his research, he has focused on political economy, international relations, public administration and Nigerian Government and politics, and in all these areas, he has extensively broken new grounds and generated issues for further intellectual engagement.

Although not a Marxist, in most of his works on political economy, he had pontificated on the exploitation being perpetuated by the MNCS and how the Third World Governments could curtail their activities. This line of thought is discernible in many of his engaging works notably, “The Expropriation of Multinationals Property in The Third World and Multinationals in a changing Environment: A study of Business – Government Relations in the Third World”. He understands the intricate operations of capitalism, thus while he encourages the Third World countries to seek Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), he carefully sensitises them to the dangers of capitalism without offending the world bourgeois class that often finds his intellectual power and urbanity irresistible to engage for research and development. This moderate but progressive ideological temper can also be understood against the backdrop of the fact that he attended the University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Chicago for his Master’s and Ph.D degrees respectively both in the USA, having earned his first degree in Political Science from the University of Ibadan.

On Nigerian government and politics he remains a doyen. This can be seen in his independent and joint works with Prof. John A. Ayoade and Prof. Olatunde JB. Ojo. This intellectual crew of three had in the recent times bestridden Nigeria’s Political Science literature with works such as Nigeria’s Critical Elections 2011; The Jonathan Presidency: The First Year; and The Jonathan Presidency: The Sophomore Year, among others. In Akinsanya’s research engagement on Nigerian government and politics, one can sense in him a patriot who wants the Nigerian project to work. This is evident in his works on legislative -executive relations; local government administration; intergovernmental relations and administration of justice, among others. Yet, the intermittent and festering fissiparous tendency in our polity does provoke in him a second thought, hence his work with Ayoade and Ojo: Nigeria: Descent into Anarchy and collapse? Akinsanya’s position on religion in our days at Ilorin was ambivalent. Though he attended May Flower, Ikenne with Pastor W. Kumuyi where he tasted the morsel of atheism, yet he was neither one nor perfectly fitted enough for the services of the Pontiff. I later discovered his Anglican Christian upbringing when I attended the inhumation of his late mother years back. The picture of his devotion to God however became clear to me when his late lovely wife was sick and we used to pray together for her on-line. Clearer still today, he blesses me on WhatsApp almost everyday.

As his student, I found him intellectually a tough trainer. As a result of his quest for quality work and his bent on producing quality and employable graduates, passing through him was like passing through a furnace and which most of us did not immediately appreciate. Writing good term papers for him was an herculean task for us. In his tactful way of getting us to write good term papers, he would in a swoop describe what all of us had sometimes written for him as thrash and he would therefore call for quality work. It is this indirect way of motivation that has minted many of his students into the shinning gold they are today. This should indeed be expected of a man who has taught Political Science for 48 years in close to a dozen universities across the world and is still teaching and researching; has about 137 publications to his credit; reviewed numerous works; supervised innumerable student projects or thesis; made numerous national and international conference appearances and won over a dozen awards, scholarships and honours. As a thoroughbred and devoted academic, he has no other stock in trade other than intellectualism.

As I wish Prof. Akinsanya a happy birthday, let me use this occasion to charge African political scientists to let us raise our theoretical consciousness to promote the study of political science. Over the years, Western scholars have been in the forefront of generating theories, paradigms and models some of which are not even relevant to explain our political plight. We must therefore, rise not only to generate autochthonous models, paradigms and theories, but also challenge the existing ones for superior reasons.

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