Tekena Tamuno, Ex-UI VC, Dies at 83

Ademola Babalola A foremost Professor of History and former Vice-Chancellor of the university, University of Ibadan, Professor Tekena Tamuno, is dead. He died at the weekend in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital. He was aged 83.

His demise came as a shock to friends and colleagues as he was said to have recovered and was looking healthy after returning from the United States where he was reportedly treated for prostate cancer last month.

Details of his last moments were sketchy as his family members refused to grant interviews when THISDAY called at the Agodi residence of the late university administrator and scholar yesterday.

One of his sons, a lawyer; Tamuno’s widow and a few other relations who received sympathisers declined to talk to the press, describing their loss as “a private affair.”

They also turned down entreaties to copy entries in the condolence register already opened for the deceased, despite being reminded that the late historian was a public figure.

Reacting to Tamuno’s death, the Secretary Nigerian Academic of Letters (NAL) and fellow historian, Prof. Olutayo Charles Adesina, said the Nigerian academic community and indeed the nation had lost “an extremely cerebral historian and foremost scholar of the humanities, who combined both the rigour and flexibility needed for a better understanding of his field.”

Adesina, a former Head, Department of History, UI, where the deceased had also taught, said the late historian was an extremely approachable academic with excellent interpersonal relations qualities. “They don’t build them like that anymore; he was a study in humility.”

Another colleague and erudite linguist, Prof. Francis Egbokhare, echoed Adesina remark, saying: “For a man of his kind of stature, an intellectual and administrator, he was unbelievably accessible to the younger ones, unlike others who would strut like Emperors.

“If you were with him, you may forget you were not with your age mate. But, more importantly, he was a man who had great faith in God.”

Besides, Egbokhare said the late Tamuno, a prolific author of many books and articles in journals, would be missed for his numerous and quality intellectual contributions.

Tamuno served as Chancellor, Redeemer’s University; Chairman of the presidential panel on National Security from October 2001 to December 2002 and panel on Policing Nigeria Project 2002 to 2003.

As a poet and historian, Tamuno, was a fellow of both the Nigerian Academy of Letters and Rockefeller Foundation and a member of the National Universities Commission (NUC).

Born on January 28, 1932, in Okrika, Rivers State, he attended St. Peter,s School, Okrika from 1938 to 46; Okrika Grammar School, Okrika from 1947 to 51; University College, Ibadan from 1953 to1958; Birkbeck College, University of London from 1960 to 62; and Columbia University, New York City, United States from 1965 to 66.