It was a drama of an evening. It was more than a dinner for Professor Biodun Jeyifo. BJ, as he is fondly called, was marking his 80th birthday. He was not going to be generous to the man sitting next to him. Wole Soyinka, that is.

He launched a barb at the bard. The memory travelled about 60 years ago. He charged that Soyinka only taught class twice in the full year, in the end, BJ was given a miserly B. Kunle Ajibade loomed from the sideline and tried to see the virtue of it all.

If it was any consolation, Soyinka had invited him to abandon the English department and join him at dramatic arts. After a hesitation, BJ joined him and moved away from what Soyinka described as deadwoods.

Soyinka defended himself as a teacher, going back to his father Essay, and how he has the teacher gene. If he was able to pummel him with a humilating B, Soyinka did two things. First, he made a case for BJ to make a first class.

WS made a fervent plea for BJ and wondered whether there was any essay that could match the authority of his voice and the rigour of his perspective. Soyinka made the point and won the day for BJ and became third to make first class in the history of the premier university.

BJ would make the point later that that he was himself not liberal with his marks. At a panel held earlier, I spoke of his generosity. In a last class, I recalled using the word antipodal. The class drowned me in an uproar and they thought I was a showoff.

‘I like that word,” said BJ.

I was vindicated. Ajibade and Ogoga Ifowodo made the point that BJ was stingy with his marks. It was paradox that he would complain of being shortchanged. There was a case of an essay written by Femi Macaulay. He scored him A- there was no such category as A-. He called Macaulay to his office and contended that the piece was not an a and not b+. he just would not let Macaulay be.

After his querulous issues with Soyinka. BJ confessed that WS gave him a note that opened his career in the United States.

Dr. Bisi Anyadike, who runs a school at Ife gushes about how BJ inspired her.