“I made a vow that my colleagues would not take their GCE O’ Level School certificate ahead of me. I made another promise that if they were ever going to the university at all, they would not get there ahead of me, and I was able to fulfil it. So I started training myself from 1966.” — Adebayo Williams.
Actually, this piece ought to have come out last week but for two reasons. One, I am not good at keeping birth dates even though I love to celebrate people whose life stories interest me, or who have impacted lives one way or the other, whenever they celebrate their landmark birthday. That explained why I didn’t remember that Prof. Williams was going to turn 75 on September 9.
I couldn’t believe it was five years since I wrote on his 70th birthday in 2021. How time flies indeed!
Mercifully, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s tribute to him reminded me of the date.
Even then, I couldn’t catch up with the column for last week because of yet another matter of urgent importance that I had committed myself to before September 9.
I am here talking about the fifth anniversary of the passing of Dr Adewale Adesoji Adeeyo, publisher of ‘The Anchor’ Newspaper. Adeeyo died in a Dubai hospital on October 14, 2021, during a prolonged illness. At the behest of his wife, Hauwa; a colleague, Olakunle Abimbola and I are collating some materials for a small publication to mark the fifth anniversary of Adeeyo’s demise. I therefore spent the whole of last weekend doing my bit of the job. That is the minimum we can do for another great Nigerian who was an embodiment of compassion.
Incidentally, Adeeyo was one of Prof. Williams’s close friends. As a matter of fact, it was at Adeeyo’s Ikeja GRA residence that I met Williams for the first time around 2003/04, even though I had been hearing his name years before. Then, it never occurred to me that both of us would still meet about three years later at this newspaper where he has been a member of the board of directors since the paper’s inception in 2006. He was also attending our weekly editorial board meetings for almost 15 years, until COVID-19, with its attendant social distance, did us part. We still see occasionally, though.
But then, 15 years is not too short to be in a position to say one or two things about someone you interacted with regularly within that period.
Prof., as we usually call him, is one of the eminent Nigerians that debated editorial topics with us for over one and a half decades. Others were Profs. Jide Oshuntokun and Ropo Sekoni, Ambassador Dapo Fafowora, and Prof Moses Akin Makinde, now deceased. Africans& Diaspora
Age is now taking its toll on them. But, Williams, though 75 years, is about the youngest. He doesn’t look it, though. He is still very agile.
His contributions to editorial discussions are as erudite as they can be. He is versatile and has a very high power of recalling events. In fact, I see him more as an encyclopaedia of sort. Given the quantum of the things he knows, it would not be a bad idea if he decides to write just a fraction of what he carries, not just to increase the tally of his books, but also to enrich human history and knowledge.
The way he would tell you stories of things that happened five/six decades ago, the exactness of the time, place, the people involved, etc. would make one marvel. Prof will tell you who was married to whose niece or cousin several years ago. He would tell you who was where five decades ago and what he did, etc. Not many people can do that at 75.
Williams is not just widely travelled, he has also traversed many parts of this country and knows them like the lines on his palms.
It is an understatement to say that Prof. Williams is also highly connected.
Today, we all call Adebayo Williams ‘prof’, but for him, it didn’t come easy. His road to academic stardom was bumpy.
Although he attended Gbongan-Odeomu Anglican Grammar School after his primary education at St. Luke’s Anglican Primary School, Gbongan, Osun State, he did not quite complete his secondary school education. Not that he dropped out of school (even though that was common in those days, and for various reasons), but the political circumstances of the era frustrated his attempt to finish.
As a matter of fact, he was on scholarship at the time his secondary education was aborted, so there was no question about his brilliance. But the scholarship was one of the first things he lost to the political crisis in the then Western Region in the 60s, a thing that would have signalled the end of Western education for some other people.
But not Adebayo Williams, the Gbongan-born erudite Prof. of English Studies and Literary Theory (with a strong specialisation in African literature and post-colonial criticism). A man whose surname looks so far from the regular names in his place of birth, but who nonetheless is so close to his roots.
That doggedness, that audacity to surmount seemingly insurmountable difficulties, made the difference between the title of professor which confers respectability that Adebayo Williams carries today, and what would have been if he had resigned to cruel fate, or succumbed to the challenges that led to his premature exit from secondary school.
It is to his eternal credit that he vowed not to let his peers who were lucky to complete their secondary education get their General Certificate of Education (GCE) O Level before him, or secure university admission ahead of him, and kept the vow.
Williams is now enjoying the fruits of that labour. Today, his name is not just ringing at the University of Ife, Ile-Ife, Osun State (now Obafemi Awolowo University) where he taught for about two decades, but also globally.
In a country where life expectancy is put at about 54.3 years for men and 54.9 years for women, as against the global average of 73.8 years (meaning the average Nigerian lives nearly two decades less than the global benchmark), to clock 75 years in Nigeria is no mean feat.
Although those of us who are Christians would always reject premature death as ‘not our portion’, the fact is, many Nigerians die long before even the Nigerian average. So, those who managed to make it to 75 deserve not only encomiums; they should be decorated with garlands. Particularly when they have also lived eventful lives like Williams, at a time the country was going through some of its most difficult moments.
Here, one is talking about Nigerians’ struggles to take the country back from soldiers who had tasted the ‘mudun-mudun’ (sweetness) of government and were therefore not keen on leaving the political stage. It was a long and tortuous journey to democracy and Williams stood to be counted at that critical period in the country’s history.
Perhaps Williams’s contributions to the democratic struggle would rank tall amongst his other achievements. When it became increasingly risky to fight the war from within, he joined other Nigerians in exile from where they put the heat on the soldiers’ buttocks. Africans& Diaspora
Williams was such a pain in the ass of Nigeria’s military dictators. Unlike the celluloid Andrew of the 80s, Williams still believed it was better to continue the struggle from within.
“I think I’d rather prefer to go under here than stay abroad, if you ask me. Even while I was in exile, I knew I had to come back and continue the struggle here,” he told ‘The Niche’.
I remember a particular lecture on democracy that he was invited to give in 1986 which he titled “A seminar to end all seminars” because of its potentially explosive nature. He had delivered several of such lectures even when the soldiers held sway.
That’s Williams for you. Uncommon audacity!
That was one of the reasons that endeared him to many prominent Nigerians, including Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who greeted him on clocking the major milestone. Africans& Diaspora
“Prof. Williams has, through his writings, teaching and intellectual engagements, inspired generations of students, academics, writers and readers”, Tinubu said. He described Williams as a trusted friend and ally adding “Prof. Williams’ 75th birthday is therefore an occasion to celebrate not only a remarkable personality but also to honour a life devoted to learning, literature and service of humanity.”
It is not every time that such kind words come from the seat of power simply because of a birthday.
In spite of his cosmopolitanism and exposure, Williams is still a typical Gbongan man. As a matter of fact, he holds the title of Asiwaju Otun Olufi (also referred to as Asaaju Otun Olufi) of Gbonganland.
Williams, the renowned columnist, scholar, literary critic, and public intellectual, was born in Gbongan, Osun State, on September 9, 1951.
Happy birthday, Adebayo Biala Alamu Williams. It is to the glory of God that today, your attainments in life have made you outgrow being called upon to grind pepper on the grinding stone!
Congratulations sir.
