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Professor Ayo Banjo was educated at the universities of Glasgow, Leeds, the University of California at Los Angeles and the University of Ibadan. He had his secondary education at Igbobi College, Lagos and had had primary schooling at Oyo where he was born in 1934 on the grounds of Saint Andrews College to a highly educated father who had graduated from Foura Bay College, Freetown, Sierra Leone.
He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and his trajectory in life was determined by how hard he was willing to push himself because money was not the problem as it was for many of his compatriots. His illustrious father even rose to be a college principal and a parliamentarian representing one of the Ijebu constituencies in the Western House of Assembly thus having toes in the two critical agencies of growth and modernisation in Nigeria, the church and government. Ayo Ladipo Banjo comes from an illustrious family of five children, four boys and a girl and they all did well, his older brother was a famous medical doctor and his junior brother an academic librarian; the last of the boys was at the Ibadan Grammar School where he distinguished himself as a famous footballer who took to business as an adult. The oldest and youngest brothers have joined the saints triumphant unfortunately.
Ayodeji Ladipo Banjo who turned 90 on May 2 was former vice chancellor of the premier university of Ibadan. Bravo erudite Professor (emeritus ) of English Language at the University of Ibadan from where he took a voluntary retirement about three decades ago. Having taught in one capacity or the other since 1966 and rising from the position of lecturer to senior lecturer, professor and head of department, Dean of Faculty of Arts, Deputy vice chancellor, acting vice chancellor for a year before becoming finally, vice chancellor from 1984 to 1994. He has been pro chancellor and chairman of the governing councils of the universities of Port Harcourt and Ilorin and the new Anglican mission-endowed Bishop Ajayi Crowther University ending finally as chairman of the governing council of the National Universities Commission.
His career spanned a period of 60 years or slightly more. He can rightly be called “Mr Nigerian University”. He is a recipient of several accolades and fellowships of the Nigerian Academy of Letters, (FNAL) NNOM, National Order of Merit and a grateful country has honoured him with the title of Commander of the of the Niger (CON) the highest national honour for distinguished service to the country in education. He has been visiting professor of English to the University of the West Indies and held a visiting fellowship at Cambridge University. Not many people know about his role as a teacher of English in government secondary schools in the old government colleges including a stint at the Government College Ugheli now in Delta State where his late wife hailed from. Service as a secondary school teacher gave him the insight which informed his writing a successful book on English language at that level. The teaching of English to people whose mother tongue was not English apparently influenced his research interest at university. His life epitomises the statement that service deserves its reward and Nigeria has rewarded Professor Banjo with numerous appointments including serving as chairman of the board of literature award of Nigerian Natural Liquefied Gas (NNLG) and was also called to advise government on remuneration of university staff several times when university staff downed their “tools” so to say. In all these interventions, he has fought for the sector and refused to give up when his advice was turned down. He has been pained when universities were poorly funded despite government prodding of the sector to expand in the face of growing students applications for admission. He foresaw the founding of private universities but he expected their entry to be in an orderly fashion to complement government efforts in the area but not in the commercial trading fashion by which the expectation of making money had lured all kinds of characters into the venture which has led to duplication of academic and professional offering with little distinction or difference from one another.
I have had occasional discussion with the iconic scholar on this and I know he is more passionate and pained by the unwieldy nature in which higher educational institutions has developed in Nigeria than those of us who have taken public position on this tragic situation.
The University of Ibadan which he headed for practically 11 years was hobbled by the weight of non-academic distractions of provision of municipal services totally unrelated to the normal call of universities in other climes and places. Universities were for exchange of ideas and teaching of students without being burdened down by municipal inefficiency. How to return universities to its primary purpose of research and pedagogy was a problem faced by Banjo and his colleagues confronting militant trade unionism of academic and non-academic staff. Those at the helm of affairs in the universities who know what to do have surrendered to political interference and the desire to keep their wretched jobs while constantly threatened by those in government and their supervisory bureaucracy.
Like the country the problem of the university has become hydra headed to the point of irreversibility, Professor Banjo remains a constant reference point in university administration like Professor Kenneth Onwuka Dike as vice chancellor of Ibadan and Professor J.F Ade Ajayi as vice chancellor of Lagos. He will continue to be remembered for his high integrity and transparency and commitment to good university administration.
He and I live in the same area of Ibadan undistinguishable from other areas of poorly maintained roads. He lives in a simple house that unlike many Nigerians who have held high positions in the country is not different from those of his neighbours. He joins all of us in our neighbourhood association to contribute money to pay local security services, repair security gates and to plead for mercy from electricity provider to deliver power to struggling teachers who need to read to do the normal duties of professors. Forget about potable water; everybody has his or her own dugout well or borehole from which we all at least get water to clean our toilets and to wash plates and utensils in the kitchen while we buy bottled water to drink but we cannot bet our lives on the quality of the bottled water! Everybody who can afford it is a local government on his or her own providing water, electricity and security in modern Nigeria!
This reminds me of a story by late Professor Ladipo Akinkugbe, distinguished professor emeritus of Medicine in Ibadan who said after attending a conference in Oxford University in England, he went out to buy a pump and giant switch and spare parts for his generator followed by an English colleague who innocently asked him if he was into big time farming somewhere in the bush near Ibadan. When the English man was told what he bought were for his house he could not understand or believe him. Professor Banjo can be very funny especially when we discuss our neighbourhood affairs and how to “encourage “the NEPA people to remember us that we need light to remain relevant in our lecture rooms!
On a personal note, when I was pro chancellor and chairman of the governing council of Ekiti State University, I invited him and Professor Kayode Oyediran, and Professor Olufemi Bamiro, all former vice chancellors of the University of Ibadan to help me choose the best vice chancellor for the newly amalgamated three state universities in the state. Of course they did an excellent job and when the governor who is statutorily the Visitor saw the calibre of the people involved, he said if Professor Banjo had a hand in it, he, the governor, would not vary the recommendation and he quickly acceded to my request by appointing Professor Dipo Aina, a first class soil scientist who elevated the university to a higher level by virtually rebuilding it
Professor Banjo is big man academically and physically and there are unfortunately not many of his type in the current leadership of Nigerian universities. He has used his talents to help along with others to establish the Nigerian Academy of Letters of which he was the second president. Unless he was sick or engaged with state affairs, he has been a permanent feature of the Academy of Letters and the Academy remains eternally grateful.
Live long, distinguished and iconic academic and university administrator and leader of men.
