By Chijioke Uwasomba
It
was with trepidation and a numbing disorder that I received the passing into
glory of a friend, comrade, patriot, father figure and “twin brother”,
Professor Martin Olusola Ogedengbe, Emeritus Professor of Civil Engineering,
Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. The late amiable Ogedengbe had been ill
for some time but his will to live was obvious in all his activities as he
always drove himself to the hospital, church and such other places like the
newspapers’ stand at the Obafemi Awolowo University gate for his newspapers.
In
his tribute to the late Ogedengbe, Toye Olorode, the Botanist and highly
regarded political economist described the death as the loss of “a courageous
comrade, a great friend, a man for all seasons”. Indeed, the late Ogedengbe was
a man of steely comportment who was rigidly committed to principles and not
given to blinking and backpedaling on issues of honour and decency.
As
a teacher and unionist he provided a strong moral compass for his students,
colleagues and the University Administrators alike. He was highly disciplined,
thorough, easy-going, well-bred and radiated culture and excellence. He was in
every material particular a man of high intellectual propensities.
Because
of his rounded intellectual pedigree, most people (including this miter) did
not know that he was in the Engineering discipline. For years, until I know him
closely, I had thought that he was in the Social Sciences. He wrote and engaged
in discourses which gave him off as a man of letters, and possibly one who
should have been a Professor of Literature. There is no doubt, as I later found
out, that he read a lot of literary works even as a student and teacher of
Engineering Sciences.
Interestingly,
it should be noted that the late Ogedengbe started his career at Ife in the
Department of Agricultural Engineering where he taught courses like Hydraulics,
Hydrology, Water Resources Management, Technical Report Writing, Structural
Analysis and other Civil Engineering-related courses.
It
was therefore not surprising that given his academic exposure that he could
single-handedly establish the Department of Civil Engineering in the University
which has pronounced a lot of Engineers who have and are contributing to the
development of our country. And for Ogedengbe, the icing on the cake came when
by a letter dated May 6, 2013, from the University Registrar, he was told of
his appointment as Emeritus Professor in recognition of his sterling academic
accomplishments as a scholar worthy of emulation.
The
late Ogedengbe was a strong voice on the floor of ASUU (the union of academics
that has since 1978 been a thorn in the flesh of successive irresponsible
governments in Nigeria). Very sequenced in his debates on the floor of ASUU and
the Senate of the University, and no wonder he was appointed into many
committees of both the Union and the University. Usually, his thoughts and
their vocalisations were anchored on logic and reasoned anecdotes making him an
admirably respected figure within the university system.
In
those days of insensate Military dictatorship of various stripes accompanied by
a creeping authoritarian flavour even in the Universities, the late Ogedengbe and
the likes of Eni Akigboungbe, Toye Olorode, Idowu Awopetu, Dipo Fashina, Segun
Osoba, ‘Layi Ogunkoya, Otas Ukponmwan, Kayode Adetugbo, Kola Torinmiro and
others, too numerous to mention, provided the intellectual and ideological
templates for the union in particular and the University in general with their encyclopedic
knowledge.
The
tragedy of our country today is that men and women of Ogedengbe’s stature are
leaving the scene with their unimpeachable values while those of lower values
with their crass ignorance and polluted mindsets are taking over the affairs of
our country. The country is indeed at the cross roads and at its worst!
An
old friend of the late Ogedengbe gave a vivid account of their relationship at
the Iowa University of Science and Technology, in the United States of America
in 1967 where they had gone for postgraduate studies, hinting of Ogedengbe’s
virtues of erudition and patriotic excellence.
It
is not unlikely that what shaped Ogedengbe’s consciousness and outlook was his
socialist inclination which prepared him for a life of conscientiousness. This,
as noted earlier on rubbed off on the platforms and units that he had had the
opportunity of creating and leading.
It is pathetic that this icon of truth and
integrity of the highest order has passed on at a time in our national life
when many members of the Nigerian Left are retreating and cocooning themselves
thereby creating an undeserved space for the rampaging neo-liberal order with
its theology of the market and ever-ready theologians who are holding away.
The
Left cannot be coy in telling whoever that cares to listen that the only
alternative for humanity is the socialist mode of economic production. Any other
economic process and arrangement, as Kagaslitsky has brilliantly articulated,
will amount to barbarism.
The
Nigerian Left which Professor Ogedengbe was eminently part of must come out of
its political closet to redeem the country from the clutches of rent seekers
and political pimps who have hijacked the post-colonial Nigerian State.
Partisan politics has become a profession to a good number of people who by
every definition and consideration could not have had the opportunity of
enjoying political power if things were properly arranged.
It
is intriguing that it is these otherwise less gifted and fourth-rated
individuals that have been allowed to determine the fate of millions of
Nigerians. No wonder our sensibilities are routinely assaulted by the indiscretions
of these elements who have nothing useful to offer other than their
self-serving proclivities.
There
must be a new way of doing things in Nigeria and the Left must be at the
vanguard of the process for the attainment of a new Nigeria. It is by attaining
the goals, ideals and values for which Ogedengbe cherished and lived that all
his creative and patriotic exertions would not have been in vain. Adieu good
brother and bonhomous comrade.
- Dr. Uwasomba is of the Department of English, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State. cjsomba@yahoo.co.uk
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