Dele Omotunde
Good afternoon, distinguished guests, members of the University community, colleagues, friends and family, ladies and gentlemen of the Press.
It is my honor to welcome you to the 124th Inaugural Lecture Series of the University of Jos.
Today’s lecturer is Professor Ezekiel Major Adeyi, Professor of Governance, Identity Politics, and Development Communication. A scholar of exceptional depth, Professor Adeyi holds a B.Sc. in Political Science, an M.Sc., and two PhDs — one in Economics & Development Studies, and another in Political Economy & Development Studies. His work sits at the intersection of governance, power, and nation-building.
Before going further I want to crave your indulgence to go off the track a little by saying the very much I personally know of the lecturer before yielding the microphone to him or the chairman (or both?)
Professor Major Adeyi hails from Ogbomosho in present day Oyo State. He graduated from the Ogbomosho Grammar School in 1975 three years before I came to Ogbomosho as a secondary school teacher at Baptist High School, Aromole. If our paths did not cross then we were lucky to have met as colleagues in the 1990s in TELL Communications Ltd., publishers of the high flying independent newsweekly, TELL. It was, as they say in love game, a long distance relationship though. While I was in the Lagos HQ Office, he was based in Jos as an outpost editor where he proved to be a very hardworking and meticulous journalist, very thorough and trustworthy.
Major Adeyi is no longer Major but a General in the academia!
He is very humble too. There was no assignment or errand that was too demeaning for him to carry out. I can remember his condescending to help deliver an autographed copy of my book, Opilogue, Not a Laughing Matter to a lover of TELL and follower of the avant garde Opilogue column. There was no GPS then but he went through the nooks and crannies of Jos to trace and locate the intended recipient. It was a show of magnanimity that really endeared him to me as a dependable colleague in need.
That’s Major Adeyi, today’s lecturer, for you. He is a very respectful and very accommodating person, yet ready to take up challenges, no matter how challenging! Very adventurous too like his Ogbomosho people who are not fazed with traveling out of their space to other lands to learn, strive, trade and settle therein. Like the Igbo the Ogbomosho people are also found everywhere, a very industrious community worthy of emulation, not jealousy.
It is in this his people’s nomadic tradition that he literally travelled all over the world like the legendary AJALA and eventually landed in Jos, Plateau State, many years ago with a strange Yoruba ‘name’, Major!
Wow! Wow! Wow!
To the Niger Delta people such a name is not unheard of. They bear funnier but circumstantial names like Senator, Councillor, Government, Director, Manager, Apollo, Tompolo and, wait a minute, Goodluck!, the recently most popular of South-South names.
It goes without saying that there are circumstantial names given to children at birth. Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, I do not know how our distinguished lecturer of today got to be named Major but I can hazard a guess, to wit, that his people felt like the Goodlucks of this world that a given name bears spiritual affinity with the bearer’s DNA and has the natural tendency to fulfill family and personal aspirations . For instance, a person bearing Councillor may become an LG Chairman tomorrow while a Senator may become Governor of anywhere including the Central Bank just like that and ending up with a fleet of cars and uncountable “rows upon rows” of exclusive duplexes and luxury flats in Apple, Mango and Banana Highlands. Then the master key of them all, GOODLUCK! That one can become anything without much ado!
In Professor Major Adeyi’s case it seems he has been preordained to take MAJOR roles and steps on his way to achieving and gaining MAJOR promotions through dint of hardwork and dedication to the sublime. Today Major Adeyi is no longer Major but a General in the academia!
Hear! Hear! Hear!
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Time is of the essence. Permit me, therefore, ladies and gentlemen, to cut a short story long to avoid waste of time. So, therefore, I want to slowly but quickly go into the second part of this brief intro by saying a few words on the rationale for our gathering here this afternoon.
Spoke on! Spoke on! Spoke on!
For his inaugural lecture, Professor Adeyi will engage us on a theme that speaks directly to Nigeria’s present and future: “The Dialectics of Teleology, Governability Crises and the Sovereignty of the Invisible Hand in Nigeria’s State Nation-Building Process.”
Grammar! Grammar! Grammar!
Major-General Adeyi, if the lecturer allows me to address him this way, is keen to profess his professorship today and itemize reasons why the interrelationship between the Town and the Gown can never and should never be severed, in the mighty name of Jesus Christ of Nassarawa and Plateau.
Hear! Hear! Hear!
In this lecture, he will unpack how competing purposes, governance failures, and market forces — Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” — shape the difficult journey of building a stable, cohesive and virile Nigerian state.
Hmm…Hmm…Humm…Akiika!
Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming Professor Ezekiel Major (General?) Adeyi to deliver the 124th Inaugural Lecture of our great University.
Hear! Hear! Hear!
Congrats, Professor Ezekiel Major (aka General) Adeyi. More shining feathers to your “auto-filled” academic cap. Ire o!
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