By Abubakar Jimoh
The effusive and glowing tribute written by the permanent secretary, Federal Ministry of Communication Technology, Dr. Tunji Olaopa on the exemplary life of Professor Kunle Amuwo and published recently by the Nation’s Newspaper could be described as a shrapnel that left gaping holes in my heart and that of other political science graduates of the University of Ibadan who had the privilege of being taught by one of Nigeria’s Quintessential and erudite scholars. A very terse and emotional text message from one of my political science course mates and secretary of the post-graduate school, Benue State University, Mrs Funmi Tolufashe drew my attention to Dr. Olaopa’s seeming obituary announcement of the demise of Professor Amuwo. The tragic news came like a thunderbolt and I paced around in my hotel room in Lagos having gone to Nigeria’s commercial hub to organize a press conference held by NAFDAC to parade some criminal elements indulged in counterfeiting of drugs. I was alone wailing and bemoaning without any chorus life’s unkindest cut on an amiable, vivacious, humble and enterprising scholar. Several unanswered questions raced through my mind, what killed our beloved and harmless Professor Amuwo? Was he ill or was his illness mismanaged? Is it true that good people don’t live long? Why is life so short and brutish in our clime? I fired a repost to my ‘sister’ Fumni Tolufashe, what killed Prof. Amuwo and she drew blank “I don’t know ooh my brother” was her answer. I made further enquiries from few other classmates and they were equally shocked without inkling of the passage of one of political science’s fast varnishing Torch Bearers in the country. I had to fall back on the snippet of information gleaned from Dr. Olaopa’s dirge.
Professor Amuwo’s death is a great lose not only to the once vibrant Nigerian Association of Political Scientists but also to the nation at large. In the heydays of the political science department, University of Ibadan, the genre of Professors Amuwo, Eghosa Osaghae, Jinmi Adisa, O.B.C. Nwolise, Adigun Agbaje and Bayo Okunade held sway and they were conveniently described as the intellectual protégés of the Doyen and Founding Fathers of political science scholarship at the Premiere University in the mould of Professors Billy Dudley, Peter Ekeh and Bayo Adekanye. It is on record that under these great scholars, political science as a discipline flourished and most products of that intellectual enterprise have shone like diamond stars in various facets of life.
Kunle Amuwo
I became close to late Professor Amuwo and Jinmi Adisa when I emerged the best graduating student in both political science department and entire faculty of the social sciences of the Premier University in 1987. The duo celebrated and encouraged me to immediately pursue my postgraduate studies but I was under family pressure to pick up a job and assist my parents to fend for my siblings who were undergraduates. I however remained eternally grateful to professors Amuwo and Adisa for their support especially the yearly referee reports they wrote to promote my unsuccessful bids for the commonwealth scholarship to study abroad.
It is regretful and unfortunate that I have to pay glowing tribute to Professor Amuwo when he is not alive to savour it.
This has brought to the fore the familiar but unanswered questions – why do good people die untimely? Posed different (to wit late Prof. Amuwo), does this suggests that bad people perforce live longer than good people? Are there forces within our environment that cut short the lives of our best minds and finest elements? It seems to me that these questions often demand no answers as they are nuanced in the intellectual interrogation and exploration of the omnipotence of God who gives and takes life at will. A moment like this calls for sober reflection on the manner of our existence and survival from the drudgery and vicissitude of life. Death is one eternal debt that we must pay one day as mortal beings. Death gives Life (Birth) its existential and utilitarian meaning for its absence is to contemplate vacuous eternity bereft of the true essence of life. Death is coterminous with Birth and signals the end of uncertain journey on earth. Painful as it is, life without the menacing and lurking shadow of death has no meaning. Death is an unwanted visitor whose sneaky entrance into a household is often a source of consternation.
As I join his bereaved family other griefing colleagues in wishing Professor Amuwo eternal rest in the bossom of the Lord, I remember with heavy heart the death of my beloved mother via a fatal motor accident in 1994 at the unripe age of 48years. I thought death had done its worst until it began to bear its fang on many of my close acolytes and friends – Abdullahi Aliyu in 1995, Umar Sule-otu in 1999, Ben Ukwuoma of Guardian Newspapers in 2012 and ruefully Salihu Ibrahim Ojapa on 14th February, 2013 (Lovers day). Oh! Death is no respecter of age, class, time and emotion.
It has been a recrudescence of painful and agonizing moments for me. May their gentle souls rest in perfect peace!
Dr. Jimoh is the Director of Special Duties at NAFDAC, Abuja.
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