Academics recall Jeyifo as one who married the Town and the Gown |

Tributes have continued to pour in for renowned literary scholar and public intellectual Biodun Jeyifo, with academics, writers and activists describing him as a rare intellectual who combined rigorous scholarship with deep social engagement.

The reflections came during the February 23, 2026 edition of the Toyin Falola Interview, chaired by celebrated historian Toyin Falola.

The virtual session, themed “Biodun Jeyifo: Literary Guru and Activist,” drew a global audience of more than 9.6 million participants across over 26 countries.

It featured a distinguished panel that included journalist and media rights advocate Chido Onumah; Emerita Professor Omofolabo Ajayi-Soyinka, an interdisciplinary scholar of theatre, gender and cultural studies; lawyer, poet and rights activist Ogaga Ifowodo; Senator Babafemi Ojudu, a journalist and former presidential adviser; Dr Wale Okediran, Secretary-General of the Pan African Writers Association; and Ghanaian poet-scholar Kofi Anyidoho, Director of the CODESRIA African Humanities Institute Programme at the University of Ghana.

Professor Falola situated Jeyifo within a global intellectual tradition, emphasizing the breadth of his scholarship and influence.

“We are here to honour Professor Biodun Jeyifo. His intervention has been big in terms of scholarship; some people would appreciate him for his radicalism,” Falola said.

“You could see how he was able to connect Yoruba cultural imagination to the bigger project of global theoretical formulations.”

He noted that Jeyifo’s work cut across continents and intellectual traditions.

“His career spanned three continents,” Falola added, stressing that the late scholar should be “rated among the world’s best post-colonial theorists.”

For Dr Wale Okediran, Jeyifo’s defining quality was his ability to move beyond the classroom into real-life struggles.

“Professor Biodun Jeyifo was multidimensional,” Okediran said. “He had the nose for fishing out people who are potential radicalists and who have the capacity to move the frontiers of activism.”

He recalled how Jeyifo helped mobilise students at the University of Ife to secure the release of a detained lecturer and later supported advocacy efforts during the campaign to save environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa.

“Biodun Jeyifo was always ready to help with resources,” Okediran said. “He was an amazing character. He married the town and the gown.”

Emerita Professor Omofolabo Ajayi-Soyinka described Jeyifo as a figure whose academic and political commitments were inseparable.

“Over the course of some 50 years that I knew Professor Biodun Jeyifo, I can claim to have interacted with him at three levels: scholar, teacher and activist, all integrated into one person,” she said.

She highlighted his role in the early development of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and his broader national engagement.

“He was relentless in his quest for a more equitable and less corrupt Nigeria,” she said.

“His scholarship as a literary critic and theorist flowed effortlessly into his activism… He cast his lot with the downtrodden and marginalised and was committed to raising consciousness about their rights.”

Lawyer, poet and scholar Ogaga Ifowodo focused on Jeyifo’s intellectual standards and mentorship.

“One word describes Biodun Jeyifo and that is ‘rigour’,” he said. “He always invented other ways to look at the same problem.”

Ifowodo recounted how a probing question during his doctoral examination forced him to rethink his theoretical framework, ultimately shaping his academic work.

At the same time, he noted Jeyifo’s human warmth: “As rigorous as he was, he was willing to see the lighter side of being, keeping hope alive… His example to present scholars is never to lose sight of the humanising factor of the arts and humanities.”

Journalist and activist Chido Onumah emphasized the political dimension of Jeyifo’s intellectual life.

“Very few scholars can connect their scholarship and the quest for human liberation the way Biodun Jeyifo did,” he said, pointing to his influential Talakawa column and involvement in pro-democracy struggles, including the 1978 “Ali Must Go” protests.

Senator Babafemi Ojudu described Jeyifo as a mentor who shaped critical thinkers rather than ideological followers.

“He never consciously tried to make anyone a Marxist,” Ojudu said. “He would open your mind to what your society is and what it ought to be. He never tried to spoon-feed his students.”

He recalled how Jeyifo used the lyrics of Afrobeat icon Fela Kuti in class to demonstrate that popular music could be read as poetry.

“Most of us never ended up as Marxists,” he added, “but we became people who paid attention to the issues in our country. We saw an example in him.”

With participants joining from universities, unions and cultural institutions across continents, the session painted a consistent portrait: a demanding scholar, a generous mentor and a public intellectual who refused to separate knowledge from social responsibility.

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