By: Folorunso Fatai Adisa
There are stories that walk. And there are stories that fly. This one soars, trailing a feathered plume of history, discipline, and the quiet authority of a scholar who knew the weight of standards and the glory of merit.
In his autobiography, the late Emeritus Professor Ayo Banjo recounted an unforgettable moment in the intellectual life of the University of Ibadan’s English Department. Known for its uncompromising academic standards, the department had, as of the late 1960s, produced only two First Class honours graduates in its thirty-year history: Molara Ogundipe and Dan Izevbaye.
But then came an exceptional moment, one that etched itself in departmental lore. Prof Banjo narrated how an external examiner, Professor Norman Jeffares of the University of Leeds, visited the department with a distinct presence and purpose. Jeffares had arrived with a neat pile of examination booklets which he carefully placed before him. As the board deliberated results, it was generally agreed that no student had met the traditional threshold for First Class.
However, one candidate had come very close.
At that juncture, Jeffares quietly pointed to the pile in front of him and declared, “This is a First Class.” The room fell silent. The board, already inclined towards the same conclusion, accepted his judgment without resistance. And that was how Biodun Jeyifo walked into legend, the third First Class graduate in the department’s austere history. Not by sentiment. Not by politics. Not through sentiment, nor internal lobbying, but by sheer, irrepressible brilliance and the incontrovertible evidence of excellence.
What followed was not only a distinguished academic career but the full justification of that bold declaration. Jeyifo did not just wear the First Class, he inhabited it. He stretched its seams. He turned it into a flame. In essays that electrified the discourse on modern African drama, he pierced the veil around Wole Soyinka’s, Africa’s first Nobel laureate in literature, dramaturgy and reframed it for a generation thirsty for intellectual clarity. Today, he serves as a Professor of African and African American Studies and Comparative Literature at Harvard University, and as a fellow of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African-American Research.
In many ways, this anecdote is more than a tribute to Prof Biodun Jeyifo’s brilliance; it is also a subtle, lasting reflection of Professor Ayo Banjo’s commitment to fairness, academic rigor, and the cultivation of genius. Prof Banjo was the quintessential university man, committed to the tripartite calling of teaching, research, and community service. He stood as a guardian of excellence, a cultivator of minds, and a quiet builder of futures.
Remembering Professor Banjo this morning stirs something deep. His passing was not merely the end of a scholarly chapter, it marked the departure of a standard-bearer in the annals of Nigerian higher education. Au revoir, Professor Banjo, a maker of achievers. Sleep well.
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