15 Mar 2009 |
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Dapo Adelugba: A Teacher's Reward By Reuben Abati IN the past week, many tributes have been written on Professor Dapo Adelugba, Professor of Theatre Arts and a father-figure in the Nigerian arts community, significantly by his former students, and it is just as well that it is the students whose lives he has touched and helped to mould that are using the occassion of his 70th birthday to celebrate him and to say thank you to a teacher who has devoted his entire life to giving and serving. I am one of his beneficiaries and I can attest to the fact that he is indeed, as all my former school mates readily state, a quintessential teacher. Adelugba as teacher of dramaturgy seeks to instil in his students, the very essence of the Renaissance man who aspired to excel in all things. He is a romantic who believed and still believes in the capacity of every student to develop to his or her fullest potentials. A hardworking scholar, we his students struggled to keep up with him. He read every day till late in the night. He burnt the midnight oil as if he was planning to sit for an examination. I don't remember him ever going on any long holiday. By the time I arrived at the University of Ibadan in 1986, I met many of the students calling him Baba. He was, you can imagine, just 47 at the time, but everyone called him Baba, even his own colleagues, because by 47, he had already built a formidable reputation as one of the leading lights in the theatre arts profession in Nigeria and Africa. He is probably the most versatile teacher of theatre arts in Nigeria today: he could teach virtually every subject from dramaturgy to history to directing, media, speech, performance theory, criticism and special studies and he had written on each and every one of these areas. Actor, stage director, dramaturge, theorist and critic, historian, teacher, researcher, and administrator, Baba has devoted his life entirely to the teaching of other people's children, beginning from his alma mater, Ibadan Grammar School, to the Univeristy of Ibadan where he retired five years ago, having attained the age of 65 years. He is now still teaching at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. He was not one of those teachers who chased the girls, he didn't care where you came from, he took his job very seriously and he expected the student to do his bit. He loved brilliant students, but he also went out of his way to encourage even the average ones to push themselves. He was forever looking for that special ability in every student, and if he could just spot anything that looked like talent, he would never allow that student to falter. He served as Head of Department and later Dean of the Faculty of Arts, and as Director of the Oyo State Arts Council. At 70, he has no mansions to point to, no exotic cars, no fat bank accounts, but he can point to lives that he has helped to build and nurture. It is sad that in this country today, such teachers are now in short supply. Baba hated those he called plodders, or scallywags, and those of whom he was wont to say: "I know your type". Baba knew every type. He had taught generations of students, including parents and their children and he could tell the story of the department and of the profession in a manner in which no one else could. He was essentially a UI man, and he did not joke with the reputation that he and others had helped to build for the Ibadan School of Drama. I recall that upon my arrival in Ibadan, there had been some skepticism about the First Class from the University of Calabar, but before the first semester of the MA programme ended, I had become the beloved student of every teacher and Baba's favourite student in particular. We were many in that category - Baba's proteges, and in all the tributes that have been written, the authors have been honest about the dedication and the kindness of this teacher of teachers. We were so taken up by him that we all specialised in mimicking him: his turn of phrase, his humour and his mannerisms. Adelugba in a good mood will break into raucuous laughter in a deep guttural voice, as he stammers out his excitement: Ahn han Han, omo buruku, han han an hu hu hu, omo buruuku uuu... (with the laughter becoming a graduated echo). Where is Emmanuel Oga, please? And Marcellinus Okhakhu, Henry Foluso, Femi Shaka, Onookome Okome and Sola Fosudo to come and act it all out. And as the laughter stretches out, the old teacher will place his left hand behind his back and scratch his lower back or navel, his right hand holding his heart, as he infects his audience with innocent laughter. Whenever we wanted to have fun, we re-enacted the old man's ways in and out of the classrooom. But his anger was just as legendary. He could shout down the roof, if you stepped out of line. He was a firm teacher and a great disciplinarian. He never had to look for adjectives to put down an erring student. Even his own colleagues, many of whom had been his students at one time or the other, were not spared. "You fool!", he would bellow, screaming with every ounce of energy in him. Other students within earshot would promptly flee. "You sca-lly-wag". By now, his two hands are flailing. "You are telling me that is what you think? Now tell me, what exactly do you think? Fine. If that is what you think, you go and set up your own university, you set up your own Faculty and you set up your own Department and you award yourself a Ph.D since you are such an extraordinary thinker.....Get out of my office right now and don't let me ever see you again." You try to scamper out of sight as the man turns and fumes on his chair, partly hidden behind a forest of books and a table scattered all over with students' scripts, cigarette butts and pieces of half-eaten kolanut. "Excuse me. Excuse me. Come back here," he'd call out. You are already half way out of the door, so you are not too sure. "I say come back here." So, you return, like a weather-beaten chicken. "You know what? Something has also just occurred to me." "Yes sir." "It has just occurred to me that you are a fool. A big fool. Now, get out of here". Baba was famous for his meat pie, a bottle of coke, a packet of Benson and Hedges and kolanut. That was his staple food. Many students at one time or the other had to go to the Students' Union Building to get these for him. As the cigarette burned, he either marked students' scripts or engaged in some other academic work. There was never an idle moment for him. He was an external examiner in many departments across the country. He was also a practical man of the theatre who adapted plays for production or directed other people's scripts. He was actively involved in the documentation of theatre history and the work of other practitioners through the LACE Ocassional Publications which he funded with his own resources. He is widely published in academic journals. He encouraged his students to write and pursue the scholastic life. I recall doing a piece while I was still a Masters student which he advised me to send to an academic journal: Research in African Literatures. When we received a letter accepting the material for publication, he was excited. Then, he asked me to write another one which got published in the Literary Half-Yearly. And another one. And so on. He expected you to be on top of your act all the time. He supervised my Masters and Doctoral Theses. All his graduate students have stories to tell. Ask Patrick Ebewo. Or Charity Pever-Ge. Sometimes, a session with Baba could stretch till 2 am. You wouldn't dare blink or doze off. And he could continue the asessment of your work, through conversation and clarifications as he made his way to his home in the staff quarters, only to release you around 4 am, with strict instructions that he expected to see you in class at 9 am. "You have a good night's rest and see you in class at 9." Full-time doctoral students, Baba's students in particular were made to teach courses in the department. I remember teaching at various times Directing, Special Author: J M Synge and Wole Soyinka, Theatre Arts Theory and Criticism, and another course focussing on the Anglo-Irish Drama of the 19th Century and Modern Nigerian Theatre. The late night notwithstanding, Baba will arrive in class on time, and you wouldn't dare stutter while teaching. He would sit at the back of the class watching you, intervening ocassionally to teach both you, the teacher and the students His energy level was so high, all his graduate students soon started taking kolanut and meat pie. He drove himself hard and he expected even his own colleagues to work just as hard. As Head of Department, he introduced what he called team teaching which many of the lecturers resented. But he always thought that team teaching was a better way of imparting knowledge to students. For all his intellectual achievements, he was very humble. I recall he had to seek other opinions on my theses. "Let's seek independent opinion," he had said. My MA thesis was sent to Dr Carol Dawes. And the Ph.D to Professor Micheal O'Neill of the University College, Dublin. The latter even agreed to take me on for a post-doctoral programme and we had made all the arrangements. Former students always stopped by to see him. But after the exchange of pleasantries ("It's good to see you", was his standard phrase), he could suddenly stand up and go to his bookshelf and select a number of books which he would record in an exam answer sheet. He would then turn to his guest. "I think these are books you should read. And when you have finished doing so, you come and see me, let us discuss. Or better still you send me some notes." The confused guest will collect the books and say thank you sir and immediately flee. "You know that fellow", Baba would say, "he made a Second Upper, but he was not very strong in Dramatic Literature. That's why I have given him those books to plug some holes in his head". It didn't matter that the guest graduated ten years ago and has since moved on to other things! After submitting my Ph.D Thesis to the graduate school, Baba had one fateful evening asked me to follow him home. "You go through that bookshelf there and this one and that one and that one, and select fifty books on Irish Drama, on Theory and Criticism, and Dramaturgy." I couldn't get his drift. But I complied with his directive. When I was through, he went through the books one by one, removed some and added others, making sure that the books were up to 50. "Now, you take a notebook, record all these books, and keep them in this corner. I want you to read each and every one of them and write a review of every book. When you finish with this, then we can talk about your Ph.D thesis again," I didn't know whether to say yes sir or to burst out in tears. Then he added: "By the time you are through with those books, if there are still any gaps in your head, we would have filled them. Good night " Last year, I met Baba at the Oduduwa Hall of Obafemi Awolowo Univesrity, Ile-Ife, and he kept talking about my Ph.D thesis that was completed in 1990. "We need to get back to that thesis and publish it as a book. Your chapter on Revolt. I have been thinking about it." Baba is such a kind soul and an unforgettable teacher. A few years ago, there was a fire outbreak in the Department and later there was another fire incident in his home, and he lost many of his books. But he has lost nothing of his sense of humour and commitment to duty. Now that he is out of the University of Ibadan, and he steps into the winter of his life, it is hard to think that another scholar now occupies Room 100A Faculty of Arts Main Building, University of Ibadan, Baba's personal office. But we thank God for his life, as I borrow the words of Odia Ofeimun in the poem titled Opelenge (from the collection titled: I will ask questions with stones if they take my voice, 2008, p. 32): "Among dancing thespians thumbing the earth/your foot is light; your music/invites obeisance that will not date/year in and out, you are the stripling/boasting a barreled memory, a feather/moving a flotilla of timber with the sass of a wish/You've held fates beyond our city of seven hills/enough to defeat infernos that gored your home...". Happy Birthday sir.
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