By Peter B. Enesi
Immediately I read the unexpected sad news of Prof Femi Kayode’s death, I put a call to Chief Jibril Olu Yusuf who was my classmate in Economics Department, University of Ibadan between 1976-1979, for confirmation.
Prof Kayode was one of our lecturers in the department. In those days, a section of the first floor of the Faculty of Social Sciences was occupied by the Economic lecturers like Professors O. Teriba, E Edozien, Aboyade, Lambo, Ibi Ajayi, Usoro, Ola Oni, Bade Onimode and Femi Kayode among others. Of all, I was particularly close to the last three.
While both Comrade Ola Oni and Prof Bade Onimode were firebrand socialists with the mantra of an imminent Revolution (40 years have come and gone!), Prof Kayode was on the conservative side.
They were arguably quintessential lecturers with impeccable character. Indomitable indeed. Their scholarship was legendary.
I will revisit the duo of socialist inclinations in a separate tribute whenever time permits.
I never knew Prof Kayode before my sojourn in U. I. He took me in the Introduction to Marketing as one of the elective courses. He was always punctual to his classes. Very thorough. You may be convinced that the Alaba Ibo traders must have gone through Prof Kayode’s classes in marketing.
Prof was my great benefactor throughout my stay in Ibadan. We were always engaged in field research and the remuneration enabled me to afford the purchase of meal tickets in bundles.
He was detribalized, generous and humble. In the 1978 summer holiday he traced me to my remote village- Ukpogoro in Okene Local government area. The surprise visit left an indelible memory and a great lesson of humility in me.
Prof Kayode was a man of integrity, handsome and well built with golden voice.
His death has set me asking, what is man? A contingent being who exists today but no more tomorrow. A being very complex and marvellous. Strong yet fragile. Powerful yet weak. Great yet miserable.
The futility of human endeavors and the absurdity of human existence is epitomised by the myth of Syisphus whose daily task was to roll up the heavy stone strenuously ad nauseam.
The phenomenologist cum existentialist Martin Heiddeger in his work ‘Being and Time ‘said we are beings- towards- death. Despite our instinct of self-perpetuation and self-preservation, death is an inescapable debt. The inevitability of death if truly understood and imbibed by Nigerians, the country would have been a better place.
Paradoxically we can never understand life unless we understand the phenomenon of death. We’re dying men and women. Life and death are inseparably intertwined. This death of a thing which defines our mortality is so arbitrary and tragic.
We find solace in Prof Femi Kayode’s death by Milton’s admonition, “Death is the golden key that opens the palace of eternity “. Yes, the palace of eternity has been opened to our kind hearted, humble erudite scholar Prof Kayode.
I will conclude this tribute with a poem by an unknown Author thus:
What is death? A little broadening of a ripple.
Upon the eternal shore.
A little loosening of the bands that cripple-
This and nothing more.
What’s death? God’s mercy, strange.
Uncomprehended;
The undiscovered goal
The land of promise when the toil
Is ended-
The day-dawn of the soul.
Prof Femi Kayode has paid his due.
Adieu sir! Till we meet to part no more.
Mr Peter B. Enesi wrote in from Lokoja