As a young emerging
scholar in Africa, there are several African academics I look up to. Last
semester (Spring, 2018), I was fortunate to be a PhD Teaching Assistant of Prof.
Paul Tiyambe Zeleza. Despite being the Vice Chancellor of our university, USIU-Africa, Prof Zeleza normally teaches one
class every year. That course is African International Relations. I learned a
lot from him during the course of the semester. Despite it being an
undergraduate class, Prof. Zeleza exposed the students to interesting postcolonial
discourse in Africa. It was part of the extensive readings he shared to the
class that I reconnected with the writings of Professor Toyin Falola, a distinguished African
academic now based at the University of Texas.
This year, my
university was the host of the Eighth Toyin Falola International Conference on
Africa and the African Diaspora (TOFAC),
which was first staged at the Nigerian Premier University in Ibadan. This year’s
theme was: Beyond Histoty – African Agency. As a PhD student, it was my dream
to present one of my papers at this conference. I worked on my conference paper
titled “The Individual in Decision Making Theory: Some Perspective on Jakaya
Kikwete’s Presidency in Tanzania.” After the conference opening remarks by the
organizing committee and VC Prof. Zeleza, it was the turn of Prof. Toyin
Falola. It was the first time I was seeing him. He spoke briefly on the
conference theme and the history behind TOFAC. The Guest of Honor was Prof. Funmi
Olonisakin who gave the keynote speech. She touched on the meaning of ‘African
Agency’ – which I tweeted
exclusively.
After the short
health break, we broke into the thematic groups. The conference had many themes
ranging from cultural dynamism, Africa and China relations, Africa and
Globalization, Human Rights, Democracy and Leadership issues in Africa and
Diaspora. My paper was under the latter theme. I presented the paper and got
very good feedback which will further enrich my paper. After the first day, I
was happy to finally have a small chat with Prof. Falola. We spoke about the
keynote speech by Prof. Olonisakin, which had generated a lot of debate. We
also spoke about his contribution to the debate earlier that morning – which touched
on the role of the community in African societies, which was now dead. As a
student at the university, I was tasked to take the professor back to his hotel
that evening. I was happy to do that. Dr. David Mwambari, a former lecturer at
USIU-A who was part of the organizing committee also asked me to “take care of
the Professor” and make sure everything was okay until the end of the
conference. The next night, I took the professor to a local joint in Nairobi
for Nyama Choma. We spoke at length about academia, life, publishing, books,
family and many other things. I was curious to understand how he could publish
that much and what his motivation was.
He told me he
was now working on several Palgrave Handbooks.
He has published over 100 books and many other academic works. I asked him how
he does this and he responded with a question: “How many days do we have in a
year?” I responded. He replied “Write a page a day, by the end of the year, you
will have a book.” Apart from the academic talk during the four days I stayed
with him, I found out that he was an extremely humorous person. He cracked
jokes to the waiters, hotel porters and the conference participants.
I took him to
Maasai market at the city center on his last day in Nairobi. He was very happy
when he bought some exquisite paintings. “That is my best buy” he said. As a
collector, he says that the paintings are the best he has ever bought. As I
dropped him at the airport on Saturday evening, I realized how much I had
learned a lot from this giant academic. To me, learning is through shared
experiences that is beyond the classroom.
Nairobi,
8 July 2018
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