WE knew each other before we met—through the magical medium of penmanship. We contributed to the same journal. We also studied at the same period in the great state of New York; he at Columbia University, and I at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He was a graduate student, and I was a graduate student and faculty member. Scholarship, Church, and Politics eventually brought us together. In Abuja. We are both Knights of the Methodist Church, members of the People’s Democratic Party, and providentially served as Ministers of Education. He was a worthy successor of mine in that office. We also relate ideologically and intellectually and have interrogated the endemic topic “Of the Problem with Nigeria”, through poetry, fiction, and non-fiction.
Consider this rendering in a book I published in 2012, Nigeria And The Lugardian Hubris, Vision, Crisis and Prospects. He opined as follows:
This is a provocative reminder of Lugard’s Indirect Rule as the source of Nigeria’s structural deformity as a nation and the disorientation of Nigerians who have had to grapple with the contradictions programmed into a pluralistic society. Richly detailed and refreshing with new insights, The Lugardian Hubris is a compelling read”.
Ten years later, in my yet-to-be-published book, Nigeria, A Crumbling Giant? he offered this insight in his introductory remark:
It is gratifying that Professor Ihechukwu Madubuike, a distinguished patriot and accomplished professional whose intellectual power has been deployed variously to promote democratic ideals, has produced this timely book covering some pertinent issues.(2022).
And I wrote as follows about Beyond Realities, a collection of poems he published in 2007:
…The author is critical of the prevailing political currents of his time and chides some of the values that seem to prevail in contemporary society. The poems range from the satirical to powerful meditations on love, nature, travel, and the world around the author. The volume contains something for everyone. It is a pot-pourri, gripping and inspiring in its admixture of the real and the surreal.
If this is not a testament to an enduring intellectual partnership that transcends borders, what is? It reminds one of the cerebral relationship between Professor Adiele Afigbo and his alter ego and fellow historiographer, the distinguished Toyin Falola.
A graduate of Political Science, Tunde is at home discussing literature as he is in analyzing foreign affairs, education, poetry, and, of course, politics. His literary output cuts across subject boundaries. A literary “touch a tout”, I have not stopped wondering at how he found time to produce the volumes of books in his stable, especially his tour de force, My Mission To Germany, published in 2010. He has not stopped writing.
In 2015, he brought out his book of poetry, Fate and Faith, dedicated to Christopher Okigbo and Wole Soyinka, and recently, many books in education, textbooks, or readers for our schools and colleges bear his name. He again showed consistency in his discomfiture with the politics of the time and his desire for a change.:
Today, the nation’s soul is on fire. There is hunger and misery, criminal corruptions, and barefaced tyranny. There is structural and social decadence. People are being misruled by gangs of parasites and predators without the slightest regard for humanity and the rule of law, And we are presently rolling along a regular course of systemic decay “(p.12).
This was Tunde’s perception of Nigeria in 2015, when Fate and Faith hit the bookstore. Ten years later (2025), the existential conundrum has not changed, structurally or socially. Only new predators on the saddle, drawing us backwards. The charge list is dreadful. But who will draw up one to the effete politics that persists, in a clime where dirtiness, sycophancy, and lechery are more than convulsive, pushed to the level of a decadent art. In a decent, progressive clime, most of these power seekers would be declared outlaws and enemies of society. We can appreciate thus why Prof Adeniran, and other patriots in and outside the Afenifere family, formerly led by Pa Ayo Adebanjo, have strategically distanced themselves from the present waywardness of the Ahmed Tinubu administration. It is a patriotic move against the politics of exclusion in a notoriously plural society.
Like I did in Sequences, a Collection of poems published in 2004 by Caltop, Abuja, Prof. Adeniran, in the Preface of Fate and Faith and in his Appendix, which is his speech at its public presentation in Ibadan on June 1983), adduced a crystallization of his thoughts on poetry, which include that,” poetry, should forever remain an important weapon for sharpening human sensibilities and for making man truly human” (P.114). A leadership that is still waging ethnic wars and enthroning a bread-and-butter ideology is degrading our humanity.
And as I wrote on page 36 of Sequences: in 1970: “When a nigger kicks a nigger, where is the negritude. When a brother stabs a brother, where is the hope? Where is Negritude?”.
“Groupishness”, says Thomas Sowell, leads to disparities and discrimination, exacerbates tribal and religious tensions, and foreshadows state capture and state failure. This is especially so when it becomes a state policy. Our political leaders should have a rethink.
On the cultural side, Tunde and I have had occasions to interrogate the historic linkage, bordering perhaps, on a blood link, between the Igbo and the Yoruba. We have discussed the existence of a book or an essay on the Yoruba origin of the Igbo language or vice versa. The clusters of Ado settlements in Yoruba land, not forgetting Onitsha Ado, the birthplace of the great Nnamdi Azikiwe. Did Chief Obafemi Awolowo know about this blood link when he sent an emissary to the Obi of Onitsha, in the heat of the Second Republic electoral campaigns, reminding him of the need for the Igbos to close ranks with the Yorubas?
A Yoruba creation story alludes to this historical link through the mythology of Ile-Ife, and on this score, the present Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, has publicly affirmed and reaffirmed the industry of the Igbo and their legacies in pre-colonial Ile-Ife. What, for instance, was the role of a Moremi in all these?. One of the tragedies that can befall any group of people is not knowing where the “rain started to beat them”. We must study our history by going back to the source. We can change the narrative and build a healthier society. If we do this. The book Ado-na Idu, by a former Secretary General of the defunct Igbo Union, Chief B.O. Eluwa, is a useful guide as the book lends credence to this historic link. That book is your birthday present whenever we find a copy.
Happy Birthday, Tunde, and welcome to our club. The best never rest.
Prof. Ihechukwu Chiedozie Madubuike, OON, Hon D.Litt., Hon L.LD., KJW.
Former Minister of the Federal Republic. Author: Aka Ekpuchi Onwa: The Igbo Unbound.
Abuja, July 23, 2025
