By Prof Hassan A. Saliu
I first met Professor Alaba Abiodun Adeboyejo Ogunsanwo initially through his publications on International Relations that cover various aspects of the field, especially Nigerian foreign policy, an area he is a leading scholar. I later met him in flesh when I went to the University of Lagos for a Ph.D defence as an external examiner. He was then the Dean of the Postgraduate School.
From his Curriculum Vitae, he schooled at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria for his first degree. He graduated in 1967 in flying colours. He won five prizes in Zaria. These included being the best student in Government, Economics and International Relations. He was a Federal Government Scholar also at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. Prof. Ogunsanwo carried his brilliance to the London School of Economics and Political Science where he won a fellowship and obtained both his Master and Doctoral degrees. His record of awards also shows that after graduation, he continued with his academic excellence. In the course of his academic career, he won the Fulbright awards on two occasions, taking him to two different American Universities. He equally won grants from the Ford Foundation twice, World Bank, NISER in Ibadan, among others.
In terms of his working experience, he had a stint with Regional and Federal Civil services before he turned to the university system for a lecturing job. The first teaching appointment he secured after obtaining his Ph.D was with the famous Institute of Administration of the then University of Ife, Ibadan campus but where he taught for only two years. In 1973, he secured another lecturing job with the University of Lagos in the School of Administration. He remained in the service of the University until 2007 when he retired as a Professor after serving for twenty-four years on that rank.
The Department of Political Science at UNILAG will hardly forget the level of impact he made. For instance, he single-handedly developed the curriculum for the Master’s programme in Policy and International Affairs; was the force behind the establishment of the Departmental Journal (Journal of Politics); resuscitated the Ph. D programme in the Department and he was the defender of interests of junior colleagues, among others.
Another face of the calmer Marxist
With respect to the university-wide engagement, he was the first Ombudsman to be appointed by the University of Lagos. This was informed by his high level of integrity and fair mindedness. Before he retired, he had also served as the Dean of the Postgraduate School at UNILAG and in the Governing Council of the same University. On account of his open door policy, students were always flocking to his office for one thing or the other. Outside the university system, he was a Consultant to the Commonwealth Secretariat and served in some important committees of government that included the Prof. Adebayo Adedeji Committee on Nigeria’s foreign policy in 1976.
In terms of ideological leaning, he is a Marxist scholar. His earlier writings were full of radical stuff. However, as the years rolled by, he became a mature socialist scholar or what I would call a calmer Marxist who was no longer fond of speaking the language of the ideological school but had chosen to adopt it as his tool of analysis and in living his life according to the standard principles of a socialist.
This Marxian orientation, in addition to the pressure on him by ASUU members on his campus to contest for the position of Chief Servant of ASUU, pushed him towards contesting the position. He, however, dropped the idea in favour of then Dr. Attahiru Jega (now Prof. Jega), who had been positioned to take over from Prof. Festus Iyayi, elected in 1986 as President of ASUU but only to be troubled by the dynamics that were playing out at his base – the University of Benin.
Prof Ogunsanwo must have also thought the ambition was not worth it since Dr. Jega had been Acting President of the union for a year without any issues and the best thing to do for Dr. Jega at Nsukka in 1988 was to crown him. He, indeed, emerged as the new ASUU President at the convention. He held forth for six years before the baton passed on to another of our member and former President of NPSA, Prof. Asisi Asobie in 1994.
Prof. Ogunsanwo has written a lot on the Nigerian situation and world affairs. He is easily one of the most cited authors on Nigerian foreign policy. Two of his publications are remarkable for the impact they have made in the lives of younger colleagues and the lessons they contain for policy making. The first is the book on Nigerian foreign policy titled: Our Friends, Their Friends: 25 Years of Nigerian Foreign Policy published by Alpha Communications in Lagos in 1986. The book is not bulky and it is reader-friendly because of its simple prose. The volume captured the essential elements in the country’s foreign policy in its first twenty-five years with a certain level of ideological commitment.
The second is a monograph titled: Japanese Companies: Labour and Society: Lessons for Nigeria published by NIIA, Lagos, in 1989. It is an account of his brief stay in Japan as a fellow of the Japan Foundation at International Christian University in Mitaka, Japan, which he won in 1988. In the monograph, he discovered that the phenomenal growth in the Japanese economy is not miraculous: it has come about as a result of a careful planning and adoption of correct strategies, woven around the support given to small scale industries. In essence, if Nigeria wants to grow its economy, a deliberate effort must be made to support small scale industries.
It would appear that the Nigerian State has taken note of this strategy but the experience is that the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency (SMEDAN), established for that purpose has, in the view of most Nigerians, been doing everything but promoting small enterprise holdings. For instance, the number of them that have folded up in recent times is pretty alarming. That is the reason why the national economy is not growing and the small businesses are dying at their infancy.
Published as an LSE Monograph in International Relation in 1974, many decades before China became a great power and a factor in Africa
Prof. Ogunsanwo has had the practical experience in diplomacy. He was seduced by the Babangida military government. This was in spite of his strong aversion to political appointments, a tendency that had once cost him the appointment as the DG of NIIA after his friend and academic colleague in the field of Nigeria’s foreign policy, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari, was promoted to the position of External Affairs Minister from the DGship of the Institute. This time around, he was not contented being in the semi-official Think Thank of government. He wanted to be within the official circles.
Recall that he was one of the academics that swayed the policy of General Murtala Muhammed more in favour of the MPLA in Angola in 1975. The excuses given were that the then Apartheid regime was in bed with one of the liberation movements in Angola and that the Apartheid State was making incursions into the country and other territories in Southern Africa. On top of these concerns, President Ford of America wrote to African leaders to follow the policy line of America on Angola that was clearly supportive of a unity government in Luanda. All these caused a volte-face in Nigeria’s initial policy that was in favour of a unity government in Luanda.
In January, 1976 and at Addis Ababa, General Murtala Mohammed gave a catalyst speech at the OAU Summit that radically altered the equation in Luanda with the acceptance and recognition accorded the MPLA as the authentic voice of Angolans at the displeasure of America that wanted a contrary outcome. The late Dr. Bala Usman, then Dr. Alaba Ogunsanwo and others have been fingered as those intellectuals that caused a shift in Nigeria’s policy towards Angola. He was also a member of the Prof. Adebayo Adedeji committee constituted by Obasanjo’s military government that was charged with the responsibility of reviewing Nigeria’s foreign policy in 1976.
In 1991, the Babangida government appointed him as an Ambassador to Botswana and Lesotho. While there, he performed creditably well and that, in a way, has promoted the perspective that the era of monopolization of the Ambassadorial turf by the career officers is not yet here; he was a non-career officer who has given a voice to political Ambassadors through his sterling performance at his mission post. While in the Foreign Service, and serving in Botswana and Lesotho, he prioritized staff welfare and embarked on some projects at greatly a reduced cost. He was at the mission post for seven years and served in the twilight of his stay in Botswana as the Dean of the diplomatic corps between 1997 and 1998.
In December, 1997, he was appointed as Nigeria’s Ambassador to Belgium, Luxemburg and the EU by the Abacha regime but the process of the appointment was confirmed by the Abdusalami administration that came in after the death of General Abacha. He was in his new diplomatic post until April, 1999 when he was recalled. His theories of International Relations readily came handy in warding-off global pressures on governments that appointed him over the residual issues of annulment of June 12 Presidential election and the consequences of Abacha’s mishandling of most governance issues in Nigeria.
His foray into diplomatic world was good because of the opportunity it afforded him in testing his classroom hypotheses on international affairs. It nevertheless marked a turning point in Baba Ogunsanwo’s career. At a point, he was mandated to appear on the NTA as a member of the Technical Committee of the Government on the Commonwealth issue that was established in 1995 upon the suspension of the country from the organisation. During such appearances, he deservingly talked down on the Commonwealth, which in 1995 had suspended Nigeria for not going the democratic way under Abacha. Specifically, the alibi the organisation gave in handing down the suspension to Nigeria was the killing of Ken Saro Wiwa and his Ogoni kinsmen at a time when a Commonwealth meeting was holding in Auckland.
Poor communications between Abuja the then Foreign Minister, Chief Tom Ikimi, was to worsen matters for Nigeria’s foreign policy. When he eventually got himself together after the shock of the execution of the Ogoni nine, which he had initially denied, the thrust of Ikimi’s democratic inheritance thesis that he came up with further isolated the country from the mainstream centres of international relations. One would want to ask about the connection between the issue and Prof. Ogunsanwo who was the Nigerian Ambassador to Botswana at that material time? This is simple.
Most Nigerians transferred the hatred they had for Abacha to the subject of this tribute for coming out to speak against the Commonwealth and in the process, creating an escape route for the most hated Abacha’s government. To be fair, all the academic arguments he had raised against the Commonwealth were essentially correct, but the timing and the context may have made some commentators to view the issues involved in a different light.
Perhaps Prof. Ogunsanwo thought that the opportunity had come for him to share his analytical mind with Nigerians on the neocolonial orientation of the organisation, which is not in doubt. Indeed, the Adedeji Committee that was set up by Obasanjo’s government in 1976 had recommended that Nigeria should withdraw from the Commonwealth on the strength of it being an imperialistic organisation. The government that empanelled it, however, thought otherwise. To date, most Nigerians still share the belief that their country has no business being a member of the Commonwealth. He eventually returned to UNILAG after his diplomatic sojourn with different interpretations given to his role in Abacha’s government.
Notwithstanding, Prof. Ogunsanwo is a respected senior academic who was part of the few persons who formed the Nigerian Political Science Association (NPSA), at Nsukka in 1973. The circumstances of its formation were the tendency by the military to want to hang on to power and the raging debate on diarchy that was promoted by some persons, including some academics and the late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe. The NPSA consequently galvanized opinion against its adoption. The handful of Political Scientists who had gathered at Nsukka were motivated in coming up with our Association in 1973 in order to replicate the bodies of Political Scientists they had found in existence when they were studying abroad. He was our Billy Dudley Lecturer for 2018 at Abakaliki and a man who is passionate about our Association.
On behalf of the executive members of our Association, I congratulate Prof. Ogunsanwo for attaining 82 years on earth. He is a man of uncommon humility, a scholar to the core, a Professor who has produced some other Professors, a Marxist scholar who lives his life by its principles without being loud about it and, above all, a man who has integrity and infectious humility. He uses ‘sir’ for everyone, including the students.
Happy birthday to Prof. Ogunsanwo in advance!
The author is the President, NPSA
