Regarded as one of Africa’s most distinguished literary scholars, the pioneer President of Nigeria’s Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Biodun Jeyifo, is dead.

Mr Jeyifo, an alumnus of the University of Ibadan and a former literature teacher at the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University, OAU), Ile-Ife, died in the United States of America at the age of 80.

He was an emeritus professor at both Cornell University and Harvard University in the United States.

The Nigerian Academy of Letters (NAL), in a terse statement credited to its President, Andrew Haruna, a professor, said Mr Jeyifo died on Wednesday.

NAL expressed condolences to Mr Jeyifo’s family and the academic community, describing his passing as a significant loss to literary scholarship in Nigeria and beyond.

Mr Haruna wrote, “The President of the Nigerian Academy of Letters, Professor Andrew Haruna, FNAL, regrets to announce the death of Professor Emeritus Biodun Jeyifo, FNAL, which event occurred today, 11th of February, 2026. Professor BJ, as he was fondly called, had a distinguished career at the then University of Ife and later held dual appointments at Cornell and Harvard Universities. An international event was held in his honour at the Muson Centre to mark his 80th birthday on the 5th of January, 2026.

“May his gentle soul rest in peace, and may God comfort the family he left behind.”

Glowing tributes

Earlier in January, when he clocked 80, friends, colleagues, former students, and associates convened in Lagos to celebrate the Marxist, unionist, literary scholar, and teacher of many teachers at an event described as an international symposium.

An Indian professor of Post-Colonial Studies at the University of Cambridge, Priyamvada Gopal, was the keynote speaker at the event, which was organised by the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ). The event, which drew many dignitaries, also featured the Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka, who sauntered into the room in the middle of the programme and exited before it ended.

Though many used the opportunity of the 80th birthday celebration to convey their love, sincere appreciation, and devotion for a man regarded as a god of literature, the news of his death on Wednesday threw a spanner in the works for many of his associates and admirers.

It’s sunset for us – ASUU

Mr Jeyifo served ASUU as its pioneer President between 1980 and 1982, when he was reported to have led other associates and founding members of the union, including the late Festus Iyayi, and Dipo Fasina, among others, to lay a solid foundation for the foremost teachers’ union in Nigeria.

Reacting to his death, the incumbent President of ASUU, Chris Piwuna, a Professor of Psychiatry, said Mr Jeyifo’s death is a sunset for the union.

He said, “Comrade BJ, as he is known in the union and by colleagues, was a solid academic and intellectual. He had an unyielding belief that Nigeria would one day be free from the grip of the thieving class.

“He was our first President. He made us proud here in Nigeria and around the world as a giant intellectual. And true to his character, he remained committed to our struggle to the end. It is sunset for us in the union.”

A part of me is gone – Ogunbiyi

To the former Pro-Chancellor of Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, Yemi Ogunbiyi, who is regarded as the closest ally of the deceased, the death of Mr Jeyifo, popularly called “JB” simply means “a part of me is gone.”

Mr Ogunbiyi said he had known Mr Jeyifo since he was 14 and that he had a huge influence on his life. He said he attempted to speak with his friend on the phone just the night before his death, “but BJ couldn’t speak”.

Speaking with DevReporting on the phone, Mr Ogunbiyi, a PhD holder, said, “It’s like a part of me is gone. I met him when I was 14, and he was one year older than me, so it’s like a part of me is gone. I would miss him for the rest of my life because he meant so much to me, he had an impact on my life that is not quantifiable. I can’t quantify it.

“I’m just trying to get used to the very thought that he’s gone. I will never forget BJ; he was a mentor. It’s like a part of me is gone. I met him when I was 14 years old, he was 15, I was 14 when we became friends. So, it’s not something I can’t handle. I can’t come to terms with it. We spoke last night, but he couldn’t talk well. But we spoke the day before, we just thank God for his life.”

My teacher and friend is gone – Anyadike

Chima Anyadike is a retired Professor of Literature at the Obafemi Awolowo University, whose undergraduate project was supervised by Mr Jeyifo, said he was yet to recover from the shock the news of his death generated.

Mr Anyadike’s wife, Bisi, a school owner in Ile-Ife, was also taught by Mr Jeyifo, and that might have accounted for the family’s close relationship with the deceased.

Mr Anyadike said, “I haven’t recovered from this… I shouldn’t say shock, because my teacher and friend, BJ, had been ill for quite some time. But nobody expects it. So, I was devastated, as any human being should be, to hear this morning that he passed on. That is at a personal level.

“But I also think, as we did in Lagos on the 5th of January, when we went to celebrate his 80th birthday, we should also be celebratory in the sense that he has lived this long, despite the great challenges he has faced, both in society and in his work.”

He said as a person, BJ lived a very heroic life in all areas of existence, “and we are proud of that.”

He added, “At the personal level, I feel so unhappy because he was particularly close to my family. He didn’t come to Nigeria all these years; he was abroad. He tried coming to my house and spending some time, so at that personal level, there is a great sense of loss that we have received this news.

“But as I said, he has left a powerful legacy for all those who are serious about where we should be going in our society and what literature should be doing.”

We will mourn BJ, and mourn his  memoir – Ajibade

Another BJ’s former student at the then University of Ife, Kunle Ajibade, described the news as devastating, noting that at his birthday celebration in January, the celebrator had promised to return to his library to work on his memoir.

“One month and five days ago, we had this celebration for him in Lagos, and he was exceedingly happy about that. A lot of people saw that, but what people did not see was that he was in that mood to go back to his library and work hard on his long-awaited memoirs. That was the promise, that he was going to give us that memoir. But, we now mourn this day, the memoir that we will never have,” he said.

Mr Ajibade said that BJ’s death without writing his memoir was a very painful one for him, “because he had so much to say, not just, you know, about our politics, scholarship, the educational system in Nigeria, and not just about how he was raised.”

“We would miss things that would have served as a kind of inspiration at its core to a lot of other people. It would have been a different kind of memoir. I mean, because, you know, he was a genius. But now, we won’t have all of that. That’s what really, really makes me extremely sad about his passing,” Mr Ajibade said.

BJ’s death, end of a major chapter – Olorunyomi

The Publisher of Premium Times, Dapo Olorunyomi, who was at the forefront of organising the 80th birthday celebration for their former teacher, described BJ’s death as “the end of a major chapter of this long narrative of how to reconstruct our literature, culture, not to say the least, the redemption of our society.”

He described his former teacher as the most formidable scholar of literature and literary culture, noting that he laid the theoretical grounds for a lot of what is now understood today as a radical criticism of our literature and culture.

“That’s obviously the end of an era and one historical epoch, and we are all saddened about it. But I think we are all grateful we were able to roll out a very robust 80th birthday celebration for him, as we always try to do for many of our teachers.”

About Jeyifo

Regarded as a radical, Mr Jeyifo’s road to heroism started right in his secondary school days at Ibadan Boys High School, where he led a protest to demand reform in the school system by publicly reading a charter of demands on behalf of the students to the school authority.

He was later suspended and only sat his school certificate examinations and A-levels as an external candidate. However, he dazed them with his exceptional performance, and later gained admission to study English Studies at the University of Ibadan, where he graduated with First Class, a rare feat at the time.

He moved abroad for his PhD and later returned to take up a lecturing role, and later joined the now-defunct Ife Collectives, as a buildup to the formation of ASUU.

Mr Jeyifo was widely recognised as a leading authority on the life and works of Mr Soyinka, with his triology- Art, Dialogue and Outrage (1988), Perspectives on Wole Soyinka: Freedom and Complexity (2001), and Wole Soyinka: Politics, Poetics and Postcolonialism (2004), regarded as the most comprehensive critical engagement with Africa’s Nobel laureate.

Beyond Soyinka studies, BJ was known for his wide-ranging engagement with world Anglophone literature, cultural theory and postcolonial thought.

His Norton anthology Modern African Drama is said to have brought African theatrical works into the mainstream of world literature pedagogy, while his Contemporary Nigerian Literature: A Retrospective and Prospective Exploration reportedly mapped the evolution of Nigerian letters with characteristic insight.

BJ’s later works are said to include Conversations with Wole Soyinka, Things Fall Apart, Things Fall Together, Against the Predators Republic, and Apostrophes to Friendship, Socialism and Democracy.

Born on 5 January 1946, Mr Jeyifo has taught across many nations and shares solid relationships with many of his students. He was a Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters and a globally respected intellectual, holding emeritus professorship in two prominent American universities.