Prof. Godwin Surveyor Sogolo turned 80 years last week. A man, that old, has had a long journey in space and time. The evidence is not hidden. The signature agility and physical fitness have understandably waned. Those hitherto hurrying steps are now calculated to come one at a time and with the majesty of his age.

However, everything that defines his prodigious intellect has remained. For a brief moment last week, he spoke on the issues of the moment with a mental vibrancy that belied his age. The sartorial elegance has also remained. The folks from home were emphatic in their traditional Urhobo/Isoko outfits. But Prof chose to remain in his characteristic navy-blue suit with a matching inner shift and tie. The pair of sharp black shoes completed the turn-out. Among his people, Prof looked like a complete outsider. He looked more like a man from Emmerich in Germany than a man from Emevor in Delta State, Nigeria.

At 80, Prof Sogolo’s children are many. I am one. Many others including almost everybody at the Philosophy Department and a chunk of the Arts Faculty of the University of Ibadan were at the Conference Centre of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) headquarters in Abuja, venue of the event. Two things were on the bill. First, was to tell the world that Prof was 80 and then to unveil a book written by array of scholars, all his mentees, in honour of him at 80.

The scope was ambitious. The long title: ‘Philosophy, Human Values and Development In Africa: Essays in Honour of Professor Godwin Sogolo’ says it all. It is an aggregation of 21 scholarly expositions in pursuit of the essential Sogolo. The Editors, Omotade Adegbindin, Bolatito Lanre-Abass and Mathias Jarikre remain eminently focused on the reconstruction and deconstruction of African Philosophy from the prism of Sogolo. Except the life recast by me, the other 20 essays dwell on themes to proclaim the originality of Prof Sogolo in pushing African philosophy to the frontiers of global scholarship. The book reviewer, Prof. Eghosa Osaghae who has built a reputation of reading scholarly presentations from his head instead of scripts, reaffirmed that “Prof Sogolo is everything that the book says and even more.”

Until the actual crossing of our paths in The African Guardian some time in the 1990s, Prof Godwin Sogolo had been a distant attraction on the pages of the Daily Guardian where I engaged him through his articles on sundry issues on Mondays. His clarity of thought and diction enforced a captivating style. There was a hunger to see the man behind the style. Thus, his decision to come to The African Guardian Magazine for his sabbatical was a personal benefit.

The synchrony between his person and writings was striking. Simplicity and clarity were on display.  There was nothing pretentious about him. He didn’t carry the badge of his prodigious academic standing. Instead, there was a compelling air of conviviality that pushed back restrictions. He projected humanity over class. He had entered as Executive Editor of the Magazine, next in the hierarchy to Mr. Andy Akporugo, the Managing Director and Editor-in-Chief.

Prof. Sogolo sounded casual like one of us. The desire to reach out in love and dilute the prevailing rigidity of the newsroom was palpable. He hid his status behind an inspiring free style. But there was so much grace around him. Even amid the emerging atmosphere of mental freedom, his place as the big boss was unmistaken. He asked us to work together as colleagues towards the common purpose of producing a good weekly news magazine. There was something about him to take home immediately. His dress sense. He commanded a sartorial presence that arrested the senses. He did not look like he was coming from the university where an unconventionality that scorned elegance was a symbol of intellectual purity and forthrightness. He was cute, highly cultivated and approachable.

In those hard days, every opportunity was appropriated to prove one’s mettle. I wrote across all the titles on The Guardian stable. My by-line featured generously in The Guardian Express, Lagos Life, The Guardian On Sunday and The Daily Guardian. There was attraction for me to be so prolific. Any story published outside the African Guardian Magazine where I worked, attracted a compensation for the writer. I was therefore writing to earn something more to ensure and enhance my survival. Unknown to me however, Prof. Sogolo had become my fan. Each time I met him, he never forgot to say something nice about a story I had written. On one occasion, he did more than just praising my story. He added N20 ‘’for that your beautiful write-up on Monitree.” This was also when N20 was the highest denomination of the Nigerian currency. Let me give the background. It was the era of money multiplication by ponzi bodies that styled themselves as investment banks. There was one in Benin-City called Monitree. The said report captured in graphic details, a typical business day at the premises of Monitree on Uselu/Ugbowo Road, Benin-City.

But Prof Sogolo whose life remains a study in consistency, self-contentment, decency and clarity of purpose needed an environment to remain himself. He returned to UI to continue with what he knew best: building capacity and capability in youngsters for the challenges of life. Good a thing, communication between Prof and me did not die with his return to UI. I was always in Ibadan in search of some hidden story. Each time I visited, Prof and I would sit at a table in the university staff club like colleagues and discuss the great issues of the day. They spanned from the resilience of then Dr. Attahiru Jega as President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to the dare-devilry activism of Beyond Jordan, then President of the University of Ibadan Students Union Government.  My university days were still a relatively recent experience. As a salary earner, I was seeing the wide gap between the idealism of campus life and the reality of the world outside. I told Prof that the students would behave differently if they understood this difference. He said since the awareness I was describing was experiential, it would not come without real time experience. He explained that while old students left to experience the real world and probably unlearn their campus idealism, new students entered to acquire what their older colleagues were struggling to discard in the world outside. And so, it has remained an unbroken cycle of trial and error.

In September, 2008, President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua sought to create new conversations on the Niger Delta. The Technical Committee on the Niger Delta headed by Mr. Ledum Mitee was inaugurated by President Yar’Adua to brainstorm on the same issues in the oil-rich Niger Delta and articulate a way forward. It was a delegate conference. Delta State, one of the key states in the region had delegates. The then Governor of the State, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan inaugurated a research sub-committee to strengthen the Delta State delegates on the main committee. The sub-committee was headed by Prof. Sam Oyovbaire with Prof Sogolo as secretary. We were to delve beyond the surface to excavate facts and information to guide the debates of the Delta delegates on the substantive committee. The two professors were all over me as if I had become an exceptionally useful assistant lecturer in their departments.

That reunion between me and Prof Sogolo was a real blessing. So much had also happened in telecommunication to change the physical reality. The global System for Mobile Communication, otherwise known as GSM, had exploded in Nigeria to bridge time and space. Ever since that subcommittee assignment, I have not been separated from Prof Sogolo. We do not have to meet physically before talking. And we have been talking. The conversations had increased at

the debut of my BACKLASH column in the Guardian on Sunday. I wouldn’t know exactly what I was writing and how I was writing them that pushed Prof Sogolo to enlist in my fans’ club. Every Sunday, after reading me, he would call to kickstart a review session. His huge endorsements of my content and style were inspiring.

Prof did not stop at just reading and holding conversations with me. He started profiling me for a different role. No conversation ended without his advising me to return to the university to earn a doctorate degree (PhD) and effectively begin a transition from the newsroom to the classroom at almost the age of retirement! He was too persistent to be ignored. I agreed to do something. We settled for law. But Prof has started sounding one kind even when the initial agreement has not been fully perfected. He is shifting the goal post in the middle of the game. The new deal Prof is proposing is that even this law degree at old age should not end at LLB. He is asking for it to be driven to a doctorate level. How Prof? Agreement is agreement. Do we learn new tricks at old age?