UNIUYO Inaugural lecture: Evening Joseph Ushie showed his true colours

By Udeme Nana

THE man, Joseph Akawu Ushie is one of those human beings whose physical appearance can make one to mistake him for just any ordinary passerby along the road. He isn’t built like a giant; neither tall nor hefty. He lacks large biceps and is not large in physical appearance. However, he packs every positive endowment in his extra expansive and well-nourished brain inside his cranium. This widely travelled but down-to-earth scholar fits the exact description of a man with humongous intellectual depth and rigour. He dresses simply most of the time as if to convey a message that brilliance and intellectual capacity do not come in elaborate embroidery. Outwardly, he appears powerless but he is an intellectual dynamite. He exploded and sparkled for all to see when he took the microphone to deliver the University of Uyo 103rd Inaugural Lecture held on Thursday, July 25, 2024 which he titled ‘How Really Post-Colonial Are “Post-Colonial” Studies in Nigeria’. Although his presentation has come and gone, the emissions from his detonation and the memories will linger in the minds of those who attended the lecture for a very long time.

The man known in literary circles as a critic, poet, activist and community leader took the captive audience, including the Vice Chancellor, whom he once taught at undergraduate level, through the concepts of Colonialism, Post-Colonialism/Post-colonialism and Neocolonialism.

On the Use of English, the Bendi-born expert of General Stylistics and Literary Criticism outlined several examples of how people misuse words and certain expressions. He pointed his listeners to some examples including distinctions between ‘Uninterested/Disinterested, Senior/junior, Sometime/Sometimes, Adopted/Adoptive, etc. On that score, Professor Ushie strived to tell everyone that their ‘mumu don do’ in the inappropriate use of English language!

In his submission on ‘Language: Language and Living’, he pointed out that a mispronounced word could lead to death as reported in the Bible Book of Judges, Chapter 12:5 – 6. To justify his argument on ‘Language as a Marker of Identity’, he aligned with Aboh (2018, p.9) who argued that “Identity is a linguistic phenomenon because people use language as a vehicle to instantiate their identity, their belonging and unbelonging to certain social categories…”

Prof. Joe Ushie

The Cross River State-born scholar delved into ‘Language as a Major Determinant of Social Status’ and revealed that ‘language has been a strong determinant of one’s social status in society and a tool for upward mobility. He enlightened those who didn’t know that Great Britain was once a colony in these words: “In the 400 years of Roman domination of Britain (about 43 A.D to 410 A.D), knowledge of Latin, the language of the Romans, was what determined whether one could get a white-collar job or not. According to him, “This replicated in the subsequent 200 years of the Anglo-French conquest and domination of the same Britain during which knowledge of the French language in Britain was what decided whether one was going to work in an office, in the British military, in British schools or would be a hewer of wood, fetcher of water and tenderer of the garden,” adding, “Those who knew only the English language did only the menial jobs while those who knew the French language worked in offices, served in the military or taught in schools’. The scholar brought that home by noting that “this situation replicates today in Nigeria and in most of Europe’s former colonies. One must have a credit pass in the English language to be admitted to a tertiary institution of learning. One must have a credit pass in the subject to be employed in the nation’s civil service or private sector of the economy.”

Professor Ushie delved into “Knowledge of Language as a Tool for Changing a People’s Ideology and Worldview, Neo-colonialism and Nigeria’s Language Policy, Linguistics, Language as a Fossil of History,” noting that ‘Calypso’, as a genre of music, is traceable to the Ibibio/Efik word ‘Kaiso’ spoken in Akwa Ibom and Cross River axis of Nigeria which means “Go on” or ‘Carry on’. He emphasized that African oral literature and folktale contain lessons or messages which play various roles in moderating the behaviour of members of the community, ensuring adherence to the community’s mores and ethical values, and above all, serving as sources of entertainment and relaxation for the members of the community.

His foray into linguistics yields evidence to lend credence to the fact that the Ibibio, Efik, Annang and other languages in Akwa Ibom and Cross River States are one because in the lecture, as he stated that “human languages are usually categorized according to user”, and that “professional linguists would recognize Annang, Efik and Ibibio as one language because there is still mutual intelligibility among the users of these varieties”

Professor Ushie also reviewed ‘Names and Naming’ and noted, “The Ibibio attach very great importance to their names. They believe that a name is capable of affecting psychologically the bearer of such a name.”

On science and technology, Ushie submitted that Africans resolve certain problems mystically, pointing out that “mysticism is different from witchcraft and other forms of wicked and evil practices.”

One revelation which held the audience spell bound came in the area of History. Professor Ushie, citing other scholarly works, poo-pooed the popular belief that the much-celebrated Scottish missionary, Mary Slessor, was responsible for the abolition of the killing of twins in Calabar. However, contrary to all the huge honour bestowed on her, the story was a fraud deliberately committed by some foreign interests. He noted, “The United Presbyterian Mission, which actually began and pushed the campaign for the abolition of the killing of twins to its logical conclusion arrived Calabar on April 10, 1846, and Mary Slessor was born on December 2, 1848. Mary Slessor arrived in Calabar in 1876 and lived and worked in Okoyong.” Professor Ushie concluded that the abolition of the killing of twins had been completed several years before Mary Slessor got to Calabar, and the campaign was most stoutly supported by King Eyo Honesty II. He further buttressed his findings by referring to the work of a Scottish historian, Esther Breitenbach who explained that the shaping of Mary Slessor into an iconic female missionary exemplifies the deliberate acts of invention involved in the creation of imperial heroes and heroines. This reads like the popular tale that Mungo Park discovered River Niger (where people had lived for millenials before he was born!

The 196-page lecture which took more than two hours to deliver was interspersed with some of his poems like ‘First October’, ‘Letters on the Streets’, ‘Popular Stand’, ‘Shackles’, ‘The Trapped Canary’ and ‘Isms’, among others.

Professor Ushie’s Akorshi Litong Dance Group and the Bendi Traditional Marriage Theatre from his community added variety to the occasion with their music and dance which temporarily took hold of the naturally calm teacher, a performance which resonated with the enraptured audience who responded with the word ‘Kaiso’. As if energized like one possessed, Joe, the son of Akawu Ushie sang along and broke into a dance to the rhythm of the drumbeats in a move that showed him as an archetypical great African scholar well-rooted in the tradition and culture of his Obanliku people. Professor Ushie provided far-reaching brilliant recommendations which, if considered, could be invaluable to Nigeria’s development.

Apart from my occasional walk in the woods, that fantastic Inaugural Lecture ranks as one of my best evenings in Uyo.

* Dr. Nana is the founder of Uyo Book Club