Prominent Scholar, Professor Emeritus Biodun Jeyifo Dies at 80


 Adewale Amoo


One of Nigeria’s prominent literary scholars, Professor Emeritus Biodun Jeyifo, passed away yesterday, February 11, 2026.


Born on January 5, 1946, Professor Biodun Jeyifo was an alumnus of the Department of English at the University of Ibadan, where he graduated with first-class honours as an undergraduate student in 1970, becoming the third person in the department’s history to achieve this distinction, after Dan Izevbaye and Molara Ogundipe.


He was one of the foremost writers in Nigeria and across Africa, known for his intellectual criticism in addressing national issues and for reinforcing the idea of art for human sake rather than art for art’s sake. He was a Professor of African and African American Studies and Comparative Literature.


Between the mid-2000s and the early 2020s, Jeyifo maintained weekly columns titled Talakawa Liberation Forum (TLF) and Talakawa Liberation Courier (TLC) in two leading Nigerian newspapers, The Guardian and The Nation.


He taught at various tertiary institutions in Nigeria and abroad, including the University of Ibadan; the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University); Oberlin College; Cornell University and Harvard University, where he taught in the Department of  African and African American Studies from 2006 until his retirement in 2019. 

 

He once served as the National President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), playing a significant role in the struggle for academic freedom in Nigerian universities.


He received numerous awards, including an honorary Doctor of Letters from Obafemi Awolowo University and the Outstanding Academic Text Award from the American Library Association for his book, Wole Soyinka: Politics, Poetics, Postcolonialism, among others.



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