People Asked Who’d Take Care Of My Home If I Became DVC –Prof Odejide, UI Ex-Deputy Vice-Chancellor

Prof Abiola Odejide is a former Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the University of Ibadan, Oyo State, and former head of the Gender Mainstreaming Programme at the university. In an encounter with ALEXANDER OKERE, the 73-year-old emeritus professor of Communication and Language Arts recalls her childhood and career experience after teaching in an ivory tower for over 37 years

During your active years in service as an academic, you kicked against what you described as gender discrimination in Nigerian universities as it affects women. Do you think it’s still a major concern today?

Yes, it is. You just need to take a statistics of females in leadership positions in universities, not only in universities but also in higher institutions. As I said in one of my articles then (and it was actually based on interviews and so on), it would seem like the notion was and still is still prevalent that women are not suited for such positions because it’s a masculine territory. It is not only based on statistics; it is also based on observation. The idea is that students give much trouble and women are not suited to handle that.

But women handle a lot more stress in their homes and workplaces. You only need to look at market women to see how much stress they handle; the market woman who travels in a lorry from the South to the North to buy things is not a weak person at all.

There is the notion that women are not supposed to be in the public sphere. Basically, they are supposed to be in the private space, looking after their children, being in the kitchen and so on. So, the whole idea is that women are not supposed to be in the limelight; they are to be seen and not to be heard. I taught in the university for over 37 years and I was even a student in the same university. I travelled abroad, came back and got employed in the same university. I looked at the scenario in certain universities and the space was slightly more open, with women as heads of departments, deans or directors of institutes but not as vice-chancellors or deputy vice-chancellors. It wasn’t until quite recently that that started to happen.

You became the DVC in 2004. How would you describe your tenure?

It was a very exciting tenure for me as a person and my colleagues that I interacted with at the university. For some, it was an eye-opener about what a woman can do. As DVC (academic), I chaired over 25 committees and I didn’t have any major issue. So, I think it’s a question of one’s personality, one’s management style and as I said, I have been in university for quite some time. So, I have paid my dues.

It (becoming a DVC) was by election and if people don’t know you, they won’t vote for you. The system in public universities is such that the vice-chancellor is appointed and the one who occupies that position nominates two people to run for the office of the DVC and they have to be voted for by members of the university’s senate. It actually involves a lot of going out and talking to people. I had served in many positions in the university, as head of department, coordinator of General Studies and later as Director of Distance Learning Centre. So, people knew me.

Did you face any major opposition to your elevation at that time?

Of course, I faced opposition. The first time I ran (for the office), I lost by a few votes because I ran against a man. During the campaign, because I had to go round the faculties and talk to individuals, people asked me who would look after my home if I became the DVC and were in top management. That was funny because my opponent at that time, a man, was not asked such a question. There were some who, though they didn’t say it, found it unacceptable for a woman to chair a committee because they weren’t used to that.

But the second time I contested, the vice-chancellor had realised that if he was committed to having female deputy vice-chancellors, he had to nominate two females and that was what happened.

You were said to be a no-nonsense academic. Does that personality have anything to do with your upbringing as a child?

Well, yes. Let’s put it that way. My father worked for a British company called G B Ollivant and Company Limited. I think it became Unilever after he had retired. My mother taught briefly as a teacher. But in those days, once a lady got married, she stopped working to manage the home. But she was able to apply her training and values in bringing us up. She was a very good home teacher; all our homework was done and she didn’t tolerate any foolishness from anybody. Discipline was a major thing in our home, especially from my mum; she just didn’t take any nonsense. She was a loving person but liked people to be punctual, do whatever was assigned to them on time and without excuses. I think that must have rubbed off on my siblings and me.

You didn’t graduate with a first-class degree for your first degree but got a distinction at the master’s degree level at the University of Leeds, UK. What impression did that give you?

Well, even in my first degree, I was the only one who graduated with a second-class upper degree in my class that year. Getting a first-class degree was not that easy in those days. So, I didn’t feel too bad. When I got to Leeds, I put in my best and got my master’s with distinction. Right from the time I was in high school, I knew I wanted to teach English because I had role models whom I looked up to at that time. I attended People’s Girls School, Ibadan, for my primary education. It was a private school founded by (the late) Chief Wuraola Esan, who had just returned from Britain at that time with her Montessori certificate. So, my father decided to put my sister and me in that school, which was a fee-paying school.

I later attended Yejide Girls’ Grammar School, Ibadan, and from there, I got admission to Queen’s College, Lagos, for my higher school certificate. It was from there that I went to the University of Ibadan, where I studied English. By the time I was in Form Three, I had already known I would teach English, get a first degree and a master’s. I didn’t think of a PhD at that time in the 60s. So, I got into the university (UI), got a university scholarship and things seemed to work quite well for me and for that reason, I felt comfortable.

Can you tell us the major leadership positions you have held as an academic?

I was the Coordinator, Women Research and Documentation Centre, UI; head of department, Coordinator, General Studies Programme; director of the distance learning programme and much later, I was a principal investigator for the Gender Mainstreaming Programme, UI.

What was the primary idea behind the Gender Mainstreaming Programme?

The programme, which I led at a time as an investigator, was also funded from a grant from the MacArthur Foundation. The primary idea was to get students, staff members and those who provide services for us to look at everything they do with a gender lens. In teaching, the curriculum should not be male-oriented. It also applies to the university’s regulations and policies on housing, student accommodation and facilities for sports. It was designed to ensure gender equality or at least gender equity in the university. We ended up with a gender policy and sexual harassment policy for the university.

What was your first impression when the thought of your retirement came to your mind?

I was ready for retirement. I loved the job, the students and liked interacting with them, though they may have said other things. I loved challenging them to be their best. Before retirement came, I was mentally prepared for it. I had also managed my resources carefully so that it (retirement) would not be a major shock financially.

Do you think some of your students or other people had a misconception about you?

They probably did. But that is an occupational hazard. It’s like that in every profession, if you try to do your work well and people don’t want to do theirs, it (misconception) comes with the job. You don’t expect everybody to like you because your values are different, where you are coming from is different and your expectations are different. I, for example, didn’t like students not coming for classes. I didn’t like students not submitting their assignments on time or thinking they can work their way into getting high grades than they deserve and so on. So, if such people don’t like me, I welcome that.

But do you think you stepped on toes as a DVC?

There is no way you won’t step on toes. But the important thing is to be sure of what you are doing and to be seen to be firm. I was a DVC at the time the university was being reengineered and it was also a challenging time because it was a time the university got a major grant from the MacArthur Foundation for reengineering the entire university.

So, we got money to spend on our library and staff development. For me, the staff development was critical because we had got to a stage in which people were becoming readers without having been to any conferences outside the country and exposed to their disciplines in other places. So, with the MacArthur grant, we were able to send over 60 members of staff abroad. They wrote a proposal, which was vetted and sent to sister universities abroad. My office coordinated that and it was such a thrilling experience. Not a single person who benefited from that grant stayed back; all of them returned and added values to the university’s academic and institutional culture.

How did you spend your first year in retirement?

I spent it travelling; I visited my children abroad. But the other thing is I have never really been disengaged from the university because as of the time I was retiring, I had five postgraduate (doctoral) students under my supervision. I wanted to make sure I finished supervising them. So, we communicated. Thank God for information technology. They used to send their work to me and I looked at it. Any time I returned to Nigeria, we had sessions and discussed. When I was appointed emeritus professor, it just meant I would continue with what I was doing. Most of my students have graduated and I have taken up another set. So, I’m not tired of teaching.

What was the most challenging moment of your career?

The most challenging moment was that time after I lost the position of DVC by a few votes, after campaigning hard. But it wasn’t a do-or-die affair because after that, I was appointed as director of distance learning, which was a major challenge at that time. The university’s Centre for External Studies, as it was then called, was running very well and that was a major challenge. But the most memorable moment of my career has to be the day I was elected as a DVC because it was a stamp of acceptance by my peers.

Your husband was a psychiatrist. How did you meet him?

He was in medical school at the time we met in 1965. I had just come into the university. We met by chance. That was the time there were disturbances in the Western Region and there was a curfew. At that time, I had gone to Lagos and returned back to Ibadan nearly past the curfew time. He was also passing through and we couldn’t find any public transport. But he approached a man who was driving and the man agreed to give us a ride, after he urged me to join them. We dated throughout the time we did our first degree programme, got married later and had four children.

How did he convince you to marry him?

Our values were similar and we understood each other. He didn’t need to do much conviction. At that time, medical students were in high demand. So, I initially thought he would go out with many girls. But he assured me that he was not like that.

How did your parents receive him?

They liked him because they trusted my judgment and I hadn’t brought any other person home.

What would you have loved to be if you were not an academic?

I didn’t like nursing because I didn’t like seeing blood. My knowledge of maths wasn’t so strong. So, I wouldn’t have been an accountant. I also didn’t like law. Let me just say that I had made up my mind to be a teacher. I don’t think I would have done anything other than teaching.