Professor Biodun Jeyifo (BJ), the honoree at this commemorative symposium, was at the center of the changes described above, as the first national president of ASUU in 1980. Whether as a Marxist scholar, a cultural theorist, a university teacher, a trade unionist, or as a writer for general-interest and specialist periodicals, Jeyifo’s career has been shaped by a steady cognition of the world-historical nature of the socio-political process known as “decolonization.” Timing is everything, and the perception of what was going on as that movement was in itself an act of liberation within and beyond the classroom. Though the impact of the forced changes was felt initially in academic settings, they had wider ramifications on the national level and were closely, constantly cross-fertilized with comparable changes across the decolonizing world. 

Participants at the one-day symposium include comrades, colleagues, and former students of Professor Jeyifo, as well as members of the public interested in progressive thought and action.