A don tells his story in Promise and Providence

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3 years ago

A review of Emeritus Professor GOS Ekhaguere’s autobiography, Promise and Providence by Oka Martin Obono.

ANY review of the autobiography, Promise and Providence by Emeritus Professor of Mathematics, Godwin Osakpemwoya Samuel Ekhaguere (otherwise, GOS Ekhaguere), NNOM, must be set against the background of the author’s renowned humility and established penchant for understatement.

Enormous things happen in the 547 substantive pages and 26 chapters of this phenomenal piece of work, which appear cast on a Homeric order.

From its very beginning it attests to the interplay of mortals and immortals, in the affairs of men and of one man in particular –GOS Ekhaguere. Nothing could be more dramatic than that, or more evocative of the sweep of interpretive history. Yet, it is written with such linguistic sparseness, in an economy of words, which must be deciphered to unpack the grand dimensions of things written about.

Paradoxically, it is this frugality of language that invests Ekhaguere’s ideas and narration with such unspeakable atomic power and human appeal.

The aim of the book is stated at the outset. It is spelt out in a rather matter-of-factly tone of voice which shows that the author was not going to indulge the reader’s hope for literary embellishments. In his first words, “This autobiography sketches some key aspects of my life journey.” Period. There is no adornment. No elaboration. But the words “sketches”, “some”, “key”, and “aspects” are unmitigated understatements, as this review would show. More than an autobiography, Promise and Providence is an engaged narrative of how history and critical reflection can shape the relationship between an individual and their society, and reconstruct their life aspirations.

However, when that history is ineluctably guided by divine influence, then the vagaries of “a life journey” become the same things like the undulations of seawaves that bear a ship to a promised shore.

Nonetheless, the author’s conversational mien is unmistakable in Promise and Providence. There is an Achebe there. Ekhaguere adopts this tone to make his dense material accessible to his audience, otherwise it would have remained a convoluted schema conveyed within a convergence of “taut nexi”. That would not have helped matters at all. The conversational tone is trustworthy. It delivers the core message with ease, under a historical leitmotif that arranges the material in a digestible logical flow and chronological sequence.

Following a neurologically sound strategy, Ekhaguere found it expedient to present his conclusion first, noting that his “ongoing earthly pilgrimage is amply symbolised by the following simple equation:

“My Life = Promise + Providence”

Quite ostensibly, he retreated into the disciplinary territory in which he is a celebrated guru, namely Mathematics, to come up with a summary of his life philosophy by way of this “equation.”

At this point, the dramatic quality of the autobiography takes off.

Speaking on his childhood, he shares difficult experiences of growing up in a working class family. Ekhaguere faced more than just economic instability during his childhood. In secondary school, he was forced to abandon his education due to a coup d’état in 1966. A national event instantly rendered him even more vulnerable. This demonstrates how economics and politics could intersect to create unstable grounds for childhood development. While these incidents showcase the suboptimal educational conditions for a child of low socioeconomic background, Ekhaguere was quick to recognise, and seize, the opportunity presented by the Universal Primary Education Programme instituted by Chief Obafemi Awolowo that allowed his return to school.

His story is one of unending perseverance, courage, and good fortune. His rise to prominence in the Mathematics Department at the University of Ibadan demonstrates the heart that he showed and will to lift himself out of a working class background.

Reading through sections of Promise and Providence as they concern the early life of Emeritus Professor GOS Ekhaguere, therefore, I am reminded of the reflections of British naval historian Cyril Northcote Parkinson(1909 –1993), who once said that: People of great ability do not emerge, as a rule, from the happiest background.

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