ONCE YOU HAVE MADE AN IRREVERSIBLE MISTAKE, DON'T PUT PRESSURE ON LECTURERS___PROF E. T. O BABALOLA

Please can we meet you, sir? Who is Professor E.T.O. Babalola?

Well, that’s my name. Emmanuel Taiwo Oladipupo Babalola. I’m a Nigerian and I’m from Oyo State. Specifically, I’m from Ibadan, the capital city of Oyo State.

I would like to ask, why did you choose to study English Language even to the extent of being a professor in the course?

Well, everything happened by chance. I didn’t really set out to study English. I just wanted to attend a university, so I decided to get the form, the only course that I could do at the time was Law because I had always been someone who loved the Arts. I am not strong in Mathematics and because of that, I tried to avoid any course that will involve Mathematics. But I chose Law once and I didn’t get the cut-off point. The second time, I chose Law again but I didn’t get it. I was maybe two marks away from the cut-off. So, my dad then advised me to obtain a College of Education form instead of wasting my time applying for the same course, so that I could come back to study Law by the time I got there. It was my Dad who obtained the college of education form for me and the college of education in Nigeria at that time, you didn’t have to do Jamb, it was based on the WAEC result. My dad took the form for all the three colleges of education around us — Ila, Oyo-Saint Andrews, and Ilesha.

When the results came out, I went to the secretariat in Ibadan to check my name and they admitted me to all three Colleges of Education based on my WAEC result. He told me to choose. I went to the three schools to check them out. It was at Ilesha that I got fascinated with their building. I entered the building, hoping to come down by the next stairs and I got lost because the building was kind of spherical. I didn’t know where to get down again. By the time I finally got down, it was far away from where I was supposed to have come down. I said, “yes, this is where I’m going to come because before I graduated from this place, I would have understood the building.” So, I chose Ilesha. 

That was how I studied English and Yoruba because, in Colleges of Education, you must take two teaching subjects. I graduated there in 1990 and during our own time, there was an affiliation between OAU and Ilesha. Virtually all the colleges of Education in Oyo State (then it was Oyo State, not Osun State) were affiliated with OAU. The affiliation was that if you finished three years in the college of education, you could proceed to spend two years in the university to complete your education because it was OAU that was controlling Ilesha and Ila at that time. When we left in 1990, immediately we just came here to continue. My friends here were in part three. We just came in without doing parts one and two. You get it, right?

Yes Sir

From part 3, I did part 4 and I graduated. So, that was it. You could see that I didn’t choose English. But you could have said that why didn’t I study Yoruba since I studied English and Yoruba? Well, I had equal competence in the two: Yoruba and English because I had credits (credit is like 2.1 in English, 2.1 in Yoruba at the college). But I found English to be easier than Yoruba. Yoruba was too tough. So, that was why I settled for English.

Even though it’s your mother tongue?

 

Yeah, it’s our mother tongue but many people don’t know it’s tougher than English. If you go there now, you will know that it’s easier to pass English grammar than Yoruba grammar. So, that was how it happened.

Alright, sir. So, what interests you in the lecturing job, you know, Yoruba would say that ‘ọ̀run l’èrè tìṣá’ (the reward of teachers is in heaven).

Actually, I didn’t have interest in teaching or lecturing. When we graduated and I made a 2.1 (my 2.1 was very close to first class), the lecturers in the department wanted me to stay. They were telling me, “Babalola, don’t go, apply for graduate assistant, we need people like you.” But I refused, I told them I was going to Lagos, that Lagos was where life was. I went to Lagos and started working in Lagos like everybody at that time. If you haven’t been in Lagos, you have not been anywhere. I went to Lagos, I started working in Lagos but I found Lagos to be very tough because it was really tough at that time. That was when AIT started and I was a part of it briefly before I opted out. That was when I and all these Nollywood stars – Ogogo, Quadri, Araosan, Ajigijaga – were all together but I didn’t feel fulfilled at the time. I was too academic.

I was writing articles for newspapers until one day I made a decision to go for Masters. I left as if I was going to work and I came to Ife to obtain the Masters’ form. Everything I needed, I brought along: the passport, the results, and the NYSC certificate. I went to Post Graduate (PG) college, obtained the form, photocopied all the things they needed and submitted it the same day, and went back to Lagos. That was how I applied for Masters and nobody knew. And when the list of successful people was out, I was one of them. I started doing my Masters, though I was in Lagos working. I was doing it this way until it became difficult for me to combine the two. I had to resign from where I was working and I came to Ife.

Is there any particular genre of books that you like to read?

Best Sellers! 

At the time we had time, especially when I was at the National Youth Service Corp (NYSC), we had a lot of time. So I was reading Best Sellers novels and dramas. Only God knows how many I’ve read in a while and that was really what developed my English. I read books, If they say there is any novel written by the best authors at that time – Frederick Forsyth, Robert Ludy, Sidney Sheldon, Jeffrey Hatcher, Mark Twain – I must have read them. Those were the best books but after I got the job and I started here, I devoted myself to grammar. 

In grammar, you’ve got to spend a lot of time before you understand concepts. If you do not spend a lot of time, you will not understand grammar. And I have decided that I am going to understand it, so I spend my time reading grammar. And you read in a way that you know you can understand; everybody has his own technique. For some people, it’s in the night. For some people, it is when they are listening to music. So, you must find out what is the best time for you to understand. When studying language or grammar, you must understand it. It’s not a matter of ‘I can manage’, you can’t manage. Once you don’t understand it, people will know that you don’t understand it and once you don’t understand it, you cannot teach it. So that is it.

As the Head of the Department, it means you are closer to students than any other lecturer. What are the challenges that you think students face the most and how have you been able to help them out with them?

It’s very easy to understand students’ challenges because I have also been a student and there is nothing you want to tell me about OAU that I don’t know because I did all my degrees here: my first degree, Masters, P.H.D. The main issue with students nowadays is that their mind is not made up on what to study. That’s what I have seen. You are just doing it because that is what you can find to do which is the main issue. Students are not interested in what they are doing. Majorly, if you have one hundred students in a class and you try to sample the reason why they are not doing well, what you are going to get will be that these students don’t actually know what they are doing. Their minds are not there, the students’ minds are not here. You have a lot of distractions and you have so many things contending for your souls. People are whispering to you, why are you studying this? What do you want to get? Even some parents, especially mothers are telling their daughters, ‘leave this thing that you are doing and come and join me in this business, even your lecturers, can’t you see them? They will come here to buy things on credit so you are going to amount to nothing.’ 

You are so distracted, nobody has confidence that you are going to make good in what you are doing and that is what is disturbing many students. I can’t understand why we teach the way we teach and students still don’t understand. I can’t understand! The way we are teaching you now, that is the way they taught us. In fact, we are teaching you better now than the way they taught us. When we were here, our lecturers were very old; the youngest lecturers were Professor Yusuf and Professor Adegbite. Those were the youngest lecturers then, others were old people. So, we were so much afraid of them, that we were not free with them. In fact, it would be my set or Professor Akande’s set when younger people began to join academics to teach because Professor Akande’s set came in 1997. Professor Akande, Professor Taiwo, Late Professor Asiyanbola, Professor (Mrs.) Olateju, Professor (Mrs.) Soneye are the same set. My set came in 1998, just a few months apart. I’m talking about myself, Professor Okunoye, Professor Ayeomoni, Professor Ayo Kehinde who is now in UI, Dr. Adejumo, Dr. Ogunfolabi, Dr. (Mrs) Aruwa – that’s our set. We came in together to join other lecturers. At that time when we were given the job, I was thirty. That was when younger people began to join academics. 

Before, they were old men, and old women, they were very old like our fathers and grandfathers. So, there was no freedom going to them to ask for past questions, to ask questions about this and that. It’s only when they want to see you, you dare not go to their offices. The challenge that students have now is that they don’t believe in what they are studying, they don’t believe this thing they are studying will take them anywhere. You have so many distractions, you have so many people telling you things that if you can do this, it will be better than what you are doing and during our own time there was no Yahoo (internet fraud), there was no Olosho (female sex workers). All of those things that have begun to entrench themselves in society now didn’t exist. So, we were not distracted. I don’t believe students are not intelligent but you don’t have the believe in what you are doing. The Nigerian system has not made it clear to you that there is safety in studying a particular course. As you (interviewers) are seated here, there is one trade that you are engaged with. You all have side hustles. 

Studying language requires that you must understand it which requires a lot of reading. During our time, we do not have access to the internet like we do now. So, you definitely must go to the library (Hezekiah Oluwasanmi Library) to read. Reading and understanding are not there again for students. All you want to do is just pass. I never copied in my life. I can’t copy because copying another person’s assignment is like giving me poison.

Students, you need to read and understand and believe that what you are doing will take you further in life. We knew what we were doing would take us further in life.

We know that the Department of English Language has graduates that are very successful now. Can you tell us some of them and what they are presently doing, maybe with this course?

Our department is the Department of English not the Department of English language. Saying the Department of English Language is knocking out Literature. It is the department that awards two degrees — B. A English and B.A Literature-in-English. In some other universities in Nigeria, they call it the Department of English and Literary Studies. However, before this present time, this department started as the Department of English and then broke into three departments. We had three departments: the Department of English, the Department of Literature, and the Department of Linguistics. That was how the department started. Later on, the university collapsed the departments back into the Department of English but was later split into two instead of three departments, which were: the Department of English and the Department of Linguistics. Lecturers of these departments who were products of three departments. In the Department of English, we have people like Prof. Adebisi Afolayan (Baba), Dr. Bolaji Aremo, and the late Prof. C. O. Awonuga. In the Department of Literature, Prof. Oyin Ogungba (whom the departmental library is named after), Prof. Mary Kolawole Ebun MBM, Prof. B. M. Ibitokun, and Prof. Segun Adekoya, who retired two years ago. 

In the Department of Linguistics, we have the Late Prof. Ekundayo, he was the one that supervised my masters, Prof S. O. Oke (French language), Prof. L. O. Ademola (Linguistics and African language), Prof. Soyeye, and Prof. Soneya. But when the department broke into two, some went to linguistics and some to foreign languages. We have the Department of English where we award two degrees and there was a time when it was the Department of English Studies.

Now, back to the question. The beauty of our department is that many people graduated here and went into journalism. There was a time in Nigeria when the journalism profession was dominated by graduates from this department. I may not be able to remember many of them but I will try. Chief Dele Momodu (journalism), Olayemi Ogunwole (journalism), Rahaman Abiola (journalism), Nurudeen Lawal (journalism), Kabir Adejumo (journalism), Femi Adesina (former speaker to President Buhari), Jumobi Adegbesan (the woman who married Richard Mofe Damijo) Abike Dabiri Irewa (politician), Late Alex Akinleye (Politician) Oluwatosin Somefun (Finance). 

We have so many of our graduates who are lecturers in other universities. Like, the University of Ibadan, the University of Lagos, and Ahmadu Bello University. The beauty of it is that once they finished English, many went into accounting, some went into law and so many other things. We have so many people.

According to a report last year, the English department has the highest percentage of Second class graduates (lower division) “as usual”. Most people also believe that the Department of English Language at OAU is not easy to scale through and there is a likelihood of one graduating with a better grade in some other universities than in OAU. What is your view on this, sir?

The major challenge is that students are being forced to do what they are doing. Their minds are not in what they are studying. Language is such that if you do not merit a grade and you are given, you will soon be found out. You can’t pretend for too long because it will become obvious that you are a fluke, not original. It will show that you are just pretending. It is difficult to give students marks that they do not merit. You will soon experience this by the time you begin to work. It might not be lecturing, it might be teaching or other engagement. You will find it difficult to reward indolence no matter how generous you are. When you give students questions, while some answer extensively, exceeding pages and some decide to answer the same questions just in few lines, would you dash out marks to the second person? You will give marks accordingly.

You know how some of you struggle to read and go to the library for assignments and someone will come on the day you are to submit such assignment from Lagos and look for how to dub from others, you wouldn’t feel good when the result is out and he/she is having an ‘A’ and you who had struggled to get the assignment done had an ‘E’. There is nothing that is easy. If it is easy, it means you are cutting corners, and that way, you can’t last. Anything you cut corners to get cannot last. This is the reason why people think OAU is difficult. In OAU, there are marking guides for everything. If you have not written what is in the marking guide for the exam, can you be awarded an ‘A’ or a ‘B’ for the course? You will definitely question the lecturer’s marking. You know people that are brilliant in your class. If they score higher and people who are lazy score low, must you blame us for that? Last session, we had an EGL 401 test. We used Auditorium II for the lecture which was never full. The day we were to have the central test, the two auditoria and BOO C could not contain the students. Having that kind of attendance for tests simply means a lot of them have not been coming for classes. 

Let me tell you my problem with students, if you know that you haven’t done well in a course, must you pass? A lady (not from this department) came to me to complain that she just registered for SER and she needed my help to pass because she has done it five times already. I was surprised that she just registered for the course in the Rain semester which means she has not been attending classes all through the Harmattan semester. I asked her if she knew that the SER test is sixty marks while the exam is just forty marks. In this department, there is a hierarchy of authority. I can’t even interfere with the system. You, students, don’t believe that some things cannot be done. You believe anything can be done which is the challenge we lecturers are having with you. 

A student once told me, “sir, I know that I failed and I am not contending with that because I wasn’t around for the exam but what can you do?” I asked that student, “what can I do when your friends knew you weren’t around for the exam?”

Help me tell students that once you have made an irreversible mistake, don’t put pressure on lecturers. Imagine someone failing SER 5 times. I told the lady that it’s because she wasn’t ready to go. Immediately after your EGL 401 exam, some ladies came to me and said they were a group of people repeating the course and they had done the exam and thought they should come to me to talk about how I can help them, so they can pass. I looked at them and asked, “before you did the test, did you come to me?” Two of them said they didn’t do the test and those of them who did complained that it was terrible but never came to me to explain certain things to them. Now after the exam, you want to tie my hands so I can make sure they can pass and the pressure will be on me. If you were the lecturer, what would you do? Why should students subject their lecturer to such things? When I refused them, they were so surprised and unhappy. Before the exam, no student came to me to complain about the course and seek for help or guidance and I have marked some scripts and seen people scored zero over sixty in the just concluded EGL 401. The same thing happened in the test. Is it possible to write a test and not know that you have written wrongly and expect to pass? Please, help me to tell students that they are giving us a lot of stress. What you are supposed to do, do it. If you know you need help, ask for help long before the test and exam are yet to be conducted.

Most students, especially newly admitted students, mostly find it difficult to relate with their lecturers and this is also a medium to communicate with them. What advice will you give to them in general, sir?

They have staff advisers and if they have issues with them, they have HOD. The HOD is the father/mother of the department as the case may be. If there is any problem anyone cannot solve for you, go to the HOD. First of all, go to your staff advisers and that is why they have two for each level; one for English majors and the other for Literature majors. We are also gender conscious in selecting staff advisers. We have a male and a female. If the HOD cannot solve your problem, go to the Dean of the student affairs. If your problem can’t be solved there, go to the chairman committee of Deans who is a father figure. If he/she can’t solve your problem, go to any of the deputy Vice Chancellor. There is hierarchy in the university. As the head of this department, I listen to all manner of complain either sensible or not. Studying English is very rewarding. That is the best course you can study in the faculty of Arts. That is why the department is more than all the other departments combined. And this applies to both students and lecturers.

We have about forty-four lecturers in this department while in some other departments they have eight, fourteen or twelve lecturers. This is because this is the course everyone wants to do and with it, you can do any other thing in life. English is the language of the world. No language compares with English in terms of prestige, wide range and spread. If you are dropped by an helicopter on any continent of the world and you speak English, someone will understand you. However, students don’t understand what they are doing here.

Are there any educational opportunities for students in the department of English like scholarships?

We have so many fellowship for students of English and many of our masters students enjoy some of it. People like Dr. Ademilokun, Dr. Wole Coker and many others enjoyed it. But to qualify for this, you have to convince people that you can write well and anyone that can write well must be able to read well. How many novels do you read in a week, a month? Do you read magazine? Don’t limit yourself only to English. Read books on music, history, culture, linguistics, religion… . This is called multidisciplinary and that is what is ruling the world.

You must be able to write and explain in other areas of knowledge. Then read drama texts and novels.

Thank you for your time, sir.

You are welcome. Do have a wonderful time.