Professor Jacob Olupona, an indigene of Ute in Ondo State, is a world-renowned international researcher in the field of Comparative Religions. In 2006, he joined the faculty of Harvard University as Professor of African and African American Studies, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and as Professor of African Religious Traditions, Harvard Divinity School. Jacob Olupona served as Chair of the Committee on African Studies (2006-2009), and as Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of African and African American Studies, FAS. He currently directs a seminar on ‘Nigeria and the World’ for the Weatherhead Center for International Studies, Harvard University.
Born in Nigeria in 1951, Olupona studied at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka and joined the University of Ife (renamed Obafemi Awolowo University) in 1977. He took his doctorate in Comparative Religion from Boston University (1983). In 1991, Olupona joined the faculty of the University of California, Davis, serving as Chair of the African American and African Studies Program and the Religious Studies Program. Recipient of the Nigerian highest academic honor, Nigerian National Order of Merit( NNOM), and a Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters(FNAL), Jacob Olupona has received honorary doctorate degrees from three universities: Edinburgh in Scotland, Abuja, and Obafemi Awolowo in Nigeria.
Olupona is author and editor of several books on Nigerian and African religious traditions, including the prize-winning, Kingship Religion and Rituals in a Nigerian Community: A Phenomenological Study of Ondo Yoruba Festivals, which won the University of Stockholm’s Social Science and Humanities Grant. Harvard University awarded Olupona the Cabot Fellowship (2012-2013) for his book, City of 201 Gods: Ile Ife in Time, Space and the Imagination (2011).
In addition to the being the recipient of the Reimar Lust Award for distinguished scholarship from the Humboldt Foundation, Germany, Olupona has received other prestigious fellowships and grants from several other Foundations, including the John Simon Guggenheim, Getty, the Ford, and the Rockefeller Foundation, Bellagio, Italy and Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Fellowship. Olupona has held the Edna and Gene Jordan Davidson Visiting Chair, Florida International University, Miami; The Henry S. Truman Research Institute for Advancement of Peace and the Rudin- Dricell Lectureship, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, 2012. He was President of the African Association for the Study of Religion (1992-2005). He is married with children.
With his multiple academic achievements, and remarkable professional experiences, Prof. Jacob Olupona‘s deep expertise in Comparative Religion has put him on the global map. The distinguished Prof. Jacob Olupona in this exclusive interview with Dawn-To-Dusk News’ Online Editor, KIKELOMO IWAJOMO, speaks on his background, his experiences, religion, Nigeria, and Nigerians in Diaspora. Excerpts:
What were the circumstances of your birth and your early upbringing?
I was born as a twin in Oke Igbo, my mother’s hometown in Ondo State. My father, Venerable Michael Olupona is from Ute in Owo district and he came to Oke Igbo as a teacher, working for the Anglican Church. There he met my mother, Henrietta Olupona (née Aderemi) who was also teacher and they got married. I lived there for about four years before both of them were transferred to Ondo. My earlier experience of life came from there. That’s why until today I am so much connected with the place.
I was born as a twin in Oke Igbo, my mother’s hometown in Ondo State.
My father is from Ute, a small town in Ondo State that borders Edo State. So when you look at it in terms of my life, I start from one extreme to another end because Oke Igbo is the last town before Osun State while Ute is close to Edo State. I was born into a very solid Anglican Christian family. My paternal and maternal grandfathers were evangelical Christians, and I grew up under the care of my uncles and aunties including Chief Mrs. Fagunwa, the wife of the late Yoruba author and writer D. O. Fagunwa and then of course my big uncle, Venerable Albert Aderemi, who was also a reverend.
I had that very interesting upbringing. But then my parents moved to Ondo, my father was a teacher, headmaster of St. Saviour’s Primary School, Ondo for several years. He rose to the top of the profession and then he had a calling to be an Anglican priest. He went to a seminary in Ibadan, Melville Hall which then became Emmanuel College after independence. He was trained as a priest, and they brought him back to Ondo. He was then ordained a Reverend in 1957 by the late Bishop S. O. Odutola, who was Bishop of the Ondo-Benin Diocese at the time.
I wrote my first award-winning book, Kingship, Religion, and Rituals in a Nigerian Community…, on Ondo Religion.
So, my father was transferred to various places and then finally to Ibadan where he died. My father died very young. By the time he died, he was an archdeacon in the Anglican Church, in Kudeti. I had my primary and secondary education in Ile-Oluji. From there, I went to the University of Nigeria, Nsukka for my first degree. After my first degree I joined the University of Ife, later Obafemi Awolowo University, as a Graduate Fellow, and the University of Ife then sent me to Boston University for my PhD degree in Comparative Religion. In between, I went home for one year to do field research for my dissertation in Ondo and when I finished, I returned to Ife in 1983. I wrote my first award-winning book, Kingship, Religion, and Rituals in a Nigerian Community…, on Ondo Religion.
As a student activist, did you toe the path of politics or you knew outrightly you wanted to be a professor?
At Nsukka, I was a cool-headed but quite popular student union officer. Then, during a sendoff party for me, one of those who attended said to me, ‘I’ll not advise that you become a politician. I will not advise you to join the military because if you join the military, you’re primarily going to stage a coup and they may eliminate you. We don`t want you to die. We don`t want you to be a politician because you`re too ethical.” And then I said, “What do you want me to be now? I am not going to be priest simply because I did religion.” So from there I began my journey to the academic world.
What was life like in the University of Nigeria (UNN)?
I was a very active student. I was a student politician and I spent a lot of time playing student politics at Nsukka after the civil war in 1971. When I write my memoir, I`ll talk about my experiences as a student union officer. You see, I had a good time at Nsukka. When I see Nigerian university students these days, I remember how different their lives are from my own experience and the experience of my cohort. UNN was a truly national university. I remember when I first got there and I saw those big student hostels dedicated to Nigerian leaders such as Akintola, Awolowo, Balewa, Margaret Ekpo, and Isa Kaita!
We have problems all over Nigerian universities. This was not what the first generation of universities looked like.
The founding fathers, particularly Azikwe, built the place like a true university for Nigeria. Sometime back I had a chat with Ambassador Ojo Madueke in Canada{who died a few months ago} and we talked about Nigerian institutions. I said UNN is now considered an Igbo University, and he told me that it is worse than that, it is an Nsukka University. I didn’t even know what to say. We have problems all over Nigerian universities. This was not what the first generation of universities looked like. There is no doubt about it that compared to what we are now experiencing, we had national leaders who really knew what they were doing.
There is no doubt about it that compared to what we are now experiencing, we had national leaders who really knew what they were doing.
I always tell my students about Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa’s first visit to America, and I like showing the video of this visit. He didn`t have a college degree but he spoke so eloquently in impeccable English, and you could be proud of being called a Nigerian. Yet, the Americans couldn`t believe that an African leader could be that brilliant and thorough, and you could see the respect America had for Nigeria that time. The Americans came out in large numbers to greet him. But now, what are we witnessing in Nigeria? We are seeing before our eyes, leaders who have no deep knowledge of the country not to talk of the world. Perhaps we are all living in the age of Donald Trump. Politics is no longer a noble Profession meant for the best and brightest in our nation.
Politics is no longer a noble Profession meant for the best and brightest in our nation.
How do you think the government can utilize Nigerians in the diaspora?
We have to make it very clear that the Diaspora has something to contribute to the development of Nigeria. This is what China and India did. I`ve been to China several times and one of the things that interests me in China especially is that they are building institutions, research centers and they are bringing people from the Diaspora to come and help them. The same applies to India and other Asian countries. Some of these scholars are still working in American universities. The world has changed and Nigerians need to know that.
The Diaspora has something to contribute to the development of Nigeria.
The world has become a global village and Nigeria will need the help and support of her diaspora. The case of Nigeria is unfortunate and pathetic because there are so many of these young ones in the Diaspora who are making waves in academic and professional fields. All you have to do is come to Harvard here and see them. The very bright undergraduates who are leading the world are very passionate about Nigeria, but what they don’t have and what they don’t know is how they can get involved in the development of Nigeria. They want to get involved. Nigeria does not respond to this and does not have a plan that will enable them bring all these resources and all the knowledge into helping the country.
The world has become a global village and Nigeria will need the help and support of her diaspora.
I have been to many countries, not just for conferences alone but also where I spend my sabbatical leaves, and what I always think about is… what can I do to improve things at home in Nigeria? What can my people learn from this place that I am in: China, Israel, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, etc.? The problem is that our people, especially the elites, they don`t know what to do with their wealth and influence. They don`t know how to be relevant to their society and their culture. The wealthy see the acquisition of money as a form of oppressing others particularly those who don`t have it and they maintain a degree of ignorance and illiteracy.
The problem is that our people, especially the elites, they don`t know what to do with their wealth and influence.
It is one thing to be schooled and to acquire certificates, it`s another thing to be educated and literate. This is what I am talking about. Also, Nigeria’s structure that concentrates power and authority in the center constrains growth and development. The regions, states, and local government councils cannot grow efficiently with these kinds of top-down control from the seat of power at the centre. That is not the meaning of federalism that the founding fathers of this nation intended for Nigeria. It is also not what makes America great as the model of our pluralism and federalism.
Nigeria’s structure that concentrates power and authority in the center constrains growth and development
As the son of a priest now a professor of comparative religion, how has your personal religion evolved over the years?
I`m a Christian and I go to church regularly. I’m an Anglican through and through. We have two Anglican churches here in Boston. One is here on campus. The other is in Roxbury district. The whole thing started from my house, in my sitting room as a fellowship: just meeting, talking and having Bible studies and so on. The Nigerian churches are growing in America and all over the world.
Back to your question, what you`re trying to say is that the practice of religion doesn`t mean that you should begin to see others as outsiders. Because of course, my field is comparative of religion, I have studied Islam, Christianity and African religion and so I know what is going on in all these traditions. I know what they are professing. I have no problem with that. I am very religious and I am not the kind of professor who will be deceiving you that I don`t believe in the power of prophets, of the priests, or recognize the potency of the power of indigenous traditions.
I am very religious and I am not the kind of professor who will be deceiving you that I don`t believe in the power of prophets, of the priests, or recognize the potency of the power of indigenous traditions.
Religion has today become a big issue in Nigeria. Would you say religion is now an identity for Nigerians?
Religion should never define our national identity. Take for instance there is no Yoruba Christian family that does not have Muslims, and vice versa. Look at the South-West Nigerian governors, the majority of them are Muslims. In the past nobody complained about any religious outsiders governing them. But now, you hear complaints about the religious identity of the governors. Why? Because we are pursuing unnecessary problems in the name of religion when we know very well that these issues do not bring about any good thing. There is a lot of ignorance and religious illiteracy is killing Nigeria. Don`t bring your problem as if you have an answer and religion is going to solve all of your problems. Where things are in Nigeria as we speak, religion can’t solve the nation’s problems. We need to act as citizens and demand that our leaders are honest, just, and hardworking. Our people too should be disciplined, ethical, and socially engaged in matters of governance and social welfare.
Religious illiteracy is killing Nigeria.
Why do you think religion can’t solve Nigeria’s problems?
Nigeria’s questions are not theological or spiritual questions. They are primarily social issues. They are social and economic issues and by the way, religion is not just a sacred institution, but also a human institution. And this is why we have problems. The prophets, the general overseers, the sheikhs, the imams, they are human beings. The fact that they are men and women of God doesn’t mean that they are not humans. Unfortunately, some of these religious leaders are showing a lack of discernment or depth in understanding their world and their society. We are going mad with our faith in Nigeria and we must do something about it before it’s too late.
Nigeria’s questions are not theological or spiritual questions. They are primarily social issues.
There is a misconception about the number of deities in South-West Nigeria. Can you please clarify this?
My book, City of 201 Gods, says 201 gods, some will say 401 but generally, it depends on the region where you are. These are metaphoric references to the fact that the Yoruba people have multiple deities. Infinite deities. Their cosmologies are always expanding to accept new gods.
My book, City of 201 Gods, says 201 gods, some will say 401 but generally, it depends on the region where you are.
Of all the deities in Yorubaland, is Ifa the most powerful?
It is because “Ifa” has become so famous that people now begin to think that “Ifa” is the most powerful deity. Ifa is the entrance to the world of the other gods. Ifa harbours the deep knowledge and secrets of the Yoruba cosmos. It is by consulting divination that you know about the fundamentals of all the other deities. This is why Ifa enjoys such popularity and significance. Also in the past, the babalawo were the natural intellectuals who worked closely with the kings (oba) to govern their villages and cities. However, “Obatala” is the most senior god, not “Ifa”. But “Ifa” is the god of wisdom and knowledge. Ifa is powerful because he has this store of knowledge. Without it, you may not be able to know the ways of the gods.
Ifa harbours the deep knowledge and secrets of the Yoruba cosmos
Let’s talk about witches in Yorubaland, why do people live in such fear of them?
It`s a misused word which unfortunately has turned into a conversation about evil in the world. Yoruba people believe that there are certain divine women who are very powerful and have innate power to do and undo things. They are not ordinary people. It is supported by myths of the creation of the world in Ile-Ife as primal role of Osun, the goddess of the Osun River.
Witches are just powerful women in all cultures who have innate power with which they control the world.
These women can use that power to control the world particularly when they see that the world is going astray. That is why one of our most distinguished scholars and professors Rowland Abiodun once described the women as those who are openly loved but secretly feared. But witchcraft is when such power is used for nefarious purposes, which in the popular imagination has become so demonized and given a very bad meaning. It doesn`t allow people to study it in the way they would prefer. Witches are just powerful women in all cultures who have innate power with which they control the world.
What are you currently working on and what do you intend doing after Harvard?
I am working on a book on Evangelical Christianity in Nigeria. That is what I went to write in Germany during my sabbatical leave last year and I am still writing it. I am also writing my memoir. As for retirement, God’s willing, I`ll work for a few more years and retire, then return to Nigeria where I intend to continue to teach and mentor more students and young scholars in the universities and do whatever they want me to do for them. You can see that I always miss home.
I always miss home.
