Watering Africa’s intellectual desert is his calling, through brain gain

He was the oldest learner and best participant in our class of 40, earning himself a reward for the cause he is championing dubbed the “brain gain”.

Of course he was not our own oldest pupil Kimani Maruge. At the age of 69 he remained at the top of the intellectual discourse and scooped an award in the form of a book titled “The brain gain”.

That is Prof Taban lo Liyong who is now in Kenya for workshops, a bookfair at the University of Nairobi and guest lecturing to those willing for the next two weeks. The Nation had an exclusive interview with him.

When another accomplished scholar Professor Okello Oculi and Medical Services minister Prof Peter Anyang’ Nyong’o invited him to receive the present, Prof Liyong proved he was still a harvester in the fertile fields of academics.

Civil society

Participants invited to attend the African Research and Resource Forum (ARRF) arrived at the Lake Naivasha Simba lodge on September 18, for a discourse on the role of Civil Society Organisations in the evolving democracy in Africa.

Prof Liyong arrived carrying his jeans fabric bag with writings befitting his long journey in the academic world.

It had the inscription “long board” and his T-shirt spoke volumes about the subject of discussion in relation to the organisations’ failure to fight corruption after their former members join governments.

The T-shirt had the Government of Southern Sudan’s Anti-Corruption Authority campaign slogan, ‘Say “NO” to corruption’.

Kenyan examples of civil society leaders who spilled their blood fighting the government of retired President Daniel arap Moi only to join the eating club after Narc took over power was well captured by a powerful speech delivered by Prof Liyong with matching examples of the Government of South Sudan.

“Our people are now confused. Most of our scholars who went to Khartoum when Juba University was removed from its geographical location in the South do not want to come back after Islamic influence.

“The former fighters are Cabinet ministers and President so people are eating. They are nearly all members of the Catholic church and our bishop and priests are in a tight corner to point out their ills,” Prof Liyong said.

He told the participants that most African countries are experiencing an intellectual desert.

The participants included Prof Michael Chege the chairman of ARRF, the convenor of the workshop Prof Peter Wanyande, Prof Egara Kabaji, Dr Charles Olunga, Dr Ben Sihanya, former nominated MP Ms Njoki Ndung’u, veteran politician Salim Ndamwe and representatives of civil society groups in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and South Sudan.

On Kenya’s controversial General Election, Prof Liyong said: ‘‘I am still wondering what kind of law is taught in Kenya.”

This was in reference to the manner in which Electoral Commission of Kenya Chairman Samuel Kivuitu, a lawyer, handled the elections.

Ms Ndung’u presented a paper giving her views on corruption, the Anglo Leasing scandal, the performance of the Narc government vis a vis ethnicity, right of President, Prime Minister and Vice President’s spouses to get hefty allowances and the post elections violence, which she squarely blamed on civil society organisations and not the ECK.

In an interview with the Nation Prof Liyong’ said he returned to South Sudan on May 15, 2005. He had just retired from Venda University in South Africa after attaining the mandatory age of 65.

His mission was to be an advisor of Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement leader Dr John Garang, who later died in a helicopter crash.

Died too soon

“He died too soon but I am not leaving my homeland. I advise the leaders through a newspaper column known as the tortoise wisdom,” he said.

Why tortoise wisdom? I asked him. The animal does not reveal its power or sexual organs until confronted by fire or thrown in water.

“You will only know the sex of a tortoise when confronted by danger but it is always patient, slow and sure,” he said.

That is how he is telling his people to avoid confrontation and deal with their Northern partners tactfully to achieve independence.

Simba lodge is historical to him because that is where the Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed in 2005 and only 20 days later Dr Garang died on his way home from an official trip in Uganda.

Prof Liyong is not persuaded by the reasons given by academicians for staying in Europe and refusing to go home. They stay on for monetary gain, he asserts.

“An Eritrean woman told us when we set up the government that we should not invite scholars in diaspora because they won’t come.

“Let those present take all government positions. Those in diaspora will send money from those countries to build the infrastructure,” he said with a broad smile.

The legendary scholar is himself not holding any position in the government and he doesn’t care. “I did not go back home to look for money but to remain realistic to the dreams of our people.

“I want to stay and die in my Kajo Kaji village in Central Equatorial region,” he added.

Sipping red wine Prof Liyong remembered his days as a Member of Parliament during the regime of President Gaffar Numeiri between 1982 to 1985 when he was overthrown.

His achievement during the time was the construction of a 70 miles road from Koja Kaji to Juba and to date it is named Taban Liyong road.

A Kenyan contractor has now won the tender of rehabilitating it after total destruction during the 20 years of war. Prof Liyong is opposed to parallel courses in public universities saying they have robbed Kenya of its academic heritage.

“I have land which my clansmen have given me and will a start a unique university to inculcate practical education and theoretical disciplines. It will be called African Continental University,” he said.

To academicians he said: “ Let us reconstitute the fraternity of scholars which existed since the Makerere days. We need an extended East African Community of Scholars which include South Sudan.”

He concurred with Prof Chege that parallel degree programmes should be abolished or parallel lecturers be recruited since the lecturers for the regular courses have no time to think.

They practised shuttle teaching from one campus to the other without quality time to develop critical discourses.

In Sudan the Islamic government encouraged the training of doctors, engineers and pure scientists who operate in a straight jacket and cannot criticise the regime through literature.

He said all Africans are welcome in South Sudan and cited the case of Ugandans who are benefiting a lot from jobs there. This is a reverse of what the Sudanese did to build Uganda in early 1940’s to 1971.

The book Prof Liyong received published by Prof Oculi and others is supposed to import knowledge from African scholars in diaspora to enrich the intellectual desert in South Sudan through a plan called brain gain.

Best selling

In agreeing with Prof Chege and others he said in Kenya the best selling books are primary school text books.

‘‘The universities are accessed by those who don’t deserve and make the deserving ones strain to become barbers, prostitutes, hoteliers and pornography vendors to survive because while the rich join parallel programmes with ease,’’ said the scholar and added, ‘‘Please oppose your senates and boycott teaching parallel students.”

He called for the standardisation of university education across the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) countries and particularly East African, the cradle of intellectual prowess.

In collaboration with Henry Owuor-Anyumba and renowned Kenyan author Ngugi wa Thiong’o, he wrote On the Abolition of the English Department in 1968.

Acknowledging the formidable influence of European literature over African writing, Prof Liyong and his colleagues called for the educational system to emphasise the oral tradition (as a key traditional African form of learning), Swahili literature, as well as prose and poetry from African-American and Caribbean society.

Through On the Abolition of the English Department, Liyong and his allies attempted a re-consideration of the humanities curriculum at the University of Nairobi, most particularly of its investment in foreign (British) literature and culture.

Prof Liyong has published over twenty books. These include Carrying Knowledge Up a Palm Tree (1998), an anthology of poetry that addresses various contemporary issues and The Uniformed Man (1971).

The East African Literature Bureau published many of Liyong’s earlier works in English as well as East African dialects.