LAGOS – The Nigerian academic community has been plunged into mourning following the announcement of the passing of Professor Emeritus Biodun Jeyifo, FNAL. The renowned scholar, critic, and activist died on Wednesday, February 11, 2026, just weeks after celebrating his 80th birthday.
The President of the Nigerian Academy of Letters (NAL), Professor Andrew Haruna, FNAL, confirmed the news in a statement. “The Nigerian Academy of Letters regrets to announce the death of Professor Emeritus Biodun Jeyifo, which event occurred on February 11, 2026,” the statement read.
Known affectionately as “BJ” by colleagues and students alike, Professor Jeyifo was a towering figure in African literary criticism. His passing comes shortly after a grand international event held in his honor at the Muson Centre in Lagos on January 5, 2026, to mark his milestone 80th birthday.
Jeyifo’s career was marked by academic excellence and a fierce commitment to social justice. A former faculty member at the then University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), he later achieved global prominence with dual appointments at Cornell and Harvard Universities. Beyond the classroom, he is remembered as a founding father of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), where he helped build the framework for defending academic freedom in Nigeria.
Reacting to the news of his demise, Associate Professor of Drama at the University of East Anglia, UK, Dr Adeyemi, wrote, “…those who were there in the early years recall his tireless commitment: travelling the length and breadth of Nigeria in his battered Volkswagen Beetle, visiting campuses large and small, persuading sceptical colleagues, drafting communiqués by candlelight, and building the solidarities that would allow ASUU to withstand decades of political pressure. His leadership was marked by courage, strategic clarity and an unwavering belief that scholars must stand together if they are to defend the integrity of their work. That early labour, which was arduous, often dangerous, and undertaken with characteristic humility, remains one of the cornerstones of his public legacy.
“As an essayist and critic, Jeyifo possessed a rare combination of analytical rigour and imaginative sympathy. His writing was marked by a clarity of thought that never descended into dogmatism, and by a generosity of spirit that allowed him to engage seriously with positions he did not share.”
Dr Adeyemi further revealed that the late Jeyifo “wrote with equal authority about canonical figures such as Wole Soyinka and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, and about lesser‑known playwrights, poets and performers whose work he believed deserved wider attention. His essays were often animated by a sense of urgency, a belief that literature was not a luxury but a necessity in societies grappling with inequality, authoritarianism and the unfinished business of decolonisation. Yet he was never merely polemical; his criticism was grounded in close reading, historical context and a deep respect for the craft of writing.
“His contributions to theatre studies were particularly influential. Jeyifo was among the first scholars to articulate a sustained Marxist reading of African drama, arguing that the stage was a site where the contradictions of postcolonial society could be both exposed and imaginatively reconfigured. His work on Yoruba theatre, especially his analyses of the Alarinjo tradition and the popular travelling theatre movement, remains foundational.”
Funeral arrangements are expected to be announced by the family in due course.
