Inside a city of knowledge

By Lasisi Olagunju

Boston CityThis is a very cold city,” the reporter said wanting to provoke a discussion with the white driver on the way into the city from the Logan International Airport.

“ Yes, cold and old, but what can you do about it? We are used to it”, he said maintaining a straight face. The reporter kept his peace for a while studying the man and the environment. Just then the driver pointed at a building by his left.

“ That is a free hotel.” “Free hotel?” “Yes, free accommodation, feeding and clothing.” “Really?,” we chorused in utter disbelief as the driver who volunteered to tell us all these chuckled and in a rather mischievous manner added—“ Prison, it is a prison.”

He was right no matter what we might think. Free food, free accommodation even free training. But we could not believe that the fully air-conditioned, marbled building without a wall fence was a prison. It was, really, as the small sign- board placed at its main entrance showed.

But the city was not just about such negativity. Beautiful streets. Elegant buildings. Enthralling harbours. No hidden cameras like you have along London streets. Our guide, actually a Nigerian with very vast knowledge of the American environment was effusive in telling the inquisitive reporter why almost 75 per cent of the population of Boston, Massachusetts was made up of students and lecturers. And you could feel this in the bustling in the streets, in hotels and in other public places.

So, if such a huge population of a great city like this is in the academics, where are the schools? How many are they? A map came handy and the reporter could count five—Harvard, the first University in the United states, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said to be the best technology-biased university in the United States. There were also University of Massachusetts at Boston, Boston University and Northeastern University. But that was not all as a Professor who observed the reporter’s interest in the unusual concentration of universities in Boston declared that indeed, there were over fifty five universities and degree awarding Colleges in the area.

“ Good gracious,” the reporter exclaimed and the Professor went further to give a break down: Between Boston proper and Cambridge there are forty one universities and colleges while surrounding communities have not less than nineteen.

If the city is said to have the largest concentration of universities in the whole world, it will be stating the obvious. For those conversant with the history of the city, this will not be a surprise given the fact that this is a place that a one time American President, John Adams described as where “the child, independence was born.” What he was saying in that simple sentence is that it was here that the American war of Independence started.It was home to the Kennedys and quite a lot of front-row American citizens in history.

From left, HRM Oba Okunade Sijuwade,
Ooni of Ife, Harvard University Marshall,
Jackie O’Neil, explaining a point to
Governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola.When you are in an interesting place like that, you try to gather as many materials and information as possible. Books can help. And there were quite very good ones you could get in hotel shops. You could see in some of these literature that it was in Boston that telephone was invented, that there too medical anesthesia and electric pacemaker were invented while the very first organ transplant in the US was done here. Boston boasts of the invention of the spark plug, passenger elevator and the digital computer among several others. United States first newspaper and the first book were also published in Boston.

But it is a very cold city. It is, in fact, said to be one of the coldest in the United States. Despite the allure of the opportunities which its uniqueness in everything offers, the weather continues to confound not a few. Indeed, former Vice Chancellor of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, Professor Wande Abimbola informed Governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola during one of the informal sessions while there that he had to run away from teaching in Harvard after ten years because “the city was too cold for me.” He now lives in Atlanta. Several other Nigerians and even Americans met in that city would rather live in the warmer parts of the United States.

But many are living there, braving and daring the weather. Literally, you decked in winter wears, ran back into hotel lobbies and charged back out there when confronted by the inclemency of the weather.

And you have heard so much about Harvard. The First American University, best in the whole world. The reporter got to know that the University’s name is America’s way of showing appreciation to a man, John Harvard, who donated half of his estate and all 302 books in his library to the university! …. The university which started at commencement with twelve students now boasts of eighteen thousand students “with twenty three thousand faculty and staff.” If you try to find out, you will discover that Harvard was a microcosm of the old America where all animals were not deemed equal.

You will find out that until year 1769, graduates of that citadel of learning were arranged not in alphabetical order or in order of academic performance but according to the social status of their parents. Now, all those have given way to a free world of academics where even blacks prove to the Caucasian that black is brainy! The University’s Marshall, Jackie O’Neil, told visiting Governor Oyinlola and the Ooni of Ife that the University as at now has 28 Nigerian students studying for various programmes there.

There was nothing extra-ordinary to suggest that we were in a university environment when we got to Massachusetts Institute of Technology. There were no hordes of students clutching books and laptops. There was no noisy lecturer boasting to impress female students of his prowess. There was not even a noticeable gate house to welcome guests like us from Africa. Nothing usual but the buildings were academic-like in every sense. And with Prof Jacob Oluponna of Harvard University who was our guide to this place, you had already learnt that here is the hub of American technological feats. You get to know too that the MIT as it is called, has produced a number of first class Nigerian Engineers one of who started the Space Programme at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife. You entered the Institute’s department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and, indeed, met a certain Professor Tayo Akinwande who is making waves there and doing Nigeria proud with his productivity. You got to know, through Akinwande, a Professor Jesuis of the same department who is involved in some engineering and information technology academic programmes in some African universities including OAU, Ile –Ife almost to the point of obsession. You wonder when and if Africa will one day catch up with the industrialized world when you listen to Jesuis as he took almost 90minutes demonstrating the new technology of e-laboratory for African Universities. You felt a sense of inadequacy as he showed how between Europe and America thousands of optic fibre linked countries producing seamless communication possibilities, how a single optic fibre linked these continents with Africa! You get enthralled by the passion with which he demonstrated the workability of OAU students, for instance, using IMT laboratories located in Boston, US to perform experiments while sitting before their computers in Ile- Ife Nigeria. And he said it is not only possible, it is happening already. The demonstration and the assertion made Governor Oyinlola give a commitment to get Osun State University hooked to the programme.

Indeed, when you consider the assertion that two-thirds of Boston adults are university graduates and, apart from the record number of universities it has, you marvel when you learn too that it has the highest number of heath research institutions in the United States-about 25 in all. You agree instantly, after considering all these, that Mark Twain was dead right with his submission that: “In New York, they ask how much money a man has. In Philadelphia, what family he is from, in Boston, how much he knows.”

And while in that city, you met a number of persons long lost by Nigeria. The popular Barry Hallen who was in Ife until the heat of instability took him away, was one of those who delivered papers at the conference on Yoruba culture that took us to Harvard in the first instance. There was Mei Mei Sanford of the College of William and Mary who was more Yoruba than many in that gathering. There was Professor Rowland Abiodun with his charming daughter, Aina, whose concern for Yoruba culture was deep. There were several others from the Caribbean for whom Yorubaland is the ideal home. They were all there.

As the delegation left that city after days of academic and governmental discourses, the reporter could see that Nigeria surely needs such an enclave of knowledge to serve as an incubator for a future that will not be afraid of its own tomorrow.

*Lasisi Olagunju, a Deputy Editor with the Nigerian Tribune on leave of absence, is the Chief Press Secretary to Osun State Governor.