Dr Stephen Lawani, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA)’s first Director of Information Services, turned 80 recently. The Library and Information Science expert is credited with founding and developing IITA’s library and records management department into a computerised information resource hub and that has become a model for other institutions in the country. He also initiated the Media Forum for Agriculture which fostered a link between journalists and scientific researchers mostly from the IITA and encouraged greater level of agricultural reporting by the media. He reflects on the past eight decades of his life’s journey among other issues. Excerpts:
Did you ever hope to get to where you are today?
I’m most grateful to the Almighty Father for having had a very, very fortunate life. I was the last born of my mother, and before me, there were three older sisters. The very oldest of us was male. So, I was pampered, really pampered. I enjoyed a beautiful childhood.
I can’t even now think of having a better childhood, although my children would tell me that they had a better childhood because they grew up in the environment of IITA. The oldest of them was about four years old when we moved to IITA. And they lived there until they went to boarding school, secondary school. A beautiful, free environment where they could ride their bicycles all over the place, there were swimming pools, everything. So, they have a point but what gave me satisfaction at that time is not describable in those physical terms.
Describe your growing up?
In the circumstances I grew up, there were many educated people in the area and education was taken for granted. Fortunately for me, I went to what I still consider, at least for that time, one of the best, the very best secondary schools in Nigeria, Christ School at Ado-Ekiti. At Christ School, the principal, Canon L.D. Mason, took quite some interest in me, I suppose because I was one of the youngest in my class and also, I came from a relatively far place, from Igarra, in Akoko-Edo, in Benin-Delta Province. It’s the headquarters of present-day Akoko-Edo. In those days, most of the students were from Ekiti area or their parents were Ekiti, but I wasn’t from Ekiti, so he looked after me and I had an excellent time. The school also was influential in my choice of career. They had the tradition that if you are one of the very the top students academically and had the best result in English Language when you were in Form 3, going to Form 4, you were qualified to work in the library.
How did your library career start?
Working in the library was a privilege, it was a distinguished place to work. While others were cutting the grass and sweeping the roads, you were in the library. So, after obtaining the best result in chemistry in my class at UI and getting a university scholarship to do a PhD, I chose to go into librarianship. Other people saw the library profession as something not really important, they thought it was for only those who studied English or for women who don’t really have any other opportunities. I had the university scholarship and chose to do a project in theoretical chemistry, which even most of my teachers didn’t understand. They already found a place for me in Canada to go and do a PhD under a distinguished theoretical chemist. But then I said, if I can’t do a subject or choose a profession that I can discuss with anybody, one that even the brilliant chemists don’t understand, is that what I’m going to do for life? Since I like books, I like a wide range of subjects, I opted to do librarianship. In fact, the decision was so unusual that I couldn’t tell many of my friends. When my head of department heard about it from the head of the Institute of Librarianship – they were both expatriates, he called, and bullied me. He said: It is rubbish, you’re not going to do it. So, I avoided him until they called me from the Institute of Librarianship and asked, Are you really serious that you are coming or you are just playing games? I said I was coming. So they said, If you are coming, you will have to arrange your university scholarship for PhD, because the one you have doesn’t cover this one. I said I knew. They said they would arrange scholarship for me. They got the Rockefeller Foundation to give me a scholarship. The Rockefeller Foundation promised to give me a scholarship but on the condition that when I completed one year here, I would have to go to the United States for further studies in librarianship, and that they hoped I would be interested in working on a project they were developing called the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture. They also expressed the hope that I would be coming there to work. So, that gave me further strength and I daresay I have been very fortunate and kindly guided in my choice of career.
What’s your attitude to politics?
Politics simply means the art of bringing people together for a common purpose, which means that we must know that this common purpose is really to live aright in the world. So, there should be nothing wrong with politics except that our philosophy of politics must be right. We must practise politics in accordance again with the laws of creation. So, you know if it is the will of the Almighty that we create harmony and peace on earth, then our politics must be such as is protective of peace and harmony and justice and love.
You have a wife who is active in partisan politics. How do you accommodate each other?
All politicians are not the same. Some politicians may be practising politics in a way that you admire. So, it does not mean that a non-politician and a politician cannot get along. They may, in fact, share common views on some issues.
How are you able to blend and have a harmonious married life, being both erudite scholars and very busy career persons?
To me, it seems very simple. If two or more people are committed in different directions, as long as those directions are valid and swing in the will of the Almighty, in accordance with the primordial laws of creation, there should be no conflict. It just means that energies are directed differently.
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