Ejiet: A great scholar and teacher

“Without doubt, the Literature fraternity is going to miss his scholarship, consistent creativity and genuine humanity,” – Prof. Bukenya
He was a great teacher and a great scholar,” is what Prof. Austin Bukenya remembers of the late Prof. Austin Ejiet (RIP), an eminent columnist, humourist and satirist. The columnist-cum-scholar passed away at Nsambya Hospital on Saturday. According to a family source, Ejiet had been in and out of hospital for a long time, before he finally succumbed on Saturday January 2.
Aged 58, the author, professor of creative writing and commentator, died of liver and pancreas cancer at Nsambya hospital two weeks after his admission.
He was retained as a teaching assistant at the Literature Department, Makerere University where he had graduated in 1978, with a first class degree in Literature. He later obtained a PhD from the University of Iowa in the US.
Much of his writing, including his anthology of short stories, Aida, Hurray for Somo and Other Stories, focus on different aspects of life and its absurdities. He employs satire to unveil the injustices in everyday life. “You can write about the most sacrilegious thing and get away with it,” once said Prof. Ejiet.
While he was the head of the Literature Department at Makerere University, he designed a creative writing course in 1991 which he taught with late Prof. Francis Kidhubuka, though it never survived for long. This, notwithstanding its short lifespan pointed to his passion for the growth of creative writing in Uganda, which he lamented, was lacklustre and wanting.
Prof. Bukenya opined that apart from dissecting some of the most serious and risky political issues with fine humour and satire, Prof. Ejiet was also a very intelligent industrious scholar, who inspired many of his students both in literary terms and in real life.
Bukenya also credits Ejiet for having kept the department going as its head of department during the difficult period of the early ‘90s. “It was a difficult time in terms of finances and resources, but he kept the department going,” said Bukenya, himself an old hand, a senior lecturer at the department, an author and scholar.
While spewing his admiration for African authors, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Okot p’Bitek and Ngugi wa Thiongo, for helping Africa understand itself, and rehabilitating the continent’s image, he so much lamented about the dimming spirit of creative writing in Uganda. He once told this writer that there has been concerted and painful progress in African writing, but with much of such writing aping Achebe’s, Soyinka’s and Ngugi’s classics. Whereas this could actually spell doom to local creative writing, he was categorical that Uganda has a poor history of rewarding creative writers. Musicians get better rewards and most of them continue singing and living off their music. This is just besides the fact that many people are too busy figuring out ways of surviving rather than sitting down to write say, a poem. He cited his own example when he had a 25-year teaching stint at Makerere University. He would start work at 8 pm and end at 5 pm, a schedule, which was too exhaustive to allow him to create room for creative writing. The 25 years were kind of wasted in terms of his creative output.
But, for the creative writers, they “should come up with new and appealing genres to set a unique system of creative works. Most of the earlier African writing dwelt intensively on colonialism. This has been overtaken by events.
“Creative writing is different from writing a historical piece. In creative writing, especially on current issues, one should endeavour to keep in touch with current events. A short story would do better here,” he told this writer in a past interview. Whereas it takes a leisurely pace, say, a day or a week to write a short story, it takes even years to write a novel.
He cited Nuruddin Farah, whose writing dwelt on former president of Somalia, Said Barre and his tyrannical rule. “Despite being a very bright fellow, he has nothing to say because Barre is no more.” The events during Barre’s tyrannical regime were overtaken by history.
Sr. Dr. Dominic Dipio, the current head of the Department of Literature at Makerere University, fondly echoes Prof. Bukenya’s memories of Austin Ejiet. “He was a great scholar, literary critic, satirist and humorist,” she said, beside his social, reticent and self-controlled nature. Alluding to his unique sense of humour, she says whenever he was teaching, he was always making a lot of fun, and this made his lectures so lively. She also alludes fondly to his intelligence, citing that he mentored most of the current crop of figures practicing literature at Makerere University’s Literature department.
She elucidates the fact that “he made us feel very special at the time, and taught us invaluable skills like expressing oneself in a few words” and in the use of good grammar and choice of words.
Whether there could be another Ejiet in the making, “There’s something of him in all of us in creative, satirical, humorous ways,” Sr. Dr. Dipio remarked.
“Without doubt, the Literature fraternity is going to miss his scholarship, consistent creativity and genuine humanity,” summed up Prof. Bukenya.
While head of the Literature Department, Ejiet helped establish the Mass Communication Department at the same university, which department is one of the premier journalism training centres in East Africa.
Ejiet’s life was marred by tragedy, the worst being the death of his wife when he was still teaching at Makerere University. But, according to him, reading was a way to escape such misery and make him sober.
He is best remembered for his anthology of short stories, Aida Hurray for Somo and Other stories, and his weekly satirical column, “Take It or Leave It” in the Sunday Monitor. However, he also wrote three children’s books in Ateso, his mother tongue, besides editing literary works.
His acquaintances, readers, and those he mentored will fondly remember him as a dedicated scholar, humorous and satirical personality, who delivered such attributes through his writings and in the daily life encounters. With his column “Take It or Leave It”, he was one of the longest and consistent columnists in the Sunday Monitor. He also wrote ‘Reality Check’, a weekly column for at least three years, in the Sunrise weekly newspaper. At the time of his death, he was the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at the Kampala International University. He was instrumental in founding the Faculty of Education at the Kampala International University, Western campus in Ishaka. He also previously taught at Uganda Martyrs University, Nkozi.
Ejiet was born in 1951 in Kumi. He was laid to rest on Monday January 4, in Atutur village, his ancestral home in Kumi district, eastern Uganda.