The Ibadan Book and Arts Festival (IbaFest), in partnership with NuStreams, hosted an illuminating evening with polymath, Dr.Tunde Adegbola on Saturday, August 23, 2025, at the NuStreams Conference and Culture Centre, Ibadan. The event, titled The Polymath’s Journey: A Conversation on Humanity, Technology, and the Yoruba Worldview, was another step in IbaFest’s mission to explore the intersections of culture, intellect, and transformation.
Welcoming the audience, Francis Madojemu, CEO of NuStreams, set the tone before handing over to moderators Olanike Onimisi and Kayode Sanni. The gathering celebrated Dr Adegbola’s life and work as a scholar, technologist, cultural advocate, and teacher, while also serving as part of the activities leading up to the inaugural IbaFest scheduled for October 24–25, 2025. The two-day festival, to be held at the International Conference Centre, University of Ibadan, will feature book readings, panel conversations, performances, an art exhibition, and a celebration of Ibadan’s rich literary and cultural heritage. It coincides with a month-long multimedia exhibition honouring Dr Adegbola at 70.
A Journey Through Memory and Legacy
The evening began with a virtual exhibition showcasing awards and artefacts from Dr Adegbola’s decades of work in research, technology, and teaching. Among the plaques was one presented by Microsoft, another recognizing him as the pioneer engineer at the Ogun State Broadcasting Corporation (OGBC), and a Silent Achiever Award from the Change a Life Foundation, handed to him by former Lagos State governor Babatunde Raji Fashola.
He described the awards as testaments to his calling as a teacher. “At some point, I stopped students from giving me those awards,” he said with a smile. “It is reasonable to appreciate a lecturer, but a lecturer cannot be tagged the best.”
The exhibition also displayed some of the old technologies that shaped early computing, as well as parts of his personal music archive. “If it is unrelated to music, I do not buy it,” he confessed. His passion for music was a recurring theme throughout the evening, later culminating in a live performance.
Gratitude and Education
Asked how life feels at 70, Dr. Adegbola reflected on his health journey. “I was diagnosed with prostate cancer at 60, which altered my body and mind. I walked with a stick for almost three years. Therefore, I give thanks to God for being alive to see this moment.”
The conversation soon turned to education and language; subjects he has championed for years. Responding to a question about the Federal Government’s policy reversal on teaching primary pupils in indigenous languages, he was emphatic. “We like shortcuts and cutting corners to get results,” he said. “There is no record of any people who became great by adopting a foreign language. All the countries that taught in their language became industrial societies in the Industrial Age.”
He added: “We have moved from the Industrial Age into the Information Age, and language is the basis of information. No language, no information. If language played such a pivotal role in the Industrial Age, how much more in the Information Age?”
Drawing from his own life, he explained, “I am a testimony of education in Yoruba. I was taught arithmetic in idi and eyo, not tens and units. Thereby applying mathematics to language.” He recalled the famous experiment led by Professor Babs Fafunwa, which showed that children taught in their mother tongue performed better even through secondary school. “Sadly,” he lamented, “even Yoruba history is now taught in English.”
Knowledge, Technology, and Artificial Intelligence
When asked whether he always had diverse interests in science, technology, and music, he responded: “Knowledge is whole. Unfortunately, in most institutions of the world, music is taught in Arts, when it is better studied in Physics.” He recalled being told at 15 that he could not combine music and physics. “But I did not allow such limitations to determine my academic and career trajectory.”
On the subject of Artificial Intelligence, he cautioned students to use AI responsibly. “AI tools are created by humans, and one of the factors that makes humans different is intelligence. For the first time, we have a competitor. But AI can make students so lazy that they no longer exercise their intelligence. Academia is learning by doing.” He added, “AI is meant to improve the efficiency of your work, not to amplify your laziness.”
Education as Empowerment
Dr Adegbola stressed the role of education in societal transformation. “Education is empowerment to transform a society and make a change. Unfortunately, graduates can barely apply their knowledge to solve real-life problems. With a degree in Electrical Engineering, I could not repair a radio. I had to apprentice informally to learn the application of what I studied.”
He lamented the obsession with publishing in foreign journals, calling it a distraction from developing local scholarship that addresses Nigeria’s realities. “If our lecturers are required to publish abroad, how will we develop journals that address our realities as a developing country? Instead, we judge our scholarship by foreign standards. For us, charity begins abroad.”
Indigenous Knowledge and Mysticism
L-R_ Olanike Onimisi, Dr. Tunde Adegbola & Kayode Sanni (3)
Responding to poet and 2013 Nigeria Prize for Literature winner Tade Ipadeola’s question about indigenous communication systems, he described aroko as “a very powerful encryption system, probably equal in value or even better than some of the codes used to fight the Second World War.” He argued that before Alexander Graham Bell, the talking drum was the fastest means of telecommunications. “It was faster than pigeons, faster than pony express, faster than human beings carrying messages,” he explained, recalling how drums were used across slave camps in the Americas to coordinate uprisings.
On Ifa, he distinguished between religion and knowledge.
I am an unapologetic Christian, but I studied Ifa and Physics. Ifa is no more than Physics and Mathematics to me, probably a little more. Our forebears engaged their worlds scientifically. They produced knowledge. But when something works and you do not know why it works, you mystify it.”
He attributed the retreat into mysticism to the disruptions of slavery and colonialism. “For 300 years, the budding intellectuals who should have passed knowledge from the sages to the next generation were taken as slaves and used for labour. Then we endured 200 years of colonialism. We lost so much to slavery; we lost a lot to colonialism. Yet the volume of knowledge still surviving in orature shows how rich it originally was.”
“I Have Not Succeeded in Business”
Towards the end of the evening, Dr Adegbola reflected on his next steps. “Life continues. I pray that my health can bear my dreams. I still have aspirations about discovering some things in our language.” With candour, he admitted to one area where he feels he failed. “I established the first microcomputer company in Ibadan in 1985, but I have not succeeded in business!”
The evening ended on a musical note, with Dr Adegbola at the keyboard alongside his childhood friend, Anjola Aboderin, with whom he began playing music at age 12. The duo’s performance delighted the audience, offering a glimpse into the polymath’s enduring passion for sound.
Looking Ahead to IbaFest
Poet, Tade Ipadeola and Ademola Adewusi at the literary event.
In his closing remarks, Festival Director, Servio Gbadamosi thanked the audience and described the conversation as inspiring. “The opportunity to hear Dr Adegbola speak about his journey is a gift,” he said, recalling Professor Niyi Osundare’s earlier counsel at a previous IbaFest event: “Against all odds, keep hope alive.”
Gbadamosi invited the public to attend the first Ibadan Book and Arts Festival, which will take place on October 24 and 25, 2025, at the University of Ibadan. The festival will feature writers, artists, performers, and thinkers from across Nigeria and beyond.
It will be a gathering to celebrate literature, art, and culture in Ibadan, a city with a proud intellectual and creative tradition,” he said.
More details, he added, will be announced in the coming weeks.
