Education
Abdulrazak Gurnah wins the 2021 Nobel prize in literature

Abdulrazak Gurnah wins the 2021 Nobel prize in literature
The Nobel prize in literature has been awarded to the novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah, for his “uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents”.
Gurnah grew up on one of the islands of Zanzibar before fleeing persecution and arriving in England as a student in the 1960s. He has published 10 novels as well as a number of short stories. Anders Olsson, chair of the Nobel committee, said that the Gurnah’s novels – from his debut Memory of Departure, about a failed uprising, to his most recent, Afterlives – “recoil from stereotypical descriptions and open our gaze to a culturally diversified East Africa unfamiliar to many in other parts of the world”.
No black African writer has won the prize since Wole Soyinka in 1986. Gurnah is the first black writer to win since Toni Morrison in 1993.
Gurnah’s fourth novel, Paradise, was shortlisted for the Booker prize in 1994, and his sixth, By the Sea, was longlisted in 2001. Olsson said that Paradise “has obvious reference to Joseph Conrad in its portrayal of the innocent young hero Yusuf’s journey to the heart of darkness”.
“[Gurnah] has consistently and with great compassion penetrated the effects of colonialism in East Africa, and its effects on the lives of uprooted and migrating individuals,” Olsson told journalists in Stockholm.
Gurnah, who was in the kitchen when he was informed of his win, said that he believed it was a wind-up.
“I thought it was a prank,” he said. “These things are usually floated for weeks beforehand, or sometimes months beforehand, about who are the runners, so it was not something that was in my mind at all. I was just thinking, I wonder who’ll get it?”
“I am honoured to be awarded this prize and to join the writers who have preceded me on this list. It is overwhelming and I am so proud.”
His longtime editor, Alexandra Pringle at Bloomsbury, said Gurnah’s win was “most deserved” for a writer who has not previously received due recognition.
“He is one of the greatest living African writers, and no one has ever taken any notice of him and it’s just killed me. I did a podcast last week and in it I said that he was one of the people that has been just ignored. And now this has happened,” she said.
Pringle said Gurnah had always written about displacement, “but in the most beautiful and haunting ways of what it is that uproots people and blows them across continents”.
“It’s not always asylum seeking, it can be so many reasons, it can be trade, it can be commerce, it can be education, it can be love,” she said. “The first of his novels I took on at Bloomsbury is called By the Sea, and there’s this haunting image of a man at Heathrow airport with a carved incense box, and that’s all he has. He arrives, and he says one word, and that’s ‘asylum’.”
Pringle said Gurnah is as important a writer as Chinua Achebe. “His writing is particularly beautiful and grave and also humorous and kind and sensitive. He’s an extraordinary writer writing about really important things.”
Afterlives, published last year, tells the story of Ilyas, who was stolen from his parents by German colonial troops as a boy and returns to his village after years fighting in a war against his own people. It was described in the Guardian as “a compelling novel, one that gathers close all those who were meant to be forgotten, and refuses their erasure”.
“In Gurnah’s literary universe, everything is shifting – memories, names, identities. This is probably because his project cannot reach completion in any definitive sense,” said Olsson. “An unending exploration driven by intellectual passion is present in all his books, and equally prominent now, in Afterlives, as when he began writing as a 21-year-old refugee.”
Maya Jaggi, critic and 2021 Costa Prize judge said: “Gurnah, whom I first interviewed for the Guardian in 1994, is a powerful and nuanced writer whose elliptical lyricism counters the silences and lies of imperial history imposed when he was a child in east Africa. His subtle oeuvre is as robust about the brutal flaws of the mercantile culture he left as the atrocities of British and German colonialism, not least during the first world war, and the ‘random acts of terror’ he experienced as a black person in Britain – converting them into a comic triumph in his 1988 novel Pilgrims Way.”
Gurnah was born in 1948, growing up in Zanzibar. When Zanzibar went through a revolution in 1964, citizens of Arab origin were persecuted, and Gurnah was forced to flee the country when he was 18. He began to write as a 21-year-old refugee in England, choosing to write in English, although Swahili is his first language. His first novel, Memory of Departure, was published in 1987. He has until recently been professor of English and postcolonial literatures at the University of Kent, until his retirement.
Worth 10m Swedish krona (£840,000), the Nobel prize for literature goes to the writer deemed to be, in the words of Alfred Nobel’s will, “the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work in an ideal direction”. Winners have ranged from Bob Dylan, cited for “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”, to Kazuo Ishiguro “who, in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world”.According to Ellen Mattson, who sits on the Swedish Academy and the Nobel committee: “Literary merit. That’s the only thing that counts.”
The Nobel winner is chosen by the 18 members of the Swedish Academy – an august and mysterious organisation that has made efforts to become more transparent after it was hit by a sexual abuse and financial misconduct scandal in 2017. Last year’s prize went to the American poet Louise Glück – an uncontroversial choice after the uproar provoked by the Austrian writer Peter Handke’s win in 2019. Handke had denied the Srebrenica genocide and attended the funeral of war criminal Slobodan Milošević.
The Nobel prize for literature has been awarded 118 times. Just 16 of the awards have gone to women, seven of those in the 21st century. In 2019, the Swedish academy promised the award would become less “male-oriented” and “Eurocentric”, but proceeded to give its next two prizes to two Europeans, Handke and Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk.
Education
NUC Approves 25 courses for Kogi varsity, Kabba

The National Universities Commission (NUC), the regulatory body, has approved the 25 courses presented to it by the new Kogi State University, Kabba, for its takeoff.
This development has paved the way for the commencement of students’ admission into the institution as a precursor to the start of academic activities.
The Obaro of Kabba and Chairman, Okun Area Traditional Council, His Royal Majesty, Oba Solomon Dele Owoniyi, made this known at a special Thanksgiving service held at ECWA Church, Kabba.
Oba Owoniyi said the state governor, Alhaji Yahaya Adoza Bello, informed him that contractors were at work at the university campus to prepare it for the commencement of academic activities.
The governor, according to the traditional ruler, also gave assurance of his administration’s commitment to ensuring the smooth takeoff of the institution before the new government assumes office next month.
Towards that end, he said a special allocation of N200 million per month has been approved for the university, and that disbursement has taken off with immediate effect.
Governor Bello, the monarch said, further gave assurance of his unwavering support for the institution even after the end of his tenure.
He said the establishment of the university was the government’s well-considered answer to the yearnings of the people of Okunland for higher education.
Oba Owoniyi appealed to stakeholders to support the institution to enable it to raise its head among its peers.
He also thanked the Okun people for ensuring that peace reigned in Okunland before, during, and after the recent governorship election in the state.
Education
UNILORIN Grants 25% School Fees Discount To Staff Children
The University of Ilorin has granted a 25 per cent school fees rebate to children of its staff members.
The rebate was approved by the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Wahab Egbewole, SAN, following a meeting with university-based union leaders on Thursday.
According to a tweet shared via the institution’s handle on X, the rebate seeks to cater to the staff welfare of the school.
The Registrar, Mr. Mansur Alfanla, shared the update in an interview with UNILORIN Bulletin.
The tweet stated that the VC’s decision “reflects a deep understanding of the economic challenges facing the country, and it’s a positive step towards supporting the university community.”
The tweet read in parts: “The Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Wahab Egbewole, SAN, has just given a major boost to staff welfare. Following this morning’s meeting with university-based union leaders, a 25% school fees rebate has been approved for the children of University of Ilorin staff.
“To avail of this incredible opportunity, staff members are requested to check their emails and respond to the provided links between 9 a.m. today (Thursday, December 7, 2023) and noon tomorrow (Friday, December 8, 2023).”
The union leaders, including the Chairman, Academic Staff Union of Universities, Alex Akanmu; the Chairman, Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities, Naheem Falowo; the Chairman, National Association of Academic Technologists, Paul Awolola; and Chairman, Non-Academic Staff Union of Educational and Associated Institutions, UNILORIN Branch, Suberu Ibrahim; were instrumental in the decision-making process during the early morning meeting that began at 7:30 a.m.
The tweet further noted that the rebate applies to “officially registered biological children” which covers both freshers and returning students.”
It added that a maximum of four children of staff are eligible for the rebate.
Reacting to the development on behalf of other unions, Akanmu, recognised and commended the VC and the “entire management for this positive move”.
Education
Unilorin Announces Downward Review of School Fees for Students

Authorities of the University of Ilorin announced on Monday a downward review of charges payable by students for the 2022–2023 academic session as academic activities resumed.
The announcement of the new charges followed a series of meetings between the university’s management, led by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic), Prof. Abayomi Omotesho, and the Students’ Union, led by its president, Comrade Joseph Adesunkanmi Ologundudu.
The new charges range between N114,720 and N215,820 for new students and N52,700 and N91,430 for returning students, depending on their courses of study.
This reflects a significant reduction from the earlier released charges, which ranged between N138,240 and N254,640 for new students and N69,360 and N103,560 for returning students, depending on their courses of study.
The university had initially released charges on November 24, 2023, through its official social media platforms but announced a downward review on November 28, 2023, after the meeting with the students’ union leadership.
It quoted the deputy vice chancellor as saying that the university addressed the students’ concerns through dialogue to demonstrate its commitment to fostering a supportive and conducive learning environment for all members of the academic community.
In his reaction, the president of the students’ union, Comrade Ologundudu, expressed gratitude to the university management for its thoughtfulness, as reflected in the adjustment of the charges
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