Nigeria, Feb. 19 -- I read the news early in the morning of 11 February. The activist for African intellectual freedom, Biodun Jeyifo, had passed away at the age of 80. I had just seen him one month earlier in photographs at his 80th birthday celebration symposium held at the MUSON Centre in Lagos. BJ looked frail but was as mentally acute as ever. He was still being himself - asking hard questions and making us uncomfortable about accepting our past accomplishments. He belonged to the generation of Nigerian intellectuals who matured in the 1970s; that magical period when anything seemed possible. We were only recently independent. The Civil War was over, and Nigerian unity was taken for granted. We were awash with oil money funding our d...