DAVID ROGER JOWITT 1941-2023: A TRIBUTE
Professor David Roger Jowitt, FNAL, was born in London in 1941 during the Second World War but his roots lay in the North of England. His father was a driver in an electricity company and his mother was a seamstress before her marriage. They lived in a rented flat in the Wood Green area of London where he grew up. He had an elder sister called Audrey, who has survived him, and a younger sister called Mary who died many years ago.
David was able to overcome some of the monumental disadvantages of being born into a working class family in the Britain of the 1940’s by exploiting his God-given intelligence and talent fully. He completed his secondary education and passed his Advanced Level papers with flying colours and secured admission to read History at Cambridge University in 1960. He passed his first year examination with a first class grade and his second year examination with an upper second class grade. So, naturally, he was hoping to graduate with at least an upper second class honours degree at the end of the third year. But, alas, to his surprise and disappointment he ended up with a second class honours degree. Several less well endowed classmates of his, who were from the right social background, graduated with the much-coveted upper second class. The British social class system was at work! He then tried to get a civil service job but he was only offered a position as a tax officer, which he rejected. He was twenty-three years old and his life was in search of a purpose. The prospects of securing a decent job in Britain were gloomy, so he began to explore options abroad and someone suggested a teaching job in Nigeria. This was 1963 when Nigeria was a young independent nation. He was employed by a new community secondary school at Ubulu-Uku in the then newly-created Mid-Western Region and present Delta State. One of his students at that school was Professor Kester Echenim, a Professor of French at the University of Benin, and a past Secretary of NAL. This was the beginning of his love affair with Nigeria, a country which gave his life a purpose. He returned to London after two years but could still not find a decent and permanent job even after qualifying as a teacher by successfully undergoing the Postgraduate Certificate in Education course at Cambridge . He therefore applied to return to another teaching job in
Nigeria, this time at the Dennis Memorial Grammar School in Onitsha, the oldest Anglican secondary school in the East. He flew back to Nigeria to take up this post in September 1966 when the storm of the Nigerian civil war was already gathering. He had to leave Onitsha back to Britain when the Nigerian civil war broke out in 1967, after barely a year in Onitsha. However, his mind was still in Nigeria even as the civil war was raging, so he applied for a job as a relief officer under the auspices of the World Council of Churches and was sent to ‘Biafra’ in 1969. However, his stint there was short-lived as he had to leave on the last flight out of Biafra before the surrender in January 1970.
Thereafter, he took up an appointment as an English teacher with an oil company in Libya for two years .As the pay was generous, he was able to save enough money to sponsor himself for a Master’s degree in Theoretical Linguistics at the University of Essex.
By November 1974, David’s old love, Nigeria, had beckoned to him again, so he returned to take up appointment as a Senior Education Officer with the Federal Ministry of Education to teach at the new Federal Advanced Teachers College at Okene. He stayed here until 1981 when he sought and obtained a transfer to the Federal Advanced Teachers College Pankshin in Plateau State where he stayed until 1986 when he moved to Kano State as an inspector of English based at the Kano Educational Resource Centre. I soon snatched him from there to the Department of English at Bayero University where he was offered a senior lectureship. He worked hard in both teaching and research and was able, within ten years or so, to rise to the professoriate without a doctorate degree on account of the quality of his publications. He stayed at Bayero for 19 years and was snatched by the University of Jos where he was until his death.
David so genuinely loved Nigeria that he spent 13 years of his life pursuing his application for its citizenship which he finally achieved in May 2023. He went home to London on leave in June this year and was staying with his sister Audrey in Beckenham. It so happened that I was also in London in the first week of July and staying in Woolwych where my daughter, Dr Ihsan Jibril, lives near the Queen Elizabeth Hospital where she works as a Senior Registrar in Dermatology. So, David and I linked up and agreed to have what turned out to be OUR LAST SUPPER at an Italian restaurant that he chose near his sister’s home. This was on the 7th of July and, although he was undergoing a series of medical tests to address some issues of concern, he did not appear to be in pain or to be facing imminent death. But the Great Giver of Life decided that the time allocated to him should expire on the 14th of August, and, unfailingly, it did.
He was a true Nigerian polyglot with admirable fluency in Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa and the ability to exchange greetings and hold short conversations in Igbirra and Birom. He also spoke French, Italian and Libyan Arabic fluently. He had been working on his Autobiography MY NIGERIAN WORLD for several years and I was lucky to receive from him, at our last supper, one of twenty copies published privately by a cousin of his. A publisher is working on the version that will be available to the general public.
With his passing away, Nigeria has lost one of her finest sons and we have lost a friend and a brother like no other.
May his generous soul find peace with His Maker.
Munzali Jibril
Professor Emeritus of English Language and Linguistics, Bayero University Kano and Past President of NAL
