Professor Okello Oculi 1942-2025

Professor Okello Oculi, the celebrated pan-Africanist, author, teacher and international scholar who perfected the art of poetry in politics to convey his thoughts and ideas, passed away on July 26, 2025 in Abuja at the age of 83. He was born on January 1, 1942 in the Dokolo District of northern Uganda and had his […]

Professor Okello Oculi, the celebrated pan-Africanist, author, teacher and international scholar who perfected the art of poetry in politics to convey his thoughts and ideas, passed away on July 26, 2025 in Abuja at the age of 83.

He was born on January 1, 1942 in the Dokolo District of northern Uganda and had his primary, secondary and tertiary education all in the country. After passing his A-levels with distinction, he was admitted into the famous Makerere University, East Africa’s preeminent university, to study political science graduating in 1967.

In the course of his undergraduate studies at Makerere, he was an exchange student for one year from 1964 to 1965, at Stanford University, California in the United States of America.

Upon his graduation from Makerere in 1967, he proceeded the following year in 1968 to the University of Essex in the United Kingdom where he obtained a Master’s degree. Following this, he returned to Makerere University to teach at the Political Science Department which had the late Professor Ali Mazrui as its head.

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While teaching at Makerere, Professor Oculi encountered an incident where agents of Uganda’s maximum military ruler General Idi Amin arrested him on account of his radical views on political and social developments in the country. Professor Mazrui arranged to have him released and subsequently recommended him for a Ph.D scholarship through the Rockefeller Foundation at the University of Wisconsin, United States of America which he obtained in 1972.

Upon completion of his Doctoral degree in Wisconsin, Professor Oculi proceeded to Nigeria where he was employed at the Political Science Department of the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) in Zaria, Kaduna State. This marked the beginning of his 48- year sojourn in Nigeria where he eventually settled and raised a family.

At ABU Zaria, Professor Oculi met up with lecturers and staff of his kind who combined to make the University’s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences the hotbed of progressive intellectual activism in Nigeria. Names like the late Dr Bala Usman of the History Department, Professor Femi Odekunle of the Sociology Department as well as Dr Patrick Wilmot and Wang Metuge, Yusuf Bangura and Jibrin Ibrahim of the Political Science Department among others.

Professor Oculi was unique in his teachings by using political poetry in his lecture notes and publications. In many respects he shared similarities with his compatriot Okot p’Bitek who gained global acclaim with his poems depicting the plight of rural based African peasants and dwellers and their tribulations under the post- independence states in Africa. This was the central theme in Professor Oculi’s political poetry in which he used vivid images and metaphors of the African struggles and experiences in contemporary neo-colonial settings.  

Another area in which Professor Oculi was widely known as a teacher was the use of mock summits among his students at ABU. The setting in this regard was a series of simulated summits of the African Union in which leaders of African states debated issues of general concern to the continent. Through these exercises, Professor Oculi hoped to imbibe in the students the idea of Pan-Africanism at the impressionable age in the hope that they will not only know and care about their countries alone but also other countries in the continent. This practical teaching style became so popular at ABU that it drew participants from not only the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, but even from other faculties as well.

Following his exit from ABU where he taught for a long time, Professor Oculi relocated to Abuja where he went into private political consultancy, pushing his AU mock summit idea in secondary schools through his NGO, Africa Vision 525. The high point of his efforts in this regard was the sponsorship of some of his students to one of the AU summits in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

While pursuing his pet idea, Professor Oculi was also a columnist and editorial board member at the Daily Trust Newspapers where he contributed immensely towards initiating the annual dialogue by the paper and African of the Year Award, recognising exemplary and outstanding Africans who made significant contributions to human development on the continent.

In the course of his years as a teacher and as a Pan-Africanist, Professor had mentored so many students, individuals who have progressed successfully in many areas of endeavour in Nigeria and beyond. Professor Oculi is also revered among the circle of Nigerian and African intelligentsia as one of its authentic and cerebral thinkers who helped shaped progressive thought and ideas for African development.

In his passing on, Africa has lost one of its towering personalities who will be missed but whose indelible contributions will be with us as reference point in the enduring search for African renaissance.

Our condolences go to his wife Debrah Ogazuma and their sons Sembene and Bashir on this sad, irreparable loss.