A Review of the Work Oyster in the Pandemic 

Dr. Augustine Okechukwu Agugua

The book, in its quintessential substance, goes beyond what might be seen as a deep thrust in the understanding of immediate and deep implications of the Covid– 19 pandemic in its substance, nature and thrust, but got into far deeper discourses of issues of human existence both within and outside Nigeria; linking both micro and macro implications of such issues in a highly admirable and appreciable scholarly masterpiece. If left to my whims and personal inclinations, I would have travelled on the path of primordial vocational inclinations by giving honour to whom honour is due, by doing a bigger review of the author of this book, Prof. Victor Ariole – digging up his sterling qualities as a scholar per excellence, organic, enterprising, multi- tasking in his intellectual drives and focus as having an uncommon knack; in daring to think, daring to do, and always daring to swim against the tide, treading in uncharted courses and venturing mostly on the road of academic endeavours, that is less travelled.  Like he stated, the years 2019 to 2021 were crucial for human beings to re-think their destructive agenda and start a reconstructive one, and we strongly believe that factoring-in African myth in that restructuring process is very much a desiderata.

Furthermore, it is like Benjamin Hurlbut, a science historian, mentioned that our technology should be subject to democratically articulated imaginations of the futures we want, not the opposite. After all Science and Technology are servants of the society and their results are meant to serve the society. That democratic articulation does not mean everybody in the society voting for the use of an invention, but allowing the professionals in the free press world – nations who operate really free press – to do the articulation process. Africa’s learning and mythical discovery should be factored into such articulation. It is part of the discovery of Africa’s epistemic processes.

It is based on the foregoing background that I critically venture into reviewing this work of monumental intellectual prowess that makes scant relevance the background of the author in the Humanities, but covets a larger scope of relevance in the Social Sciences (such as sociology, political, science, psychology, social work, economics, philosophy, history, religion, quantum science, etc.)

Indeed, the work is a 386 pages of compendium of extraordinary academic enterprise that has a commendable 58 sub themes in the table of contents, an intellectual exposition that feeds the human thought and imaginations with robust dossier that makes one hunger for more where most any version you get through with seems to be most satisfying. It is indeed a work with an encyclopedic disposition that will make past intellectual giants like Kiekagaard to turn gladly in his grave; for it was Kiekagaard, who in his later years, lamented the dying tradition of encyclopedic knowledge, and bemoaned what he rather saw as the enthronement of the parceling out of knowledge and the emergence of a minimalist orientation in knowledge production. If this allusion towards Kickagard is anything to write home about, then it is with all sense of responsibility that I accord Prof. Ariole the honour of having cut for himself a position in the nobility of thought which sociologists always reserve for themselves in the phrase. “A sociologist is somebody who knows something about everything and everything about sociology”. Anchored on this inspiration, I make bold to say that Prof. Ariole’s insight into the issue of the Covid- 19 pandemic and the challenges as well as the prospects it holds for human survival and ingenuity in turning the table against evil forebodings is quite commendable. In furtively using this trait of creative imagination as it affects global economy, politics, religion, global divide in competiveness between the global North and the global South, socio-cultural matters as well as scientific imaginations, manifestations and applications are manifestations that can only be grappled from the stables of a genius with an unprecedented flair for inventiveness and creativity. However, it is here that the ovation tapers off for Prof. Ariole’s ingenuity.

Indeed, in taking a sardonic look at this intellectual masterpiece, one discovers that from the source where adulation seems to spring, discomfort swells. For in taking a giant’s stride towards the sociological realm, the tragedy of an Iconoclast without icons rears its ugly head. This is because, in this work which covets 58 diverse themes of great research interest, one espies a moving train of thoughts that conjures up several nodes of shunting that can actually stand on their own as rail tracks with definite destinations of expertise. Core sociologists, just like philosophers of old knows how to manoeuvre situations when they have everything before them, and then the dilemma of having nothing before them; when they set out on the path of incredulity to make something out of nothing and when an end means a beginning towards another end. I do not paint these pictures of incredulity as a source of despair; rather it is for Prof. Victor Ariole seeing and understanding the Frankenstein of an academic enterprise he has initiated in the course of this publication and to brace up to the challenge of greater demands of reproducing knowledge in diverse forms in future which is the major challenge this encyclopaedic work has posed for him. And for us listeners, it is equally geared towards the understanding that this work is not just an academic work emanating from the domains of the humanities and should be so domiciled; rather it is a work that broke the rank of academic boundaries with utilitarian values for diverse fields of academic enterprise. It is on this note of optimism and expectancy that I commend this book to all, both the array of academics present, and absent in this hall. It is a work any serious-minded intellectual should possess and covet for utilitarian purposes.

*Dr. Agugua is of the Department of Sociology University of Lagos,

Akoka, Lagos, Nigeria.