I met Eldred Jones personally for the first time in 1982 under acircumstance I have found delightfully unforgettable. From his basein Sierra Leone he had been invited to the then University of Ife(now Obafemi Awolowo University) for a professional engagement. Butbefore leaving home, he never forgot to tuck in his travelling bag afile containing the manuscript by a rookie academic, submitted andaccepted for publication in African LiteratureToday (ALT), Africa's influential literary journal forwhich he was founding editor. His engagement over in Ife, ProfessorJones set out for the University of Ibadan to see the author of thatmanuscript so as to clarify two ‘issues’ with him: one, the correctversion of a Yorùbá name as spelt in the manuscript, the other adebate as to whether the correct punctuation mark in one sentence inthe middle of the essay should be a comma or semicolon! It took nomore than a few minutes to iron out these ‘gigantic’ issues, andProfessor Jones put back the manuscript in the file, the file backin the bag, ready to go. But he did not leave without commending theaccepted manuscript both for its ‘quality’ and its ‘usefulness’; foraccording to him, we needed more of its kind of stylistic,language-based study to further widen the scope of a journal thathad become an authoritative platform for African literature in allits ramifications. A few months later, AfricanLiterature Today 13 was out, with my article, ‘Words ofIron, Sentences of Thunder: Soyinka's Prose Style’, between itshallowed covers.

The impact of this first meeting with Professor Jones has remainedwith me to this day. Witty, easy-going, and personable, he was thekind of elderl/leader who put you at ease with a ready smile andsincere fellow feeling. One of Africa's renowned scholars anduniversity administrators, he carried himself with grace shorn ofshowy grandeur, simplicity ennobled by superb delicacy, anear-magical aura that announced his presence in the public squarewithout the effort of any Master of Ceremony. A scholar and teacherwith a monk-like fidelity to detail, Professor Jones taught anddemonstrated that belief that no academic subject was tooinsignificant for the scholar's investigation; no matter too littleto attract their meticulous consideration.