You were the deputy speaker. Then, you became the first female speaker. And now you are the first speaker to become a deputy speaker in Africa. Madam, it’s not your fault but you need to quit. Your middle name is not Rollercoaster 

When Obasa was removed, lawmakers said he was corrupt. If it were in the 18th century, they would have looked for a guillotine. They shouldn’t do this to themselves. It’s a most despicable capitulation. They said he built a gate with millions upon millions. They said he was a bad example to our children. Following the many vociferous allegations of corruption and high-handedness, 32 out of the 40 Lagos lawmakers voted to remove him. A removal can’t be more unanimous. They said his removal was good riddance to bad rubbish. That was last month. 

Now, the same Obasa has returned. And rather than ignominy, he has cornered glory. You have succumbed to intimidation and resigned to allow the perfidy. You can call it loyalty to your party leaders. You can call it party supremacy. Beautiful euphemism. Others call it Baba sope.  You were almost an Amazon. Sadly, you all turned out lily-livered. 

Collectively, you lamented the invasion of the hallowed legislature by the DSS. Was that your leaders in trying to whip delinquent children into line? The DSS later said they had come to provide security. But you knew what they came to do. And you and your colleagues swore to resist the transgressions. How, then, did you chicken out without a whimper? 

You had sneered as Obasa besieged the legislature with a gang of policemen to forcibly enter it. Do your leaders behave like area boys? Do they have any regard for the rule of law? If this was just leaders persuading followers, why the easy recourse to state banditry? All the lawmakers pointedly condemned both invasions as rape and vowed to resist the affront to democracy. Irked by the abomination, the people stood to support you against your oppressors. Then you all chickened out. The international community is amused. 

When Obasa returned from overseas and started to thump his chest, many had feared for you. Because if the drummer of the strange rhythm he was dancing to was in a bush in Abuja, then the entire House of Assembly would need courage to avoid humiliation. But you all rose to the occasion to a cost the filthy meddle some hands of the unseen intruder with moral defiance. And having announced your readiness to assert yourselves like free men and women who have broken their yoke, this capitulation is unpardonable cowardice. 

A man overruled an entire state legislature. In his youth, he had rebelled against autocracy. Now he is the Citadel, the fortress of feudalism. So he can send some oldmen to deliver an ultimatum to the lawmakers, to ask them to lick their vomitus. Rather than pack up and run away, if they were too weak to fight, the lawmakers sat and started to weep helplessly in the open. The same people who had collectively vowed to defend their dignity and democracy were cowering and crying like babies. They endured the torment of going through the gut-wrenching ritual of re-electing Obasa. None of them covered his head with a tattered basket and spat some inventive at the oppressor. None of them had the balls to walk away. They were scared of the godfather. 

Some said they were crying for you, Meranda. But nobody is deceived. They were reduced to houseboys. Presumptuous houseboys. They were made to re-elect Obasa, who they had deceived as unfit to lead. Meranda, you stepped out for him to step in. You need to step away. Your CV now reads like it was written in Oluwole. The centre of excellence has been defiled. It stinks 

Make no mistake, Madam deputy speaker, it’s not party supremacy. It’s party destitution. The party has been castrated. Otherwise, there is no manifestation of party supremacy greater than 75% of the legislators and their constituents have their way on who becomes speaker. The party can weigh in and influence outcomes. But the party cannot make an entire legislature swallow its vomitus in the open like this. The real party spoke through the legislators. But one man overruled the party. Party supremacy is not a nebulous concept which can be used to convert lawmakers into errand boys of the godfathers. It is not an autocratic spanner. It exists to foster inclusion and democratic participation and not install a civilian dictatorship through the backdoor. 

When you became speaker we saw you herd the lawmakers to the GAC to receive blessings. You said they blessed you. We said you were subjecting the legislative arm of government to the dictates of a cabal.  Now you know. That fanciful GAC is a device in the hands of one man to make his dictatorial control of the state look collegiate. The subterfuge has been exposed. The party is decidedly a one-man show. 

Madam, you surrendered the mandate of the people. You were not an acting speaker. Throw in the towel, madam. Your return to your old seat is a disservice to womanhood. You cannot endorse this shenanigan by playing the fool. Your dignity matters. Your health matters too. Your continued presence in that assembly will damage not just your mind but public health. The Return of Obasa is a head-spinning drama. Disappear from the House, madam.  So that the public can catch their breath. 

E jor ma. You are too legit not to quit. Eko oni ba je o

Al Nassr forward Cristiano Ronaldo has made headlines after bantering with his lookalike fan.

The all-timeleading goal-scorer in football told the fan on Friday at the Al Awwal Park in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia that he was “very ugly”.

Ronaldo was alongside his teammates, near the touchline, doing the pre-match warm-up, as Al Nassr was set to take on Al Shabab in their Matchday 24 of the Saudi Pro League 2024/25 season.

“Bro you don’t look like me (x2), you’re very ugly,” said Ronaldo.

“You are the best bro, wallahi,” said the lookalike fan.

Although Ronaldo scored his team’s second goal, it was a frustrating game for Al Nassr as they were held 2-2.

[Vanguard]

Ali Pate, minister of health and social welfare, says the federal government has designated 154 health facilities nationwide to provide free treatment for women with obstetric complications.

Pate made the announcement on Friday during his appearance on ‘Politics Today’, a programme on Channels Television.

The minister also announced 18 centres across the nation for free treatment of vesicovaginal fistula (VVF).

An obstetric complication is a difficulty or abnormality that arises during the process of labour or delivery.

Obstetric complications are disruptions or disorders that can occur during pregnancy, labour, delivery, or the early postpartum period, affecting the health of the mother or baby.

Common examples include preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, preterm labour, and postpartum hemorrhage.

Pate said the health and well-being of Nigerians are fundamental to President Bola Tinubu’s vision, prioritising reduced maternal deaths by ensuring no woman dies due to inability to afford treatment.

See full list below

Former President Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida’s autobiography triggered questions about the onomastic etymology of “Badamasi,” his former last name, which appears to share historical and semantic kinship with the Yoruba “Gbadamosi.” It also activated interest in his paternal heritage about which he has been strategically coy, which I captured in my last column.

Because I know that the best system of inquiry for facts is necessarily question-oriented, self-critical, and cumulative, I shared a perspective I had heard about the provenance of Badamasi but expressed doubts about its reliability and historical accuracy and invited further reflections from others.

Saturday Tribune editor Lasisi Olagunju took up the challenge and, relying on insights from the late Sheikh Adam Abdullah El-Ilory, proposed that Badamasi originated from Ghadames (sometimes spelled Ghadamis), a historic Berber town in what is now Libya.  

The town’s citizens are called Ghadamisi. It’s in line with the Middle Eastern practice of adding “i” to the end of the names of villages, towns, cities, and countries to form demonyms. Bukhari (which we domesticated as Buhari in Nigeria), for instance, means a native of the town of Bukhara, now in Uzbekistan, a West Asian nation that used to be a part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).

Olagunju also referenced a fawningly Anglophilic, pro-colonial autobiography written in Arabic by a certain Abd Allah el-Ghadamisi, who arrived in Kano in 1903, titled, Your Humble Servant: The Memoirs of Abd Allah Al-Ghadamisi. He wondered whether this might be the book IBB mentioned as his grandfather's favorite and that inspired him to name his son after its author.

He then suggested that the Yoruba Gbadamosi is more faithful to what he thinks is the original form of the name than the Hausa Badamasi since the voiced labial-velar plosive “gb” found in many Niger Congo languages, including Yoruba, is closer to the voiced uvular fricative “gh” in Arabic.

Well, Olagunju’s proposition appears to suffer a factual collapse when it is burdened with the weight of historical, chronological, and even sociolinguistic evidence.

 First, anyone who reads Professor Razaq ʿDeremi Abubakre’s 2017 book chapter titled “Stefan Reichmuth’s Wanderings in Arabicized and Islamized Yorubaland” will come across an Ilorin Muslim scholar and poet by the name of Badamasi “from Ile Saura, Agbaji, Balogun Ajikobi Ward, who was one of the first people to produce Yoruba poetry in Arabic script (p.373).” He died around 1891.

This suggests that even Yoruba Muslims have borne the name Badamasi since at least the 1800s, years before Abd Allah el-Ghadamisi appeared in Kano.

Second, it is unlikely that Abd Allah el-Ghadamisi’s autobiography is the book IBB’s grandfather was fond of and that students of Arabic in Hausaland read for pedagogical and spiritual nourishment because the commentary on the book by Muhammad S. Umar and John O. Hunwick, which Olagunju references, describes the book as betraying “imperfect knowledge of written Arabic” and full of “simple errors of Arabic grammar.” 

Such a book can’t be a model that Islamic scholars venerate and teach. In any case, it wasn’t a piece of Islamic scholarship. The memoirs, Umar and Hunwick point out, “construct a discourse that portrays colonialism positively through a particularly laudatory proclamation of the good deeds of colonial authorities….”

Third, Olagunju’s claim that “Because, sometimes an author gets more famous than his work, al-Ghadamisi’s name appears to have overwhelmed the book’s title” doesn’t seem to be true. Only one copy of Abd Allah el-Ghadamisi’s book has survived, according to Umar and Hunwick. 

Fourth, although traders and Islamic scholars from Ghadames have lived in Hausa land since at least the 16th century, sociolinguistic evidence suggests that it is implausible for Hausa speakers to domesticate the Arabic phoneme “gh” to “b.”

When Hausa speakers borrow Arabic words with the phoneme “gh,” which doesn’t occur naturally in Hausa, they adapt it to "g" (and occasionally to “k”) but never “b.” So, it’s socio-linguistically improbable that Ghadamisi would ever become Badamasi to Hausa speakers. It would most likely be Gadamisi.

Now, what might be the root of Badamasi? Someone on Facebook by the name of M.Y. Kabara (I wonder if he is a progeny of the famous Nasiru Kabara family in Kano who died in my final year at Bayero University) pointed me to Arabic sources that seem to definitively show that the name Badamasi owes its presence in (northern) Nigerian Muslim onomastic universe to an Egyptian poet by the name of Muhammad bin Ahmed bin Ismail bin Ahmed Al-Sharaf Al-Badmasi Al-Masri. (Miṣr is the Arabic name for Egypt).

He was born in 1808 AH (equivalent to around 1405) in the small village of Badamas and died in Mecca at the age of 40. He was famous for a book of Arabic poetry he wrote in praise of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) titled al-Qasīdatul Mukhmasah, which is very popular with Sufi Muslims and Arabic students in (northern) Nigeria.

I am certain that it’s the book IBB’s grandfather loved so much that he named his son after it—like many people in the North did and still do.

 Kabara pointed out to me that because “every quintet in Arabic poetry can be called ‘mukhmasah,’” the book of poetry has come to be known by the name of its author to differentiate it from similar works.

 According to Dr. Ihab El-Sherbini, author of the book Stories of Mansoura's Streets, Badamas, the poet’s hometown, used to be called “Potamos," which means “river,” but that Copts (descendants of ancient Egyptians who are now mostly Christians that are associated with the Coptic Church) called it Badamos. After the Arab conquest of Egypt in the 7th century, Badamos evolved to Badamas.

Over time, the Badamas village ceased to be territorially independent. It’s now a neighborhood of the Egyptian city of Mansoura.

Based on this new knowledge, I am prepared to suggest that Gbadamosi and Badamasi are mere onomatological false friends, that is, they are names that sound alike but that are actually different and descended from different sources. 

 I suspect that the Yoruba Gbadamosi traces descent from Ghadamisi, most probably from Abdallāh b. Abī Bakr al-Ghadāmisī, a 17th-century Arabic poet and Islamic scholar born in Timbuktu who wrote the famous Manāhij al-Sālikīn fī Manāfiʿ al-Qurʾān al-Karīm (“Paths of the Seekers to the Benefits of the Noble Qur’an”) that is popular with West African Sufis. 

Curiously, the resolution of the etymology of IBB’s middle name coextends with new hints I’ve encountered about the probable ethnic identity of his paternal ancestry. 

The village of Kumurya in Kano where IBB told a biographer his paternal roots are located was founded by the Agalawa, a historical trading community in Hausaland, originally of Tuareg (Berber) stock who migrated into the Kano region in the 18th century. 

Though now fully assimilated as a sub-group of the Hausa people, the Agalawa trace their ancestry to nomadic Tuareg origins in the southern Sahara. I owe this insight to Rabiu Isah Hassan who first pointed it out to me on Facebook and provoked me to read further.

In his 2005 book titled Ecology and Ethnography of Muslim Trade in West Africa, Paul E. Lovejoy points out that early Agalawa immigrants in Hausaland occupied a lowly social status because “Most had been enslaved from Sudanese populations (p. 16).” They were derisively called “Bugaje” (is the famous Dr. Usman Bugaje of Agalawa origins?) as a collective plural and “Buzu” as a singular form.

Over time, they acculturated, dominated commerce, became prominent in Islamic scholarship, and have now become indistinguishable from the native Hausa population, except that they tend to have a lighter complexion than Hausa people, which causes many people to mistake them for Fulani. 

Is IBB aware of this history of his paternal ancestry but chose to conceal it for fear of exoticizing and alienating himself, especially in the eyes of southerners who tend to delegitimize people’s Nigerian origins when they find out that the ancestral origins of (mostly northern) people can be traced to spaces outside what is now Nigeria? 

No northerner would question the legitimacy of anyone’s Nigerianness because of the accident of the location of their distant ancestral roots. It's a consequence of the originary syncretism of modern northern identity. We are all mixed with all sorts of stemma from a vast array of places because we were never an insular, landlocked people.

Many of Kano’s prominent merchant dynasties, for example, have Agalawa roots, a famous example being the family of Alhaji Alhassan Dantata, who was West Africa’s richest man in the early 20th century. Since Aliko Dangote’s mother is from the Dantata family, it means he is at least half Agalawa. He himself might even be ancestrally Agalawa.

What’s there to conceal about this, especially because our heritage—ethnicity, linguistic group, even religious traditions—is merely incidental to us. We didn’t choose it, so there is no basis to be proud or ashamed of it. 

Our people say that there is nothing wrong with a man irrigating his farmland, provided he is not fetching the water from his neighbour’s water pot, or rechanneling the village stream. Our people also say that the beauty of community farming is that every member of the community benefits from every aspect of the enterprise, as distinct from when one kindred or the other is made to suffer unduly. All must pay attention to the soil type, the topography, the water sources, the seasonal water availability and priority crop types.

Put more simply, to construct a dam in order to get more water, or to draw water for irrigation, is to do something that will invariably affect the lives of folks living downstream. If you do not pay attention to the latter fact, but focus instead on the episodic benefits of the water you are drawing to create a haven of greenery elsewhere, all will not be well in the long run.

Take, for instance, the case of someone who wants to travel from Abuja to Taraba State today. He flies to Yola and then makes a four-hour road trip to Jalingo, the state capital.  While on the road journey, he is counting how many bridges are spanning dry rivers. Yes, dry rivers without any water at all. And these rivers were not always like that. The story is the same in many parts of northern Nigeria.

If you think it is a northern Nigeria problem, then head southwards from Abuja by road. Get to Lokoja and drive past it. Continue all the way beyond Ajaokuta to Anyigba. While you are at it, count the number of rivers that are now tiny streams in the middle of a vast plains. Also check out how many rivers that once spanned some 100 to 200 meters of water across are now without water during the dry season. Even at the peak of the rainy season, they are pitiful shadows of what they used to be.

Or would you rather have us talk about the Onitsha end of the River Niger? It used to be a massive body of water. Not anymore! But more of that later.

These were the thoughts on my mind when, a few days ago, I watched the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI) flag off the Irrigate Nigeria Project. The initiative is designed to ensure that farmers in some parts of the country achieve three farming cycles every year. Such a transformative endeavour is expected to positively impact food availability, by enhancing mechanized outcomes at TIAMIN Rice Farm, Udubo, Gamawa Local Government Area of Bauchi State.

The projected short, medium, and long-term benefits would include job creation, increased agricultural output and overall improvement in national productivity. No one can fail to see the good intentions behind this project, especially as a response to the problem of food insecurity.

This good initiative, which is being jointly implemented by NASENI and the Renewed Hope Infrastructure Development Fund (RHIDF), needs a thoroughgoing holistic approach, so that the gains would be lasting ones. Since it is being executed with the participation of the private sector, there is need to ascertain the critical roles of the Environment Ministry, Nigeria Inland Waterways authority (NIWA) and the Ministry of Water resources in all of this.

Let us note that NASENI’s Executive Vice Chairman (EVC) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Mr. Khalil Suleiman Halilu, said at the flag-off that the initiative is capable of revolutionizing agriculture in Nigeria. In his own words, “…the goal of Irrigate Nigeria is to transform Nigeria’s agriculture through the provision of sustainable irrigation systems that empower farmers to achieve year-round farming, and by extension, increased productivity and reduce food prices”. That is correct.

Simply put, this project is a way of making modern irrigation techniques, and also modern equipment for dry-season farming, available to farmers. The major pillars of the project include the following, among others: (1) The deployment of centralised NASENI irrigation systems to support farming clusters in the participating communities, (2) The provision of input – enhanced seeds, (3) The provision of fertilizers, (4) Technical support to the participating farmers.

With the project’s goal of enhancing food security, by equipping farmers with modern irrigation systems and dry season farming tools, the ultimate goal is obviously year-round productivity; as earlier stated. The project is planned to run on a commercial basis, and there’s the worry. Will the farmers not be overburdened?

NASENI says no, promising that “… the repayments by farmers for the support being provided will be in the form of convenient portions of their harvests, like rice paddy”. The repayments are to be “…pooled into a strategic food reserve that will help to stabilize commodity prices, and also be available for institutional sale and for export”.

All said, no one can fault the good intentions, projected positive outcomes and the expected impact on food availability and food prices.

But, going back to the issues with which we flagged off today’s conversation, there are concerns which must be put on the table here. I refer us to two articles which appeared on this page within the last seven years. The first, titled “Onitsha Port and its Enemies” came out on February 5, 2017. The second, titled “Onitsha Port and Other Matters”, was published here on April 13 2024.  The two articles emphasized the desirability of an inland port in Onitsha, to ease trade for the South East trades and businessmen, while pointing out the challenge of water availability.

The latter of the two articles said: “One of the major overlooked, and largely unacknowledged, problem is the probability of not ever really getting enough water for the primary business of a port. You need water for a river port and the Onitsha end of the river Niger does not have enough. Dredging is a good idea, but it will give you a bigger ditch and wipe out the means of livelihood of water dependent local economies”.

The article continued: “All things considered, the challenges that come to mind regarding the proposed Onitsha River Port are: (1) How the river dams along the Niger, Benue and their many tributaries have reduced available water at onitsha by over 68%; (2) Possibly unrealistic projections about the prospects of the project; (3) The credibility of some of the existing Environmental Impact Assessment (AIE) reports, especially against the background of climate change and other environmental factors; among other factors”.

The same article pointed out that the dams built across the rivers Niger and Benue, and their tributaries, over the years have reduced the overall water volume. You now have small sand islands, and unprecedented siltation, at the Onitsha end of the river. That is why the NASENI Irrigate Nigeria project must be approached by working in sync with the Federal Ministries of Agriculture and Natural Resources Environment, blue economy and the Nigeria Inland Waterways authority (NIWA).

The current global response to the devastating impact of dams and water diversion on people and the environment within the past 60 years has been overwhelming. We all know that dams have altered ecosystems, ruined food chains and obliterated local economies for hundreds of thousands of kilometres of waterways all over the world. That is Dams and diversion or all, or part of, natural bodies of water, for electricity, farming, etc.

That article of last April said: “It is on record, for instance, that massive fish populations were killed on the Snake River, Idaho, in the US by dam construction; leading to the decimation of salmon species, among others. An Idaho State Senator, Frank Church, who originally supported dam building later rose in defense of natural waterways and spoke against dams. It was the same Frank Church who, after he saw the damage to the environment, eventually wrote the Wild and Scientific Rivers Act, passed in 1968”.

Over 22,000 kilometers of free-flowing rivers in the US are protected by Frank Church`s Act as I write. Meanwhile our natural waters and waterways are available for all comers. The fate of communities displaced by dams all over Nigeria today is rarely a topical issue, yet it is a real problem that has lingered for decades in many places.

The concern about water and free waterways is such that the world is focusing on transboundary cooperation between nations for conscious and deliberate management of the ecosystem and water volume throughout the length of major rivers. Are we doing the same in our country? The conflict between China and Thailand over development on the Lancang/Mekong River says a lot about what is going on all over the world in connection with waterways today.

To think that the government of New Zealand has gone so far as to “recognize” the Whanganui river by giving it the same constitutional rights as a person? This was done as a way of showing that free-flowing rivers have great impact on food security, water access, biodiversity conservation and propagation of the overall global ecology.

All said, NASENI must be sensitive to the impact of its new project on local economies outside the farming communities from where, and to where, the waters are coming. It must also be seen to be working in sync the Nigeria Inland Waterways Authority, the Ministries of Environment, Water resources and Blue Economy on this initiative. That is the only way to derive, and maintain sustainable gains in the Irrigate Nigeria project.

Quote

NASENI must be sensitive to the impact of its new project on local economies outside the farming communities from where, and to where, the waters are coming. It must also be seen to be working in sync the Nigeria Inland Waterways Authority, the Ministries of Environment, Water resources and Blue Economy on this initiative. That is the only way to derive, and maintain sustainable gains in the Irrigate Nigeria project.

Programme: City Talks with Reuben Abati

Time: 12:00pm

Guest : Dr Abiola Akiyode-Afolabi
Lawyer & Civil Rights Activist.

Topic: IWD 2025: Empowering Women for a Sustainable Future

Date: March 8th, 2025
Join Zoom Meeting

https://zoom.us/j/92877141732?pwd=VEJWb29OL2VVekZUTHRpdWYxK0xxZz09

Meeting ID: 928 7714 1732
Passcode: 600206

He already, for a few years back, had had his flight ticket tucked in his briefcase, or so it seemed. He was wont to say that he could be called away from out of the materiality of this world at any time and the baton would be passed to the younger generation to face the challenges of pulling Nigeria out of the swamp. He collected his boarding pass and his flight was called on Friday, 14 February, 2025. At his passing, he would like to leave a legacy of fairness and equity in national affairs, it was all he struggled for all his life. I am referring to Chief Ayo Adebanjo. The colossus fought to his last breath what he believed in, characteristically without mincing words. To have a clear picture of who Chief Adebanjo was, it became necessary to go memory lane by digging into the archives. By so doing ,we refresh memories of the activities of the titan and of his convictions. Following is the characterisation of him this column published on 12 April, 2018 nearly seven years ago, on the occasion of his 90th birthday. If death had tarried for just two more months Adebanjo would have been 97 next month. The said article is here reproduced:

If Chief Ayo Adebanjo was waiting for a day of redefining who he is and an endorsement as leader and the war general of the South West people, last Thursday it was. It was the day of intrinsic reward and extrinsic acknowledgement of him as leader and hero. The true leader of the Yoruba goes beyond symbolism. He must be a proven embodiment of principles; it is he whose adherence to truth is pasted on his forehead. He must be unswerved by the temptation or sway of temporary gains or lucre of office. He must be able to step out without consideration for self. There must be no gaps between utterances and actions which must be taken with absolute disregard to personal consequences as long as these are driven by a quest for truth, justice and fairness. For Ayo Adebanjo, the Yoruba leader must be able to distinguish between the Jew and the Gentile. Then the question arises: where do you stand? Are you a Jew or a Gentile? You cannot be both. With him there is no question of where he stands at all times.

On Tuesday, it was a sea of heads. The church was filled to overflowing and so were the reception grounds. A normally dandy fellow even if modest, his influence on the crescendo capping a week-long preparation for the D-Day was unmistakable. Everything bore his signature for taste. The St. Phillips Anglican Church was sparkling with new paint. The whole village, Isanya Ogbo-Ijebu saw the 90th birthday of their worthy son as their own. They wore a special dress of green fabric interspersed with lines of subdued brown. For the people of his birth place, it was celebration galore, all the way, dancing and rejoicing outside the huge and expansive reception tent. The signpost to the village was artistically done and it read AA@90. The neat appearance of the village testified to Adebanjo’s intolerance of ugliness. It was a different kind of fresh air characteristic of unspoilt countryside. Adebanjo’s own compound on which is seated his modest bungalow is not a jungle of concrete. Put in charge of the arrangement was Dr. Yemi Ogunbiyi, an animated fellow who makes friends easily with his warm-heartedness and who equally cares about standards. For Ogunbiyi, there are no half-measures. Whether at Harbour Port at Victoria Island or Isanya Ogbo-Ijebu his signature for taste and standards was boldly written.

Present to grace the occasion were Adebanjo’s comrades in the unrelenting drive for a new, united and vibrant restructured Nigeria for meaningful, self-evident, measurable and sustainable development and growth. His colleagues in the handshake across the Niger and across Benue to Benue Plateau were well represented. Step forward and be counted amidst clapping, the nationalist Chief Edwin Clarke; Chief John Nwodo, the national president of Ohanaeze Ndigbo; and the leader of the Middle Belt Forum, Dr. Bala Takaya who succeeded Prof. Jerry Gana. Former Commonwealth Secretary, Chief Emeka Anyoku, was in attendance. So was Dan Suleiman who was in the trenches with Adebanjo in the NADECO days as head at the United Kingdom front.

The political leaders who numbered among the dignitaries were the Vice-President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo; Senator Ibikunle Amosun, Governor of Ogun State; Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, Governor of Osun State and Senator Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo State. Former Governors Olusegun Osoba, Niyi Adebayo and Gbenga Daniel were at the event. There as well were General Alani Akinrinade; Dr. Amos Akingba; Sam Amuka the Vanguard Publisher about whose writings in the days of yore Adebanjo spoke with nostalgia; public spirited Professor Pat Itomi; Pharmacist and politician Jimi Agbaje; Nike Akande, former Minister and until recently president, Lagos Chambers of Commerce; Dr. Tokunbo Awolowo-Dosunmu; chairman of Insight Communications, Biodun Sobanjo; Tunde Adelaja, chief executive officer of Rosabel; Lawyer Yemi Adefulu; Lawyer Ayanlaja; Dare Babarinsa and Gbenga Adefaye, both reputable and leading journalists; Lawyer Dipo Jimilehin; public affairs commentator Olu Ademulegun.

Predictably, it was a full house of Afenifere, the Yoruba socio-cultural group, but more well known as a cultural cum political vehicle to watch over the interest of the Yoruba people. Leading Afenifere was its leader, Reuben Fasoranti; there were Chief Olu Falae; Professor Banji Akintoye, Chief Femi Okunrounmu; Chief Akinfenwa; indefatigable National Publicity Secretary Yinka Odumakin and a host of other key members of the association. The family of Chief Adebanjo’s ‘twin brother’, Sir Olaniwun Ajayi, was prominently represented by Professor Konyin Ajayi and Dr. Ajayi, his brother. It was an exceedingly colourful occasion with Bisi Olatilo as the anchor man.

Chief Adebanjo has come a long way, pressing, pushing and advocating the interest of the people of South West. His autobiography titled Say It As It Is captures Adebanjo in his unveiled essence. His political education began in Awolowo School of Principles. The products are known as Awoists. In that school, unremitting application to a just cause is a credo and loyalty without extenuation is the byword. Constant reading, education and re-education is the culture. You must be informed. You must read. So was it that after Adebanjo became the Organising Secretary of Action Group, it did not take him long to realise that the path he had chosen to be in the image of his hero and mentor was strewn with thorns and broken bottles. To successfully walk the path, you must be independent and the soles of the shoes impregnably fortified. You could not be fighting the same establishment from which you would turn round to look for financial succour either as an employee or for an appointive political office. That was the reasoning. You must be free to give expression to the courage of your convictions. You must be prepared to go to jail and return to don your wig and gown as long as it was not for fraud or other crimes for which anyone would know shame. But for your political beliefs and activism, your bathroom kits must be ever ready, and Kirikiri was expected to take note as you could be a guest there any day, at any time! And, indeed, these defined Adebanjo’s journey to reckoning and celebration among the Yoruba. He was a few times a tenant in one jail house or the other. These are credentials an Awoist must be ready to brandish.

The need for independence and unhindered political pursuits for the wellbeing of his people made him to quickly tear off and, it drove him to the United Kingdom to read law. The last time he was locked up was during the Abacha Administration. Guess over what! It was over the death of Kudirat Abiola for whose husband’s mandate he and his leaders were unrelenting. Again, guess who were locked up with him: the indefatigable leader of Afenifere and NADECO, Abraham Adesanya; Solanke Onasanya was asked to be reporting to the police. He was spared of the jail house because his age was put into consideration. Olu Falae was younger, he was clamped into jail for the same cause. The mistake the Administration made was that it left Bola Ige free and he roamed far and wide, He was not locked up with them. He had had his own fair share of prison experience during Buhari’s first coming. Abacha did not reckon with the fact that Bola Ige was the spokesman for the Yoruba and their cause with almost matchless gift of the gab. Like everyone else from the Awolowo clan, he was bold, he was articulate, he was unsparing with his tongue. Promptly, Bola Ige went to court to free his colleagues from Abacha’s notorious gulag. In 1962, Adebanjo was among Awolowo’s associates wanted to face treasonable felony charge. He and Sam Ikoku fled to Ghana to take refuge under Kwame Nkrumah who shared the same political philosophy with them and their party. In his absence, his father was arrested in his place.

Adebanjo is a repository of the history of the political development of our country. He would overwhelm you with what meetings were held, where and on what date. Who were those present and who said what! He would then recap almost word for word what Chief Awolowo said on the occasion. Not surprising, he at a time took residence in Chief Awolowo’s house at Ikenne where he sat at the sage’s feet to learn wisdom and take in sufficient political education and what holding onto principles means, bearing in mind that the battle might continue after Awolowo’s would have left them. He wanted to be at the beck and call of his leader. He was a member of the board of directors of the Nigerian Tribune. Therefore, what we see in him today is a product of that long tutelage and respectable closeness to his mentor and leader; loyalty, bluntness, unwavering adherence to principles and decency. He is confident but could be combative and abrasive as he does not suffer fools gladly. For his arguments, he comes prepared and he delivers his punches with all the strength he can muster. Indeed, he is never non-plussed and quick witted when it comes to how Nigerians should stay together. For him, there must be an educated debate and negotiation. He would not tolerate dictatorship. Which is why Jonathan’s document from the 2014 National Conference is one that holds the key for enduring value for the progress and happiness of all within the Nigerian frontiers.

His unswerving adherence to principles almost brought him on a collision course with his colleagues on who should be the governorship candidate for Lagos State in 1998 in readiness for 1999. Because Afenifere was just out of the war with Abacha and frayed nerves fairly massaged and soothed by Abdulsalami Abubakar, they did not know enough about their followers nor did they have a clear idea of who among them were loyal and tested enough to be trusted with the all-important office of the Governor of Lagos State. They first mulled the possibility of Ganiyu Dawodu occupying the coveted position. Dawodu declined the offer to fly the AD flag; he suggested that Afenifere should go for a young man who was full of energy and was well educated. Lagos then became a test case. Following unsavoury developments at some point, Sir Olaniwun Ajayi never missed to thrust needle in the wrist of Dawodu. Dawodu who was the Afenifere and AD leader in Lagos was rooting for Funsho Williams and the report the Afenifere received from him was that Funsho Williams won the governorship primaries. Chief Adebanjo argued forcibly that Funsho Williams was not part of the struggle and not much was known about his antecedents. But Bola Tinubu they knew. At the time, Funsho Williams was just coming out of the civil service.

Adebanjo said Tinubu had thrown his all into the struggle, by way of finance and activism, at home and after fleeing into exile. While in exile, he was granting interviews to further the cause. His home in London became a refuge for some fleeing activists and journalists some of whom he gave pocket money. The powerful argument resonated with his colleagues more so that it bordered on loyalty, commitment and antecedents, factors on which Afenifere put a great deal of premium. Adebanjo carried the day. For the group, party is supreme. A candidate goes into office to implement party programmes sold to the electorate. The candidate must, therefore, be one that is persuaded on party programme and must be known. He must have antecedents and must be loyal and be prepared to submit to party discipline.

There was also respect for hierarchy in their group. With the sensing of imminent departure from earthly life of Chief Adekunle Ajasin, leadership was transferred to Abraham Adesanya who himself had been a long runner by the side of Awolowo. He was one of his defence counsel during the treasonable felony trial. He was not just also blunt, but versed in the traditional ethical imperatives and thought flow patterns of their people, punctuating and elucidating his pronouncements with proverbs. After Adesanya, the mantle of leadership went to Chief Reuben Fasoranti. Because age has caught up with Fasoranti, Adebanjo became the face of Afenifere, speaking and travelling, travelling and speaking. He is ready to take anybody on, eyeball to eyeball. His friends cut across all age groups. He is at home in the company of the youth with jokes and his sunny smiles and hearty laughter, and lit-up youthful face as he is in the company of octogenarians. Of course, one cannot play his kind role without attracting criticisms. His critics accuse him of rigidity and that he is unable to distinguish between flexibility to reach objective goal and a craving for opportunism. Their illustration, for example, is that if you are driving to Ibadan from Lagos and a huge tree is found to have fallen across the road and you do not have an axe to cut it and free the road, the sensible thing would be to think of an alternative road which means you turn back and take Abeokuta or Ijebu-Ode and you get to Ibadan the same destination.

Adebanjo is not averse to flexibility as long as the goal is not negotiable. But his experience is that those who sought such flexibility without keeping the goal sacrosanct because of lack of strength of character had wandered into irreversibly into what he calls wilderness. When he speaks like that your mind races to the days of AD which was soon to be engrossed in crisis and Adesanya was preoccupied with settling them.

Adebanjo loves Nigeria but would not surrender his Yorubaness. Even then it should not be at the expense of others and others, too, in pursuit of their interests should do so but not at the expense of their fellow nationalities. He believes that Nigeria of our dreams can never arise if it is not restructured. His argument is that the lighter a burden the easier it is to carry. The Federal Government, according to him, is overloaded. If the zones and states share in the burden the lighter it would become and the faster the movement of the country on the path of development and modernity. Chief Awolowo had said that a unitary form of government in a country of diverse peoples and nationalities with their cultures breeds envy and unending hostilities among the component parts. Restructuring of Nigeria, for Adebanjo, is a task to which he is totally committed. His pains and lament today at the age of 90 is absence of sufficient number of youths with the right political education, who are armed with history and who are endued the strength of character to resist opportunism. His hope has been such youths would emerge to whom his generation would gladly hand over the nation, in the quest and battle for equality before the law, equity and justice for all.

Those who gathered on Tuesday to pay homage and celebrate Adebanjo could not but go away with a deep impression that it is good to be good. It is eternally rewarding to be selfless. Adebanjo is no doubt appreciated not just by only his people but by a great many from across the country for his doggedness and selflessness in the pursuit of their happiness and fulfilment. There were drinks and the comestibles were inexhaustible. It was his glorious day.

All the foregoing was captured seven years ago. Given the state in which the world is now, we must have people like him to keep evil at bay until the ongoing waves of Light purification on earth reach all and sundry—all mankind! I believe the multitude that will gather at Isanya Ogbo-Ijebu in early May to mourn and bid him farewell on his continuing journey in the beyond will even be more. Adebanjo was full of love and he had an acute sense of justice. Nothing changed in this his pursuit of these virtues up to his last moment on earth. He was ever set to rise in the defence of these. He lived an eventful and remarkable life.

The leadership of the Labour Party was jolted this morning with the news of the sudden demise of Dr. Doyin Okupe, Labour Party's erstwhile Director-General of the Presidential Campaign for the 2023 election.

According to the news, the physician turned politician, passed away at the age of 72 after battling a protracted illness suspected to be cancer.

Before joining Labour Party in 2022, Okupe had played key roles in Nigerian politics, having served as the National Publicity Secretary of the National Republican Convention (NRC). He was once detained under General Sani Abacha and subsequently disqualified from participating in the United Nigeria Congress Party (UNCP) primaries. He later served as a senior adviser to former President Goodluck Jonathan.

However, his active participation in the Labour Party's push for the presidency in 2023 clearly revealed his inspirational and charismatic self as well as his statesmanship. He loved the nation and he believed that a new Nigeria is possible.

Before being appointed the DG of the Labour Party presidential campaign, he first served as a place holder for the party's Vice Presidential candidacy, a position he honorably relinquished, with the understanding that such position should go to the North. As the DG of the Campaign Organisation, he was a team player, focused, assertive but also diplomatic in the discharge of his duties.

Though, he resigned his membership of the party last year based on principles, but his fraternity with the party didn't cease, neither did he stop giving us invaluable advices. We cherished his short but impactful association with the party leadership. He was lively, energetic, honest and creative; great virtues we will be missing in him.

Certainly, Nigeria has lost an astute politician whose desire for a great nation was unquestionable. We believe that though he still has so much to offer this nation, but death has brutally forced him to write the last chapter of his life. As is often said, death is a necessary end that must come when it must come, for Doyin, it was time to bid him a tearful farewell.

On behalf of the leadership and members of the Labour Party across the globe we commensurate with his immediate family, Ogun state government and Nigerians over his demise and I pray that God will offer him His bossom for a well deserved rest.

SIGN:

Barrister Julius Abure
National Chairman
Labour Party.