THE kind of soldier he was, it would have been no news if he had literally breathed his last on the frontlines. His resume included state persecution—endless harassment by the Establishment, and time in detention. But fate chose for him the peace and quiet of his Lekki, Lagos home, amid the love and care of family. It was a glorious homegoing for the man who had ceaselessly warned his nation that he was already at the Departure Lounge, and that the country must be returned to the vision of the founding fathers: a truly federal, prosperous country aggregating the latent talents of its component units, forming a cohesive whole, and unleashing monumental progress and development as the giant of Africa. Look for videos/reports of meetings of the Obafemi Awolowo Foundation, and of constitutional conferences and lectures/discussions on Nigeria and its federalism, and the quintessential Adebanjo persona bursts out in its raw, unfiltered essence, blunt almost to the point of brutality.
The man and his style
Typically, Ayo Adebanjo, foremost nationalist, statesman, pan-Africanist and apostle of Awoism, did not send anyone to represent him at (such) events. He came, even if it meant literally dragging himself to the venue against the frailty of age. It is indeed an alien from Mars who needs any briefing about the man Adebanjo: journalists could ring him up, demand and get an interview at any time, and not once did he ever use jotted-down notes. Adebanjo spoke extempore, and hammered home points whether or not they were what anyone wanted to hear. He was the kind of man who spoke about despots and their crimes even if they were in the audience. Adebanjo literally didn’t give a damn, and you could be forgiven if, hearing him for the first time, you assumed that Awoism/progressivism/’true federalism” was some kind of religion. Adebanjo would gladly miss dinner if it would mean an opportunity to point the way forward for Nigeria.
The greatest mistake any reporter rushing to file a story could make was to ask Adebanjo to elaborate on a point: he would so elaborate on that point, buttressing his views with references to global history and philosophy, that even the questioner would wish that (s)he had not asked the question. If you were in a hurry, then simply don’t ask Adebanjo a question. There was no Nigerian of his age who granted more interviews or spoke more about Nigeria—and that special topic, federalism. If federalism was an offence, Adebanjo was guilty as charged. He did not like Nigeria as presently constituted and did not try to hide it. Indeed, it would have been difficult for Adebanjo to try to hide anything: he was the kind of man who, as the Yoruba say, did not know how to hide words under the tongue. He once upbraided a sitting governor for referencing his permission as chairman on an occasion. And when the governor gently pointed out that he had indeed sought his permission, Adebanjo shot back, right on the high table: “Did I grant you the permission you sought? Let us do things properly.” That was in 2014. Vintage Adebanjo.
Adebanjo, the teacher/fighter
Conscious of his place in history, and narrating/dissecting Nigeria with vigour, Adebanjo put his body through considerable strain to attend conferences and gatherings where Nigeria and its problems faced scrutiny. You could like or hate him, but you couldn’t ignore him. He made sure of that anyway. His very life was a message: he did not suffer fools gladly, did not junket from one political platform to another, did not pursue any vices, stuck with one woman, and was one of the rapidly shrinking number of Nigerians who actually saw, thought and wrote with the sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo.
Charged along with the sage and 30 others with treasonable felony in the early 60s, Adebanjo fled to Ghana, but he never stopped canvassing the return to democracy and “true” federalism once he returned to Nigeria’s shores. He was a prominent member of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) following the June 12, 1993 debacle. An ideologue who could be described as the last of the original Awoists, Adebanjo joined the Alliance for Democracy (AD), an Awoist party, with the return to civil rule in 1999, but that was the last political platform he affiliated with. He is on record as querying a colleague: “How can you be Awoist with Babangida, Awoist with Abacha, Awoist with Obasanjo, Awoist with every government?”
During his last interview with the Nigerian Tribune on his 95th birthday in April 2023, he made a pronouncement that summed up his persona: “Even when I am dead, I will keep fighting.” He then gave a sketch of his activism: “I was the pioneer Organising Secretary of the Action Group. I left grammar school in 1949 and joined the Action Group in 1950/51. I was employed in the civil service and I was attending the Egbe Omo Oduduwa. I was in the civil service with the Ikorodu Trading Company and with Daily Service as a journalist. Up till 1951, all we were doing as Action Group Youth Association was like a free service. By 1954, they decided to employ full time secretaries from each division of the Western Region. They interviewed people but Chief S. L. Akintola told Chief Awolowo ‘don’t interview Ayo, you have to speak to him because he has been doing party work without receiving any money’. Party loyalists contributed money with which vehicles were bought for the organising secretaries. That was one of the reasons people said the Action Group was the best organised political party.I was sent to Maiduguri. I was there for a whole year. That is why I tell Buhari that he caused all these things. You cannot be preaching “one Nigeria” to me, if I didn’t believe in one Nigeria, why would I have gone to Borno? I was already a lawyer then in 1979 and we had already formed the government in Western Nigeria.”
Asked if he was going to take a break from public life, Adebanjo said: “That is not possible. Until I am buried in the grave I won’t stop and I took that from Chief Awolowo. When we asked him are you going to retire, he would say no, “when I’m in the grave I will still be tall fighting”. We didn’t know what he meant at that time. He is dead now but is there any day people don’t mention the name Awolowo? Oh, Awolowo did this! Oh, Awolowo did that! That is what I’m doing. I’m a lone ranger now.”
A Zikist until the crisis after the McPherson Constitution which divided the country into East, West and the North, deliberately creating an imbalance, Adebanjo served the Action Group, and later the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), with distinction. He was a member of the 1978 Constituent Assembly, and the 2014 National Political Conference, a conference whose report he never stopped speaking about. At the National Constitutional Dialogue organized by The Patriots in honour of the late constitutional lawyer, Professor Ben Nwabueze, at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), Lagos State, on March 18 last year, Adebanjo said: “Those of you who are younger, who are likely to implement what Nigeria should be, don’t play with the 2014 National Conference. Whether you like it or not, Jonathan will go down in history for the best thing he did, for setting up that conference. And I say publicly again without any fear of contradiction, you can never get the composition of that conference again in Nigeria.”
The deluge of tributes
For nearly 70 years, Adebanjo remained faithful to his convictions, and it is no surprise that glowing tributes have been paid to his genius following his transition. Leading the tributes, President Bola Tinubu said: “Nigeria has lost a political leader whose decades of unwavering struggle for justice, democracy and national unity have left an indelible mark on our nation’s history.” On his part, former President Olusegun Obasanjo said his death was “ a huge loss not only to me and to Ogun State but also to the country as a whole,” adding that he “was a great man, a committed nationalist and an effective representative of his people.” Members of the Southwest Caucus in the 10th House of Representatives mourned “ an illustrious elder statesman, a foremost advocate of democracy, and a revered leader from the Southwest” whose transition “marks the departure of a towering figure whose lifelong dedication to natural justice, equity, and good governance helped shape Nigeria’s democratic evolution.”
Chairman of the ANN Plc, Ambassador Dr. Olatokunbo Awolowo Dosumu, said that his departure “marks the end of an era, as he was one of the last of the generation of pre-independence nationalists who dedicated their lives to the cause of a just and equitable Nigeria.” She added:“A paragon of integrity and consistency, Chief Adebanjo spent his long years of public service advocating for justice, equity, and the rights of all Nigerians. As a leader of Afenifere, he stood firm against oppression and tyranny, building bridges across regions, religions, and ethnic divides.” Adebanjo’s home base, Afenifere, said he was “known for his central stage advocacy of restructuring, true federalism, and a Nigeria of equity, fairness, and true sense of belonging for its constituent ethnic nationalities.
Conclusion
The tributes have been crafted in sincerity. Adebanjo truly was a titan, a bridge builder who stayed in Maiduguri, Borno State for a year preaching progressive politics, and invested decades of efforts into galvanising the peoples of the Middle Belt, the South-East and the South-West for a greater Nigeria. Adebanjo was an uncommon fighter who often rose beyond the limitations of age to fight for a reinvented and more prosperous Nigeria. You might not agree with the restructuring advocate par excellence, but no one could question the purity of his passion, the clarity of his thinking, the lucidity of his language, the immense power of his erudition, and the force of his persona—the sheer no-nonsense, no-holds-barred method that astounded many people. Adebanjo was a tested tormentor of autocrats, an Emeritus Statesman who was resolutely averse to the use of politics for state capture. At his Departure Lounge, he frequently asked with palpable pain in his voice: “The way Nigeria is going, what will I tell Papa (Awolowo)? What will I tell Mama?”
Perhaps Nigeria was really undeserving of such men of steel who loved it to no end but got very little in return, even by way of appreciation. As his school principal, Reverend (later Bishop) Kale said of him: “He is a strong character.” As his odyssey demonstrated clearly, even this assessment was an understatement. Adieu, Ayo Adebanjo.
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