Baba Adebanjo did what he was supposed to do in his generation —Justice Faloye, Afenifere spokesman

Prince Justice Faloye is the National Publicity Secretary of the Pan-Yoruba Socio-Political Organisation, Afenifere. He is the author of The Blackworld: Evolution to Revolution among other books. He is also an activist, who serves as President of ASHE Foundation, a think-tank set up by the Ooni of Ife in conjunction with other Southern and Middle-Belt monarchs. In this interview with TAIWO ADISA, he speaks about the life and times of Afenifere leader, Pa Ayo Adenbanjo, how Afenifere received the news of his demise and the way forward for the Organisation. Excerpts:

Let me say sorry about the loss of Baba Ayo Adebanjo. Even though he lived up what you would call a ripe age, he was 96, almost clocking 97, yet it would be difficult to come to terms with his passing. How did the news of his departure hit the leadership of Afenifere?

Even though we knew he was old and he was ill, but Baba was someone that lived larger than life, so we didn’t expect that it was his time to go. You know there was a time he was sick, but suddenly he recovered. So it was a bit of a rude shock, so we are not expecting him to go like that.

Now that the reality of his passing has dawned, how is Afenifere taking it?

Well, we are celebrating him. Like the poster I saw, it says when an elder dies, a life is born. Baba has been a motivating force through generations, especially in the last years of his life. He prompted a lot of the younger people. He made me publicity secretary, Sola Ebiseni, the general secretary, even as young as Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour is in Lagos, he brought us close. He used to say that he was already at the departure lounge, and that it was up to us, that he has done his best and we should get up. Now that he is gone, the reality is setting in gradually, that we have to get into his shoes and make sure there is no vacuum. That is where we are.

Can you recall his last moments?

He spoke to each of us in his last days, I know he used to tell me ‘do not fear anybody, write what you want to write’. ‘Say it as you believe in’. For him, the first and foremost is the ideology, that is why he has specifically chosen the younger ones who he knew believe in the ideology. So he was a guiding and empowering force and we are grateful to him. I believe that the universe has been kind to Afenifere, for giving us somebody who, especially in the last election, could make those of us who believe in ideology and not about money, to make us realise that what we were doing was good. For somebody who has been there since the beginning of Nigeria, because he’s been there, so when he talks, we know that he is an authority and an authority like no other.  At least, for us who are much younger, who didn’t actually know Chief Obafemi Awolowo in person, and in one of the last meeting, he actually asked each and every person to stand up and say who they were supporting or what they were supporting. He said ‘do not support me’ and I remember he said ‘I did not support Awolowo or anybody, but I supported the ideology’. So it’s always about the ideology for him. And you would be surprised the way he dealt with the young people. We went into his bedrooms. People like Dele Farotimi, or even Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, when they talk, they discussed like age mates. He gave us that free hand. He wasn’t an imposing Baba that you cannot talk with. He would take you on, maybe because he was a lawyer, he was always confident that you won’t defeat him in an argument.  Yes, Afenifere is a body that would continue to occupy that space, social democracy and welfarism; it would be long before we can get another like Baba. Because, this is a man that spent 70 years pushing this. Not many of us can think of having 70 years of political activism. That is a very, very high huddle to jump.  This is a man that fought the colonialists; he fought the military and now the civil authority. Like President Tinubu said, that Baba was the one who empowered him. Baba also empowered the younger people about the ideology. He would be sorely missed. Baba made me realise that even if you live up to 120 or 150, the day you go, people would still feel somehow. And when it happened and the media were calling, at night, tears just dropped off my eyes and I realised, Baba has gone!  To a certain extent, one would feel oh! A backbone had gone, but at the same time, it gives us the sense of responsibility, that we have a benchmark. Baba has set a very high benchmark that the whole of Afenifere, like it is with every human being would like to surpass. But we are in a very good shape. We have a deputy leader, who is also a staunch and committed leader.  He is a diplomat and political leader as well, His Royal Highness, Oba Oladipo Olaitan. We are grateful to God for the time Baba spent with us. When you see somebody who fought the colonialists, fought the military and still fighting for democracy in a civil rule, and it is still the same abundance for all, social democracy, and when you see the mass of people across all spheres of life who came down because of him, it makes you feel that money is not as much as a good name.

Now that Afenifere is losing its core leaders, those you would regard as the foundation stones, don’t you see that as a threat to the existence of Afenifere as a body?

No, I don’t see it as that.  The Yoruba say Baba ku Baba naa lo tun ku. The point is this Baba did what he was supposed to do in his generation, it is for my generation to stand up. I believe that when you have younger revolutionaries, the future is bright. In the coming days and weeks, you will see that we are even Afenifere Pro-Max. We have people who are very passionate.  In certain respects, the battle is a bit different between now and then. Now we watch this generation they call in America, the woke, generation, you will realise that the youths came together because they were all looking for change. All the battles that Baba Adebanjo and his generation fought, we have to go on from there. His generation got independence for us, only for us to realise that it was a pseudo independence  and that we are still reliant on the  colonialists, and  that affects our economy  and we have not  been able to reverse the coloniality of how the  British organised Nigeria into North and South. We have North that starts from the border of Ondo State upwards; and they put a lot of things into Nigeria that have not made it work. It is this next generation that have to rectify that. That is why we say that coloniality is different from colonialism. There are some things in our attitude, knowledge systems; for example, you see that the North can unite two regions together but we in the South cannot unite two regions. That is why we have to continue with the South and Middle-Belt alliance, spearheaded by Baba and the late Yinka Odumakin. That’s the next big thing; of how we can bring the common man to take the manifest destiny of Nigeria, because we are underperforming. Though there are battles out there and some people would say that our battles are more difficult because they are not obvious.  We have exchanged  a white master for a black master;  the  white skin master for a black skin master, which is very difficult  to fight against.  Because people would say that Omo wa ni  (he is our own). So it is very difficult for the new generation, but we are up to the task, God willing, we will continue the mass education and activism to bring these political and economic changes. Pretty soon, actually before Baba passed, we have reformed the four cardinal points of Awolowo, we have updated them to reflect current realities. We still need free education, we still need free health, but we are coming in with quantitative benchmarks, because as of now, Nigeria is the homelesness capital of the world.

How did you come to that conclusion?

We have 20 million homeless people. These government, in their budget for this year said they would put money for 20,000 homes. If you divide 20,000 homes in the budget by 20 million, it would take 1,000 years. That is the problem. On a total, we build 350 homes in Nigeria but our population increases by 4 or 5 million every year. So these are the things that Afenifere has refocused on. If you look at the growing economies in the world, India, China, they build 14 to 15 kilometres of railway every day. Which makes about 5,000 a year. The  total railway network of Nigeria is about 3,600 kilometres, so they build the entire Nigerian system every year. So what we have discovered is that if we don’t put these benchmarks into it, that ‘oh, Mr. man, you want to come into power, how many roads are you going to build, how many railways are you going to build’, because railway is the foundation of heavy industrialisation. So these are the kinds of things we are coming out with. It is not against any person in particular, so when we tell you ‘these are the two things, how many are you going to do’,  even though  we want 10 kilometres for a start and you say you want to do five, we will say, ‘okay do five, this is what we will use to mark your performance’. If we do now have a quantitative benchmark, politicians will just start showing you wells and call them boreholes , which have nothing to do with economic development. So these are the things the newer generation has resolved to be doing.

You said you have reviewed the four cardinal programmes, are you increasing the number?

The cardinal programmes still include free education free health, massive railway development and housing. Our aim is that basically, every man must have a roof over his head. The reason why they regard us as the poverty capital of the world is that the number one health creator, which is the house, is missing. Because housing amplifies your consumer market, meanwhile, railway generates and amplifies your industry, even your services and agric. Because when Awolowo was there, they pushed for agric, but  we realised now that  40 per cent of our agricultural production is wasted. The reason for that is storage and transportation. And the only industry that provides that very well is railway. So if we can make sure we build railways throughout with that one stone, we would have resolved the agriculture and we would also have promoted rural development. Because we will make sure that every senatorial district must have a railway that passes through it.  Initially we were looking at every local government but we have said, let us start with senatorial district.  This concentration on roads, if you do not have railways, those roads would keep on collapsing. You know how many years we waited for the Lagos-Ibadan expressway, now the Ibadan end of it is already wavering, because we transport everything by road. And that is why those roads do not last. Maybe we took the cart before the horse. The West first developed their railways for a good 50, 60 years before they started producing cars. So that is the main trust and of course, for us, our belief in social democracy and cultural justice, it is restructuring. We need to restructure. I know that some people would say Awolowo is dead, Adebanjo is dead, so Afenifere is dead, no, we are coming up with new, strong ideas, and which we will achieve.

So in a way you are saying that Baba has set up the Afenifere of the future before he left?

Yes, he has, I can assure you of that. That is it in a nutshell. Baba came, he saw, and he set up a wonderful foundation for us.

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