09042021- Insecurity: Tension mounts in Imo, Abia, Rivers

Vanguard, FRIDAY, APRIL 9, 2021 — 7
ODUMAKIN: Triumph of activism over materialism
By Muiz Banire
THE remnants of the rev
olutionary left in Nigeria
were recently dealt a devastating
blow on the April 2,
2021, with the demise of the
fiery activist, Yinka Odumakin.
It is not that his death
did not confound others of
different orientations and
ideological backgrounds, but
the Leftists in Nigeria would
probably lay claim to Odumakin
as belonging to their
primary constituency based
on his antecedents and activism
till death.
The announcement of his
death has left many in a state
of shock, as there was no public
knowledge of his prior ill
health.
On the same day, it was announced
that another civil society
activist, Innocent Chukwuma,
bowed to the cold
hands of death.
It has been one death too
many considering the fate that
befell the same community of
activists with the demise of
some other ferocious fighters
for human rights and revolutionary
activism in the persons
of Professor Abubakar
Momoh and Bamidele Aturu
who died a few years ago.
However, news of Yinka’s
death has continued to shake
the firmaments ever since it
was announced and one wonders
if his achievements could
be matched by his age at the
time of his death.
A student union leader of the
late 1980s, Yinka rose to become
the public relations officer
of Obafemi Awolowo
University, Ile Ife, where he
left an indelible mark in the
golden days of student activism.
Those were days when the
student movement determined
the pulse of the nation
and the government could be
sure of an immediate response
once a policy unfavourable to
the masses was rolled out.
Those were days when the
National Association of Nigerian
Students, NANS, was a
barometer for determining
whether the government was
doing well or not.
Despite victimization by the
university authorities in the
days of military despotism,
Yinka and his colleagues
stood firm and projected responsible
radicalism that did
not give way to personal interests.
It was a period in Nigerian
history when leaders of conscience
were leading the student
movement, unlike what
we have today where student
leaders cannot be distinguished
from cultists and political
jobbers whose sole aim
is to become political parasites
and partake in the national
loot as being done by
the condemnable leaders of
the land.
His graduation from OAU
did not rest his revolutionary
spirit, he consistently fought
for the nation he believed in
until his last moments as he
served on various platforms
leading to the emergence of
the current democratic dispensation
in 1999.
Yinka rose to the call for a
better Nigeria by serving as
the spokesperson for
Afenifere, the pan-Yoruba organization
modelled after the
lofty aspirations and wisdom
of Chief Obafemi Awolowo.
Notwithstanding that he
was the youngest in the midst
of old but established politicians
of the First and Second
Republics, like Sir Olaniwun
Ajayi, Chief Ayo Adebanjo,
Chief Ayo Opadokun, Chief
Reuben Fasoranti and many
others, he was nominated as
the voice of the organisation
and served in that capacity for
not less than 13 years.
Yinka was in the 2014 Confab,
where he made gargantuan
contributions on how he
believed Nigeria could be remodelled
to achieve social
equality and justice. He was a
passionate believer in Nigeria
and his conviction on the
need to find a worthy leader
and reformer made him work
with others for Muhammadu
Buhari to become President
(in 2011).
His agitations for a greater
Nigeria were never hidden
and despite criticisms and
disagreements from some of
his old comrades, he stuck to
his guns on his conviction on
how he believed the struggle
for a better nation could be
achieved. His days as the secretary
of Save Nigeria Group,
SNG, led by Pastor Tunde
Bakare and others in 2012,
were an endorsement of what
conscionable activism can do
in rebuilding a nation that has
fallen into a terrible moral
and economic miasma like
ours.
Yinka was a dogged fighter
who would not bat an eyelid
in projecting his views and
mobilizing to achieve his aim.
He travelled the length and
breadth of Nigeria with a
strong resolve to ensure that
the otherwise endowed country
could be placed in its rightful
place in the comity of nations.
He was a great writer, a
good speaker of English language,
a manufactory of brilliant
ideas and a complete
package of intellectual sagacity
Ẏinka was a strident voice
against ethnic marginalization,
tribal favouritism or nepotism.
His agitation for the
protection of his ethnic origin
within the context of a restructured
Nigeria has no sentiments
for tribal irredentism.
It was a struggle balanced on
the pivot of right to self-determination
of all peoples within
a united country.
As if trying to avoid the problems
of wrongly marrying a
woman without an understanding
of his ideological
orientation, Yinka’s choice of
a woman is a perfect combination
of two souls with a single
conscience. He married
Joe-Okei Odumakin, a Ph.D
holder whose activism dates
back to the student movement
in Ilorin and whose entire life
has been dedicated to the
cause of agitating for a better
humanity.
In all these, Yinka neither
asked for, bagged a government
portfolio nor served in
an executive capacity in any
government. Yet, he left an indelible
mark in the sands of
time.
•Late Yinka Odumakin and Innocent Chukwuma
Yinka was a
strident voice
against ethnic
marginalization,
tribal
favouritism
or nepotism.
There is a lesson to learn in
his lifestyle by both the younger
and the older ones.
The fad today is to enter
politics fresh from the university
and aspire to be a local
government chairman, be
appointed a commissioner,
get elected into the state
House of Assembly or National
Assembly and struggle to
convince the unwary masses
that the only way they can have
a better life is to eternally have
you in office. It has become
the vogue to think that it is
only in public office that one
can make a substantial contribution
to the development
of the people. It is certain that
this line of thinking is not
borne out of altruism as examples
of self-seeking politicians
have shown that, in most
cases, it is to line a private
pocket and achieve personal
aggrandizement.
I have repeatedly said that
no one needs to particularly
occupy a public office before
making unforgettable contributions
to the service of humanity.
The death of Yinka Odumakin
has proven this philosophy
right.
His death has made a harvest
of eulogies, soporific tributes
and fulsome praises*
tumbling down from both
worthy and unworthy mouths.
Both enemies and friends
have converged in unison to
acknowledge that this gentleman
was an embodiment of
service to humanity.
The past few days have proven
that a man could live a
worthy and unforgettable life
without necessarily occupying
a public office where he
could have unrestricted access
to public funds.
Yinka’s house has become
a Mecca of a sort to which
mandatory pilgrimage has
been made a pillar of political
relevance.
His wife, another fiery activist
with multiple laurels to
her name, Dr. Joe Okei-Odumakin,
could not hide her surprise
for the recognition and
praises accorded her husband
in death by those who would
not give him a drop of water
in a desert. She wishes her
husband were alive to listen
to his avowed traducers and
haters as they keep on singing
hosanna to his name during
this Easter season.
Could Yinka have had a fate
with the aura and lessons of
the resurrection of Jesus that
he chose to leave around the
same time?
Hmmm! The Yoruba say
eniyan o sunwon laaye. Ojo a
ba ku laa d’ere, which means
humans are not treasured
while alive. It is in death we
become wondrously invaluable.
You can learn a thing or two
from the life and times of Yinka
Odumakin.
You can serve humanity
without necessarily aspiring
to or holding a public office.
You can lead from the rear
and give commands into the
future. You can sow into humanity
without having to be
enveloped in the grandeur of
public office.
You can become a pillar to
rest on without having all the
money in this world.
Let these praise singers by
way of honouring the dead
emulate his ways, adopt his
philosophy and be repentant,
as death is inevitable.
A few activists are in Nigeria
who still embody these virtues.
When Alhaji Lateef Jakande,
the inimitable former Governor
of Lagos State, died earlier
this year, we saw a harvest
of praises, eulogies and enticing
and exciting condolences
like are being accorded Yinka
Odumakin now.
But how many of these
emergency recognisers of
these virtues are ready to live
such a worthy life?
How many of them are
ready to make life worth living
for the masses as campaigned
for by Odumakin
and delivered by Jakande?
How many of them are
ready to give to the masses
what belongs to the masses?
The cosmogenic Ifa verse of
Eji Ogbe decrees that what
belongs to the people should
not be denied them. It renders
stupid the ambitious craze of
the Leviathan that seeks a
contract of agistment of a fowl
with death. Ogbe f’ohun
f’olohun is the warning of the
oracle that deplores gluttony
and stealing. Where the rights
of the people are accorded
them, where the nation is allowed
to breathe without the
suffocating noose of incompetence,
corruption and nepotism,
where the leaders of the
land would allow the resources
of the nation to serve the
people and stop redecorating
a dead horse, setting up a
committee on how to ride a
dead horse of a refinery and
creating white elephants to
loot our commonwealth,
where the youths are meaningfully
engaged and a future
is carved out for them to enable
them live without a pang
of hunger, certainly the memory
of Yinka Odumakin and
others like him would have
been well preserved.
Yinka is gone but his works
live after him.
One wonders if his death is
not a condemnation of ill-gotten
wealth as many billionaires
have died in the past one
year of COVID-19 harvests,
including several supposedly
powerful men in public office
and, yet, hardly did the world
know that a soul was harvested
by the Grim Reaper; hardly
were they sung for more
than hours but quickly forgotten
together with the allure of
their Rolls Royce, Lamborghini
and other terrifyingly intimidating
moving machines.
They had eaten up their contributions
to humanity while
cruising the surface of the
earth in luxurious splendour
that took no cognizance of the
wailing of the poor.
For the other activists, this
is a reinforcement of our conviction
that there are absolutely
returns on investment
than material.
*We are on the right path,
notwithstanding the victimization,
intimidation and persecution
we might be going
through.
Yinka’s death is a testimony
triumph of activism over
materialism.
Relevance that brings Recognition
Yinka’s death is a brochure
of how to die young as a hero
than to depart this world unsung.
As American poet,
Maya Angelou, counselled
Oprah Winfrey, “Your legacy
is every life you have touched
and every moment you are
building your legacy.”
Adieu, Yinka Odumakin!
The Innocent Chukwuma I knew
Innocent was a
dedicated, conscious
hard worker who
went beyond the call
of duty to build a
high network of
contacts within the
police sector in his
efforts to getting
police reforms
By Richard Akinnola
HE usually had this mis
chievous grin, as he
would greet/hail me-“Baba
Richie.” He was overly playful
but that did not reflect in
his work as he was alive to his
official responsibilities-thorough
and hard working.
Innocent Chukwuma was
one of the first sets of ex-student
activists we recruited in
the early 90s of the Civil Liberties
Organisation, CLO,
when he first came in as a
youth corper and was assigned
the police desk, from
where he grew into an authority
in that field, churning out
detailed, investigative works
on the police. This culminated
in the CLO book, Above the
law, which he edited, detailing
various acts of police impunity.
It was, therefore, not a surprise
that he went on to establish
the CLEEN Foundation,
which focused on police reforms.
Innocent was a dedicated,
conscious hard worker who
went beyond the call of duty
to build a high network of
contacts within the police sector
in his efforts to getting police
reforms.