By FELIX OGUEJIOFOR ABUGU
The death of Pa Ayo Adebanjo, leader of Afenifere, the apex Yoruba socio-cultural and political organization symbolizes the final exit of the last of the nation’s political originals.
Born in 1929, Pa Adebanjo, aged 96, died at certainly a ripe old age. But our memory of him is not that of a wizened old man but one who was practically on his feet all of his adult life, speaking to issues germane to national development and progress, anchored on equity, justice and fairness.
He was specially made for his times. To his natural wisdom, political sagacity, personal and group integrity, sense of commitment to shared national values, courage and fearlessness, we are all witnesses.
According to a statement by his family, Pa Adebanjo died on Friday – today, February 14, 2025 – at his residence in Lekki, Lagos State.
“He died peacefully this morning, Friday, February 14, 2025, at his Lekki, Lagos Nigeria home at the age of 96,” the family announced.
A distinguished lawyer, former organising secretary of the Action Group and the national leader of the apex Yoruba socio-cultural and political organisation, the Afenifere, Chief Adebanjo, who hailed from Isanya Ogbo, near Ijebu Ode, Ogun State, was truly one of the nation’s political originals, perhaps the very last of that vanishing tribe.
Hewn out of the liberation politics of Nigeria’s 50’s – 60’sindependence struggles, and later the heady politics of post-independence Nigeria, which was to lead to crisis in the old Western Nigeria, ultimately culminating in the brutal 30-month civil war, Adebanjo survived that era and lived through several others, as a redoubtable Awoist for whom politics, leadership and governance were all about the principles equity, justice and fairness.
It is a great tribute to the politics of principle of the great Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the late AG/UPN leader, at whose feet Pa Adebanjo learnt, that Pa Adebanjo shunned the crass opportunism of current politics to stand, until the very end, on those guiding principles as path to Nigeria’s ultimate political desideration.
Derided, sidelined, even blackmailed with relentless attempts to factionalise the redoubtable Afenifere, Pa Adebanjo trudged on as a true nationalist, eternally sold on the idea that if Nigeria must survive as a united, progressive country, it must be built on equity and inclusion, and that no individual, group or geographical part must be seen as superior or inferior to the other. Needless to say that all through his political career, even more so in his older days, the late Adebanjo unabashedly shunned the glitterati of triumphal politics, promoted by fringe elements who would impudently project themselves as Awoists without the underlying principles that define the characters of true followers of the late Awo, to maintain his stand on, and vote for, a conscionable Nigeria.
Many were Adebanjo’s socio-political engagements that defined his nationalistic bent. In 2019, he led Afenifere to join the Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF), Ohanaeze Ndigbo and the Middle Belt Forum to form a movement known as the Mass Alliance for Inclusive Nigeria, MAIN, a movement floated, they said then, “to deepen the call for Nigeria’s restructuring,” according to a statement by PANDEF leader, Chief E.K. Clark; the departed Chief Adebanjo; then Ohanaeze Ndigbo President General, Chief John Nnia Nwodo and then President, Middle Belt Forum, Dr. Bala Takaya.
“Nigeria is, at the moment, in a state of inertia, with her people stranded at the juncture of dilemma, pondering as to what path leads to socio-economic emancipation, where the future of our country’s younger generation can be secured, and our women saved from needless anxiety over what fate awaits their children,” the leaders declared then in the movement’s mission titled, ‘Nigeria at crossroads: MAIN front to the rescue’, the leaders said at the time’…
“In the circumstances, our major assignment, is to salvage the ship of the Nigerian state tottering in a scarily rudderless manner in the roaring waters of insecurity, economic decline and permanent political tension, is the restoration of stolen Nigeria ‘Article of Faith’, amongst Nigerians.
“The point being made, in no unmistaken terms, is that the dismantled federal architecture must be reconstructed, where each state in Nigeria will be self-accounting with respect to its nature-endowed natural resources, of which no federating unit in Nigeria is denied of God’s numerous gifts to His creatures, and self-securing of lives and property within its constitutionally-defined geopolitical space.
“This is the irreducible minimum item of a social contract that our long-suffering people demand of any group and association that seeks to take control of our country’s political destiny, henceforth. This precisely is what we, the Mass Alliance for Inclusive Nigeria, pledge to affect.”
It is to the eternal credit of Chief Ayo Adebanjo that the only group still insisting on restructured Nigeria as the only path to progress, equity and freedom in the polity is Adebanjo’s Afenifere, despite the obvious advantage it enjoys in the nation’s current power structure, at least by association. Every other group would appear to have relapsed into the typical Nigerian defeatist political narrative: ‘what has happened, has happened, let’s just move on’
One of the most documented political choices, stands if you will, of any regional group on the Nigerian situation is that of Adebanjo’s Afenifere’s principled insistence that, in the absence of restructuring, which it had always canvassed, the most pragmatic and equitable way forward for the country was for power to shift to the South East, whose turn, by Nigeria’s rotational principle, it was at the turn of the presidential transition of 2023.
That principled stand explains the great harmony Adebanjo found in the presidential ambition and electioneering/messaging of Mr. Peter Obi, the Labour Party candidate in the February 25, 2023 presidential election.
In October 2022, in the run-up to the February 25, 2023 election, Adebanjo in an interview with Channels Television, insisted that he would support Obi till the very end, despite the endorsement of the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, by Adebanjo’s predecessor, Pa Reuben Fasoranti.
“My stand on Obi remains,” Adebanjo had told Channels Television in a telephone chat at that time, stressing:
“The South-West has produced a president and currently sits as vice-president, the South-South has spent a total of six years in the presidency but the Igbo people of the South-East have never tasted presidency in Nigeria, and now that the power is due back in the South, equity demands that it be ceded to the Igbo.
“We cannot continue to demand that the Igbo people remain in Nigeria, while we at the same time continue to brutally marginalize and exclude them from the power dynamic.
“Peter Obi is the person of Igbo extraction that Afenifere has decided to support and back, he is the man we trust to restructure the country back to federalism on the assumption of office.
“We will not compromise this principle of justice, equity, and inclusiveness because one of our own Asiwaju Bola Tinubu is a frontline candidate.”
It’s a principle for which most Nigerians, including, first and foremost, his family, will remember and cherish Adebanjo for a very long time to come.
In the statement announcing the elder statesman’s passig, the family had proudly enthused: “We will forever cherish his commitment to fighting for truth, equity, and justice. His belief and struggle for a truly independent and progressive Nigeria was total, and this he fought for until he breathed his last breath.”
Without their expressly saying so, it obvious from the family’s statement that there would be ‘doings’ from home to keep Nigerians rivetted on what Pa Adebanjo stood for as the pathway to the great, new Nigeria that all citizens dream of.
In a fitting reaction to the passing of the elder statesman, Peter Obi, a big beneficiary of Pa Adebanjo’s love and teachings, expressed deep sorrow over the elder statesman’s demise, describing him as a pillar in the struggle for a new Nigeria.
In a statement on Friday – today, February 14 – Obi, extended his condolences to Adebanjo’s family and the Afenifere, calling his death “a profound loss to Nigeria and to all who cherish justice, equity, and truth.”
“As the leader of Afenifere, Pa Adebanjo remained a steadfast advocate for a united and progressive Nigeria. His unwavering commitment to fairness and relentless pursuit of a better nation have left an indelible mark on our country’s history,” Obi stressed.
Reflecting on his personal relationship with Adebanjo and the impact the late Afenifere leader had on his political journey, Obi said: “I remain deeply grateful for his support during my presidential campaign. His endorsement was not merely a political gesture but a testament to his belief in the ideals of equity and inclusiveness. He stood firm in his convictions against all odds, demonstrating his dedication to the greater good of Nigeria.”
In his last conversation with Adebanjo, Obi recalled that the late nationalist advised him to “always stand on the path of justice.”
Pa Adebanjo may well have passed the torch to the younger generation: Obi, himself widely acknowledged as a man of integrity, says those words remain his guiding principle in life.
Adieu Pa Ayo Adebanjo. You came. You saw. And you willed the world to apply the Original Principle of ‘do unto others as you would like them to do unto you’. Nigeria may yet apply that principle.
