NIGERIA’s political environment has assumed a new but disappointing and frightening mob culture over an election that has been won and lost. In a previous article, I pleaded for peace and asked that we should stand together as we await the outcome of the petitions at the election tribunal. I am sure I was not asking for too much.

Understandably, there are frayed nerves and bitter emotions exerted in the form of intimidation, cyber-bullying and hate speeches, but we do not have to burn down the country because of one election. Have we forgotten that Nigeria belongs to all of us or should we create two green-white-green countries as Donald Trump did when he created two Americas? That would not be a good idea.

Since 1999, we have been taking learnings from every election cycle and there is always room for improvement. This year, we conducted our 7th general election, however flawed these elections might have been. Isn’t that a good thing and something to cheer?

The reactions that have trailed the presidential election since February 25 give the impression that some people own Nigeria more than the rest of us simply because Peter Obi, presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), lost an election.

I have friends, classmates and colleagues who are Obidients and supporters of Peter Obi. That is the beauty of democracy; it allows for freedom of choice. There are family members who belong to different political parties but they still eat and drink together. In the last presidential election, I know a couple that voted for different parties. They are still living together. Why should our political differences separate us?

I have a brother who is an Obidient. He was very hopeful that Peter Obi would be declared the winner. I have long-standing associates at work (both in Nigeria and the diaspora) who are also Obidients but we understand that our political affiliations and worldviews will not affect our work and relationship.

Our agreement is that superior arguments based on facts – and not emotions and sentiments – should always prevail. Personal attacks are also forbidden, although in many chat rooms, that is the order of the day. Many participants spew garbage in their attempt to “take Nigeria back” for Peter Obi.

Even when there are heated arguments as I have witnessed on different occasions, the debaters should have the presence of mind to calm down afterwards. But Obidients believe it must be their own way or no other way. This is an exaggerated sense of entitlement and it shows that they are incapable of tolerating other people’s views. Previously, I refused to accept this characterisation of Obidients but not anymore.

The time has come for a reality check because we can disagree without being disagreeable.

What has become evident is that Obidients mismanaged their expectations because of the rising profile of Peter Obi. Popularity of candidates and opinion polls don’t win elections. If that were the case, Hillary Clinton would have defeated Donald Trump in the US presidential election in 2016.

Talking about Donald Trump, no one expected him to win that election but he gained the advantage at the Electoral College and became the 45th US President. Heavens did not fall – despite Hillary winning the popular vote.

The same Trump and his supporters refused to concede defeat to Joe Biden four years later, even going as far as instigating an insurrection at the Capitol on January 6, 2021 where lives were lost and property destroyed. It is the same scenario that is playing out with the duplicitous behaviour of Obidients who insist that Peter Obi won the presidential election.

No one promised Obi a coronation party in Abuja and winning the presidential election is not a stroll in the park. You need a winning strategy to gain competitive advantage. The presidential election was keenly contested and it showed in the results.

There was no way Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) would have gone down without a fight. These are formidable politicians with rich experience, influence and political capital that they amassed over a long period.

Once you hold a different view from Obidients, they will attack you? Why should it be so? Why can’t we have a healthy debate and exchange of ideas, even if we disagree? On social media, they resort to cyber-bullying just like Trump supporters who believe erroneously, like Trump, that the election was stolen from them.

Obidients must note that they cannot bully the rest of us into submission and accept their propaganda as the truth. Not one Obidient has shown me the pathway to Obi’s victory but they expected the crown to be handed over to Obi on a platter of gold. When you want to build a house, you start from the foundation before pillars and beams are introduced.

Two data scientists based in London, UK and Atlanta, USA carried out independent forensic examinations on their own on the presidential election using data they obtained from multiple sources. They found out that Obi was popular and represented a new political force; he could be trusted by his supporters who wanted “change” from the old order (meaning they were tired of APC and PDP) but he clearly did not achieve the national spread required to win the election.

Obidients were the biggest threat to Obi’s aspirations. In addition, since about 47% of registered voters were below 50 years old, Obi needed this demographic, based on previous projections assuming they were correct, to win only if they came out to vote. Go and verify the ratio of voters on February 25 as a percentage of the 95 million registered voters as per the various demographics and see whether Obi had the numbers and spread to win.

This brings me to an important management tool known as SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis. If Obidients truly want to be honest and conduct a comprehensive SWOT analysis, it will reveal that Obi could never have defeated Tinubu or Atiku.

Obi’s strengths were his popularity, “frugal” nature, and so on. But did they review his weaknesses? Did they also verify his antecedents? What of the opportunities (e.g. coalitions across regions and tribes and religion) and threats (e.g. Obidients)? Obi only ticked one out of the four quadrants and it is not enough to win.

The recent music released by Falz, Nigerian musician and son of legal luminary, Femi Falana, is part of a groundswell of coordinated attacks aimed at de-legitimising the victory of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. But how far can his adversaries go?

Even before the presidential election, several attempts were made from different quarters to discredit Tinubu (there were 18 presidential candidates) and damage his chances. There was nothing that was not thrown at him – every bad adjective was used for full effect on Tinubu before and after he became the president-elect.

Obidients believe that Obi won the presidential election and we are having a situation whereby friends are becoming sworn enemies just because they disagree on the matter concerning Obi. I do not think it makes sense for politicians to divide us.  By the way, we must also note that ethnicity and religion have become two combustible and dangerous elements that politicians use to weaponise us.

Obi was popular and he was therefore expected to win the election. That’s the story repeated by Obidients, believing that it will become the truth. It does not work that way, a fact Obidients have refused to accept.

Obidients deploy hateful and hurtful drivel to push their narratives and gag the civic space – a dangerous and counter-productive idea. It explains why they have continued to thrash the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), accusing the electoral body of rigging the election in favour of Asiwaju Tinubu.

There were other candidates in the election but the attention was always on Asiwaju Tinubu. Obidients will not agree but Tinubu had a better resourced-campaign and his ground game – grassroots mobilisation – was better. He also built a formidable northern coalition over the years.

Asiwaju is not called the “last man standing” for nothing.

Overall, Tinubu had a better campaign strategy. No one expected the 2023 elections to be perfect but it is also wrong to assume that there were large-scale electoral malpractices sufficient to invalidate the whole process.

In how many polling units out of 176,606 PUs nationwide were there irregularities? Let us even assume without conceding that the elections were flawed, is that enough reason to say the president-elect should not be sworn into office on May 29? Obi himself knows that he did not win the election but he does not have the courage to admit it because of Obidients. He cannot control them.

But for the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), it would have been business as usual for the leading political parties in their respective strongholds. Let us celebrate the little wins that we achieved and thank President Muhammadu Buhari for giving us the Electoral Act 2022.

The same election described as flawed produced winners from Labour Party in the National Assembly. Those winners were happy to receive their certificates of return but they refuse to acknowledge that the statistical distribution of winners from APC, PDP and Labour Party in terms of ratios is consistent with the outcome of the presidential election. 

By the way, Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of PDP and a veteran of the game, was second to Asiwaju Tinubu while Obi came third, an achievement the Obidients should ideally celebrate as a victory for our democracy. Tinubu won in 12 states; Atiku also won in 12 states while Obi won in 11 states and the FCT, yet Obidients believe Obi won the presidential elections. They should go and read Section 134 of the Constitution.

Atiku also filed a petition – just like Obi did – challenging the outcome of the presidential election but he does not have a mob behind him. The Waziri Adamawa has displayed maturity like a true statesman.

Maybe Obi and Obidients are forgetting that PDP was weakened as the main opposition party having been splintered into four units: Atiku, Obi, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso (of the New Nigeria People’s Party) and Nyesom Wike’s G5. They made victory easier for Tinubu and APC. The two Data Scientists also cited this disadvantage/threat in their reports.

The former Anambra State governor left PDP and joined the Labour Party at the last minute. He became the party’s flagbearer. Apparently, the likes of Prof Pat Utomi had to step down for Obi because he was hailed as the messiah that would “redeem” Nigeria.

I’m still of the view that Obi should not have left the  All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), the party that gave him a wide berth to be Anambra State governor for eight years. Prof Charles Soludo, the incumbent governor, made this point in his famous article (Part One) on Obi.

By now, APGA would have been a force from the South East comparable to what ACN (Action Congress of Nigeria) was in the South West and CPC (Congress for Progressive Change) in northern Nigeria.

It takes time for political alliances to mature but Obi, it would appear, was in a hurry. In a multi-ethnic society like ours where Christians and Muslims live side by side, you need a pan-Nigeria mandate anchored on broad and strategic coalitions and partnerships supported by efficient foot soldiers to win the presidential election.

Just to be clear, I have nothing against Peter Obi but he should be magnanimous in defeat just like Hillary Clinton. The reports by the international observers are encouraging but the impression created by biased media reports and social media activists as well as commentators was that they rejected the process and results of our elections. This is patently false.

What we call electoral malpractices include isolated cases of violence, ballot box snatching, voter suppression, late voting and the incompetence of some security agencies and INEC officials. These problems will not go away overnight but we must constantly seek to improve by working together.  

The elections have come and gone and the next task before us is healing and reconciliation. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, a staunch supporter of Obi, believes we need to stand together at this time and he has asked the incoming administration to list and promote “healing process” as top priority.

Section 36 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (1999) provides that judicial proceedings should be conducted in public. If so, can the subsisting arrangement of allowing only a few people to watch proceedings in a courtroom be described as public? Some people would answer this question in the negative because the attendees are hardly representative of a typical Nigerian community.

Besides, some judges behave as if the court is a private entity.In 2015 for example, some journalists were arrested and detained for three hours on the order of a judge attached to a state High Court, in Ota, Ogun state. The detained Journalists had been deployed by different media organizations to cover two proceedings listed for hearing that day. Their offense was allegedly their failure to show their authorization by the court to cover the cases. The judge reportedly stated that the High Court, contrary to the impression of the media, was not a public place that could be entered without authorization.

The implication of the argument was that the Nigerian public was left in the dark about events in that court and perhaps in some others whose judges have a similar perception of a court system that is shielded from the people.

But why should events happening in any societal institution be made a secret to the same peoplefor whose sake the institution was set up and indeed, maintained by taxpayers’ money? Section 22 of the Nigerian Constitution mandates the media to make all public authorities accountable to the people. How can the mandate be successfully handled if the same public authorities are able to empower themselves to bar the media from court rooms? The trend may have been encouraged by some old colonial convention but it can hardly be sustained for long because the judicial arm of government cannot be exempted from the constitutional directive that government as a whole should be accountable to the people. 

Luckily, events of the last few years particularly those concerning politics and elections have pushed Nigeria to a junction where activities in the arm of government often described as the last hope of the common man can no longer be detached from the masses. The ‘winner-takes-it-all’ political system which Nigeria runs is naturally subjected to the principle of all is well that ends well, making it appear rational for contestants to employ whatever can win an election irrespective of approved rules for the game.

This explains the numerous strategies by politicians to buy their way to success especially by bribing state actors- election officials, security operatives and judges. The case of the latter is slightly more worrisome because at the end, no other lawful framework is available for reviewing final and binding judicial decisions that are sometimes jaundiced. People ought not to be left confused as to how such critical decisions were arrived at.

Whereas there are many judges who are quite diligent and forthright in the performance of their duties, a few have become so wealthy throughabuse of office. As the late Supreme Court legend, Kayode Esho once testified “the election tribunals were turning judges into billionaires.” To imagine that the said corruption is limited to the lower courts is wrong because as far back as 2005, Samson Uwaifo, another well-respected retired Justice of the Supreme Court had confirmed that corruption “had gradually crawled to the Higher Courts…” Revealing how this is done, Justice Stanley Shenko Alagoa said some judges collect bribe from politicians and traditional rulers to pervert the course of justice.

Chukwudifu Oputa another retired Supreme Court Justice discovered “dishonest lawyers who after charging their normal fees, charge extra for the judge.” Painfully,such criminal-minded judges, were according to Femi Falana (SAN) “not prosecuted but merely retired by the authorities on the recommendation of the National Judicial Council.” 

Today, the general perception is that the image of the judiciary is far lower than the abominable testimonies of the past. If corruption in the Nigerian judiciary is so rampant as to warrant public apprehension, why not embrace the open justice principle which requires that judicial proceedings be conducted in a transparent manner; and with the oversight of the people? With this question in mind, there appears to be no better time than now to attain open justice by televising the proceedings of election petitions.

The President of the Nigerian Bar Association Yakubu Maikyau, SAN,illuminated the perspective with his argument that such”live broadcasts will give citizens the opportunity to follow the proceedings, have better knowledge of the facts and an understanding of the reasoning behind decisions of the courts in those matters.” It will in earnest help to reduce the tension generated by what people see as a lack of openness and transparency in Nigerian elections especially those held in the country on February 25 and March 18, 2023.

Of course, those who normally profit from election rigging would put up their usual argument that Nigeria is not ripe to adopt the technology for beaming television signals from courtrooms to homes. Yet, in the last two decades, Nigeria homes have been watching live telecast of other events especially those sponsored by politicians and political office-holders.  Even before voting day, many judicial decisions concerning elections are magically resolved to the extent that both parties in a case end up claiming to have won.

Nigerians would for instance love to watch the process which converted a non-aspirant to a candidate in the last senatorial elections. In fact, many would have keenly watched how our judiciary collated votes in a previous election that made a governorship candidate to score more votes than the number of persons who voted at the election. Television signals would probably have exposed what influenced courts to accept disparities between recorded votes and accredited voters where accreditation and voting were simultaneous.

If to televise court proceedings is new to Nigerians, it is not to other African countries that follow global realities. Ghana introduced live telecast of court proceedings in 2012, that is, more a decade ago. In truth, it is Nigeria that should have adopted the strategy a year earlier when Hilary Clinton while submitting the Department of State’s Country report on Human Rights practices for 2011 stated that “Nigerian judges frequently failed to appear for trials, often because they were pursuing other sources of income.”

Unfortunately, Nigeria discountenanced the report thereby remaining behind others.

South Africa is probably the best example in the Continent that has fully embraced open justice with admirable innovations and progressive interpretations. This has helped the country to accept that the workings of the justice system ought not to be shielded away from the public domain. The cases of Mamabolo (2001) and Shinga(2007) established the point that the right to public courts ought not to be seen as belonging only to litigants but to the world at large.

Another persuasive pointmade in the 2014 case of MultiChoice (Pty) was that because courts exercise public power over citizens, it is important for their proceedings to be open so as to encourage public understanding as well as accountability. As a result, people should be empowered to discuss, endorse, criticize, applaud or castigate the conduct of courts which in the first instance belong to them. 

It is certainly unacceptable that in Nigeria, litigants are able to use the courts to win elections, which is probably why most aggrieved persons continue their pursuit for justice until the case is heard by the last and highest court.

Thus, many who are made to accept the decisions of the Apex Court are not necessarily persuaded by the rulings. Accordingly, it is simplistic to label such persons as bad losers because they lost to extra-judicial influences. If anyone is to object to the call for live telecast of court proceedings especially those concerning politics and elections, such objections should not come from judges and lawyers whose conduct necessitated the call. It is in the interest of all lawyers and judges to conscientiously support the call which can among many other benefits, protect diligent actors in the legal system and uphold the integrity of the Nigerian Bar and Bench.

Macky Sall, Senegal’s president, since the beginning of April 2012, has had somewhat of a charmed life. Born in December 1961, he has lived at the cutting edge of his country’s political leadership for over a quarter of a century as city mayor, cabinet minister, prime minister, president of the National Assembly, and president. Over this period, he has been a leader in the opposition Democratic Party of Senegal (PDS), protégé and later opponent to President Abdoulaye Wade, and since 2008, founder of a party political start-up, Alliance for the Republic (APR).

To become president in 2012, he defeated the incumbent, Abdoulaye Wade, precluding him from re-election to what would have been a third term. Now approaching the sunset of his second term, which will end in 2024, Macky Sall wants to up-end his country’s constitution and do that for which he excoriated and ultimately defeated his predecessor and mentor – run for a third term. After months of ill-concealed dithering, he has all but confirmed his intention to run for what would be a constitutionally prohibited third term in a recent interview with French Magazine, L’Express.

Article 27 of Senegal’s 2016 constitution could not be clearer: it prescribes the duration of a presidential term as five years and adds that “[n]o one may exercise more than two consecutive mandates”. If Macky were to finagle a tilt at the presidency for a third time, he would be in breach of this provision.

For the moment, it seems, his plan is more than merely to run again. To make that happen, he seems intent on dictating whom he will run against too. His strongest opponent is the Mayor of Ziguinchor and founder of the ‘Yewwi askan wi’ (Free the People) coalition, Ousmane Sonko, whom Macky has systematically sought to tarnish and exclude from the contest with a succession of desperately specious criminal charges, so he can designate a hapless paper-weight as his opponent.

Macky Sall is the latest of Africa’s presidents in search of an interminable presidency. If he succeeds, he will be at least the 15th African president to do so in eight years since 2015. It was not supposed to be this way.

Independence in many African countries arrived as somewhat of an anti-climax. In its wake, constitutional instability established itself as the preferred means of succession to power. In the 50 years from the beginning of 1955 to the end of 2004, West Africa alone reported 169 “military interventions of some type”, both successful and unsuccessful. Then from 1952 to 1998, the continent recorded 85 successful coups. The cost to the continent was incalculable. Ironically, Macky Sall’s Senegal was one of the few countries on the continent that has so far not reported any.

The mutual assurance of non-interference on the back of which this toxic trend was established began to suffer re-examination following the onset of the wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone in 1989. In 1990, Nigeria led the launch of a regional peace-enforcement intervention in Liberia which altered the way in which the continent responded to internal instability. The following year, African leaders in Kampala, Uganda, diagnosed the interminable presidency as central to the continent’s conflict and instability pathologies and agreed that “[t]here should be a periodic renewal of the mandate of political leaders. At the same time, the tenure of elected leaders in various branches of government should be constitutionally limited to a given number of years”.

In the four years that followed, 37 African countries altered their constitutions with 37 of them introducing presidential term limits. At the continental level, regional institutions, including the Economic Community of African States, ECOWAS, and the Organisation of African Unity, OAU, which became the African Union in 2000, began to evolve rules for oversight over elections and constitutional instability.

What emerged by the turn of the millennium was a continental package deal by which the leaders of the continent agreed on three things. First, access to political power would be based on political legitimacy conferred through credible elections, supervised by regional institutions. Second, to guarantee political competition, presidential term limits will be limited. Third, in return for respect for these two stipulations, the continent outlawed unconstitutional changes in government or coups.

By 2014, the continent went further to make the unconstitutional change in government an international crime in Africa. Those involved in it will become liable to be tried before the African Court of Justice and Human and Peoples’ Rights. This was far-reaching.

In effect, the prohibition against unconstitutional changes of government in Africa was part of an implicit bargain to install guardrails against abuse of presidential incumbency on the understanding that those who seek power had to undertake to abide by some determinate rules for access thereto. These rules were meant to ensure that they will not seek to convert incumbency into interminable rulership.

But, far from eventuating, what has happened nearly across the continent is that incumbents and their parties, aided by the willing complicity or abdication of regional institutions, have retrenched the norms on term limits and credible elections, while simultaneously entrenching the prohibition against unconstitutional changes in government into a rule for interminable presidency.

In response, coups are making a return to the continent on an “epidemic” level. Take Guinea for instance. The country had never had a peaceful transition of power in over half a century of independence before 2010 when it installed Alpha Condé as its elected president. Under the constitution, he was allowed two terms of five years each, which were to lapse in 2020. But, rather than quit power as stipulated, President Condé, who was born in 1938, chose at 82 to organise a rigged referendum to amend the constitution, enabling him to rule until he was at least 94 years old. To ensure this, President Condé deployed the military, killing many protesters against the referendum.

Seven months later, amidst even more violent protests and more killings, Condé got himself proclaimed winner in elections for his interminable presidency boycotted by the opposition. Neither ECOWAS nor the African Union remembered that there were continental norms against interminable presidency and rigged ballots. In September 2021, the military overthrew President Condé, whereupon ECOWAS and the African Union quickly re-discovered their voices.

As President Condé was busy securing his interminable presidency in Guinea, the ruling party in Mali organised elections under cover of COVID-19, at the end of which they used the judiciary to steal seats won by the opposition. What followed was a mass uprising which ultimately led the military to sack an unpopular ruling party and take over power. Once again, the AU and ECOWAS, complicitly silent in the preceding manipulation and fabrications, suddenly perked up.

By the turn of the millennium, military rule in Africa had rightly passed its sell-by date. Yet since 2002, the African Union has recorded and acted against 14 successful coups, most of them the result of presidential abuse of power or against the designs of an interminable presidency.

Africa, the continent with the youngest demographic in the world now has the distinction of having the four longest-serving elective presidencies in the world. In Gabon and Togo, the Bongo and Eyadema dynasties have been in power for 55 years each. Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Obiang approaches his 44th year as president, while Cameroon’s Paul Biya has clocked over 40.

Across the continent, elections are in disrepute and the interminable president is back in vogue. Senegal’s Macky Sall is its latest poster boy. What happens over the next year with his effort to dismantle the constitution will be pivotal for the fate of the continent.

A lawyer and a teacher, Odinkalu can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Kongi, Nigeria’s Nobel Laureate, a deity before whom many Nigerians tether goats, sprinkle oil, pour libations and offer ekuru of appeasement, is going through ferment. It is a period comparable to that low moment which, the Yoruba say, when big misfortunes wrestle one down, smaller travails defecate into one’s mouth – Ti iya nla ba gbe’ni san’le, kekeke a ma g’ori eni. In an elegy to Adegoke Adelabu who died in a 1958 road crash, his NCNC political party bard, Ilorin, Kwara State-born Odolaye Aremu, narrated his sudden death and the emergence of voices of diatribes against this Oluyole petrel and the sorry fate that bedeviled him posthumously more brilliantly. Awon osa kekeke wa nsope Sango o ponmo’re – Smaller gods with less vibes and lesser grits, on account of his misfortune, now clamber on Sango, god of thunder, lord of the storms, commander of lightning. As they mocked him, they claimed that this god, feared at home and in villages, lacked the bravura of a god. This was the fate of Sango as he walked to Koso, where he was believed to have committed suicide.

Rather than enter into the anti-climax which Odolaye, the poet, went into by cursing these voices of dissent – Olohun o dajo, ile o yan’ka! – this piece will seek to study the Kongi’s unraveling.

Only puerile revisionists will fail to give Soyinka his rightful worth in the politico-historical development of Nigeria. He earned his badge as a General among crusaders for a just society. Aside being a playwright, novelist, poet and essayist, Soyinka became the first sub-Sahara African to be conferred a Nobel for his “wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashioning the drama of existence.” Like his cousins, the Ransom-Kutis of Abeokuta, Soyinka is weird, iconoclastic and a certified non-conformist. In the 1960s, Soyinka transited from being a man of the theatre and literature into taking active role in Nigeria’s political history. Indeed, he played a sizeable part in Nigeria’s campaign for independence from colonial rule, most this done through the vehicle of literature and the activism of the theatre.

In 1965, however, Soyinka sidestepped theory into praxis by seizing the Western Nigeria Broadcasting Service studio, from where he broadcast a call for the cancellation of the Western Nigeria Regional Elections. He wasn’t done. Upon being discharged of this allegation in court, he followed this path. When it was becoming clear that the Nigerian civil war was looming, coming immediately after being conferred with the Chair of Drama at the University of Ibadan where he taught, Soyinka’s political activism became more noticeable. After the January 1966 coup, Soyinka surreptitiously and unofficially held a meeting with Odumegwu Ojukwu, who was the military governor of the Eastern State in Enugu in August, 1967, with a view to averting the war. The military government of Yakubu Gowon interpreted this to be an affront and set out dragnets to arrest the theatre teacher. At long last, the Gowon government got him arrested and locked him in solitary confinement for two years. The charge against him was that he volunteered as a non-government mediating actor between Odumegwu’s nascent Biafra and the Federal Government.

In all these and over the years, Soyinka had been something of a mascot among Nigerians, venerated with the sacredness of a deity. He was almost without blemish, even when those who knew him spoke of his sundry human frailties. For instance, Soyinka is reputed to have had multiple liaisons, marrying three times and getting divorced twice. From the three marriages, he begot eight children and had two other daughters. The first marriage was to late British writer, Barbara Dixon. The two of them had met and fell in love in the 1950s while Soyinka was teaching at the University of Leeds, with Barbara giving him his first son, Olaokun and his daughter, Morenike. In 1963, Soyinka got married again to the librarian, Olaide Idowu and had three daughters – Moremi, Iyetade (deceased), Peyibomi – and a second son, Ilemakin, from her. If you want to know the seismic nature of that marriage, read Soyinka’s memoir, about how Olaide dropped his child by the prison doorpost. In 1989, Soyinka married Folake Doherty, a far younger lady and from that marriage, three sons – Tunlewa, Bojode and Eniara – emerged. Soyinka is also an unapologetic connoisseur of wine.

His heroism notched up when in November, 1994 he fled Nigeria by its border with Benin, to the United States. The dictator, General Sani Abacha, had sought his flesh for barbecue. The playwright fled for his life. Perhaps, if he hadn’t, Abacha would have, like the Fourth Citizen retorted in Shakespearean Julius Caesar about Cinna the poet, had him torn into pieces for his “bad verses.”  Soyinka then aligned with Nigerians of similar persuasions to form the anti-military coalition, the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) which, unarguably, was one of the major planks that birthed democracy of the fourth republic that Nigeria currently enjoys. It was that association which got Soyinka yoked with some characters that many Nigerians see as having defanged the roar of Soyinka the lion. I will paint this canvas presently.

No one can be allowed to mis-plot the graph of Soyinka’s trajectory as a major voice of the voiceless in Nigeria. On several occasions, whether convenient or otherwise, Soyinka had looked autocracy and barbarism in their faces and spat on them. In 1986, when a small embankment separated him from death, Soyinka, John Pepper Clark and Chinua Achebe had paid a plea visit to General Ibrahim Babangida at the Lagos Dodan Barracks to plead with him to spare the life of General Mamman Vatsa, the highly scarified Bida, Niger State-born soldier who also doubled as a poet. Of that plea visit, Clark had written: “He (IBB) duly received us at Dodan Barracks the next day, and was his charming self and all attention. A difficult case, he told us. Some junior officers were the problem, but not to worry. He would take care of it. So we left, walked straight into the arms of the press, and on to a restaurant to toast and treat ourselves to a lunch we all thought we thoroughly deserved. We were still savouring our wine, when that same afternoon, General Domkat Bali, Chief of Defence Staff, came on air, announcing Vatsa and the other accused had already been executed. As a matter of fact, the execution did not take place until well into the night that day.”

Since the beginning of the Fourth Republic, while Soyinka has retained his respectability as a numero uno essayist and laureate, once issues verge on or his reaction is sought on matters that had to do with some of the people with whom he had dalliances with in exile, the Kongi had always fled into a romance with Janus. Being an old boy of Government College, Ibadan which he attended in 1954, mum was the word from him when a fellow NADECO fugitive, Bola Tinubu’s claimed attendance of his alma-mater became a contentious issue in 2000. The inaccessible bottomlessness of the relationship between Soyinka and Tinubu is a known issue in Nigeria. It is a no-go route for Soyinka. If at all he has to make a comment on it, the professor finds a way of obfuscating the issue with so inaccessible a grammar that it becomes a metaphysical dungeon. This has further led people into making allusions to how the Kongi engages in incestuous and adulterous relationship with the Ananias and Sapphiras of Nigerian politics.

For instance, Rotimi Amaechi, who confessed that Soyinka’s literature texts were almost like revered ancient parchment rolls from the gods to him while he was a student of the Rivers State University, invited the Kongi to a dinner. That wining and dining session later became a huge scandal. Upon Amaechi’s exit from government, the Rivers State Information Commissioner, Dr Austin Tam-George, claimed that the state government spent a whopping sum of N82million on the dinner, insinuating that the Nobel Laureate received part of the funds in cash. The Nyesom Wike government, through the commissioner, also alleged that, using the Ministry of Information and Communications, the Amaechi government amassed N1.1billion debt on frivolous expenditure. Tam-George said: “I will seek the permission of the Governor to formally write Professor Wole Soyinka, a known supporter of Amaechi, if he received part of the N82million spent on a 3-hour dinner hosted for him by the Amaechi administration.”

Unlike his wont, Soyinka has refused to scythe growing dissention to the presidential election that held in Nigeria in February. In a recent interview he granted the Channels Television, although like many Nigerians, the Nobel Laureate shelled the vice presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Datti Baba-Ahmed. In a later clarification of the interview, he had said, “I denounced the menacing utterances of a Vice-Presidential aspirant as unbecoming. It was a gladiatorial challenge directed at the judiciary and, by implication, the rest of the democratic polity.” To Peter Obi, he said: “It was depressing to watch his lieutenant, a crucially positioned voice of a movement that has ‘broken the mould’, threaten the totality of social existence. Whatever our ideological leaning, is Donald Trump the ideal template for a burgeoning democracy in the nation?” Calling Obi’s supporters fascists, he wrote, in a release he entitled “Media responsibility,’’ last Tuesday, that he had earlier warned the LP flag-bearer on “excesses” of his supporters, otherwise known as ‘Obidients’, stating that, “My rejection of fascism is nothing new. On three occasions, I was able to send a message to Peter Obi that if he lost the election, it would be his followers who lost it for him.”

Trust the group of Rottweilers nurtured to hyena menacing look on the social media, who take it upon themselves to tear every seeming adversarial comments against Peter Obi to shreds, they did not disappoint. They also take on purveyors of such messages. This army fell on the Kongi’s flesh and tore it mercilessly. Those are a bunch of children whose minds are impervious to Nigeria’s history and are dead to the gallantry of our heroes past. The Kongi thereafter became the butt of jokes on the social media, defoliated of the heroics which he carefully cultivated in decades. This army was at its diapers when Soyinka was picking these roses.

The unruly crew on the social media was not alone. It was also an opportunity for those who had put up with the off-putting hypocrisy of Soyinka’s blind eyes to the Bourdillon Overlord’s excesses. It was time to strip the Nobel Laureate of all the noble epithets he had earlier been shawled with. The Kongi then began to receive the back of the tongues of Nigerians. Many believe that, in this latest intervention of his, he was obviously on an amicus-curiae assignment for those who fear that if not tamed, the rumpus of growing global disaffection with what was termed the electoral heist of February 25 may rally global disdain against the election. It is feared that this may remove the rug of legitimacy off the Bourdillon Overlord’s “President-Elect” status. Soyinka, they believe, is on assignment, like the DSS and some other funny characters who are seeking victimhood for the President-Elect. One Ekenedirichukwu said: “Prof Soyinka has refused to answer every question AriseTV asked him. He is such a hypocrite. He is yet to say what Datti Ahmed said that’s wrong or inciting. You are okay with Sowore #Revolutionnow but you have problem with Datti asking for constitution to be followed.” Many of them asked him what the difference was between the gun he pointed at a Newscaster in 1965 and the verbal entreaty of Datti Ahmed.

Nigerian literary giant, Chimamanda Adichie, also wrote an open letter to President Joe Biden, published by the US-based The Atlantic newspaper, entitled Nigeria’s Hollow Democracy. In the piece, Adichie interrogated how Americans congratulate the winner of Nigeria’s February election. She quarreled with American establishment bending over backwards to fawn Tinubu, in the face of the quaint taint of electoral heist that catapulted him into reckoning. “American intelligence surely cannot be so inept. A little homework and they would know what is manifestly obvious to me and so many others: The process was imperiled not by technical shortcomings but by deliberate manipulation,” she said. Son of Late Justice Chukwudi Oputa, Charly Boy, also wondered how Soyinka had become “boy-boy” of tainted politicians.

One of the voices expressing worry at perceived slump of the Soyinka mystique is that of highly respected columnist and social media commentator, Kayode Samuel. He had written: “The Nobel Prize does not confer deity on any of its recipients. If a Nobel Laureate is inconsistent or speaks out of turn, he deserves to be called out. It cannot be an accident that the prime beneficiary of the electoral heist that triggered Datti Ahmed’s outburst happens to be Professor Wole Soyinka’s friend and, some say, benefactor. Let’s leave our worship of any being solely for the Supreme Being, please!”

In another vein, he wrote: “Professor Wole Soyinka, our revered Nobel Laureate attended Government College Ibadan. So did I. A generation separates our days in that great school. But the ideals imparted within its hallowed walls are eternal, crossing all generations. Two lines from our School Song are relevant for the debate now raging over Soyinka’s new politics. The second line of the first stanza says, ‘By order, justice and fair play ruled.’ And the third line of the second stanza goes, ‘By our examples and not by precept.’ Professor Soyinka needs to ask himself some probing questions as to how true he has been to these words. Has he remained on the side of justice and fair play in his recent interventions? And has he shown good example, rather than seeking anchor in empty precepts? My hunch is that his troubles started and that he set himself up for the current uproar the day he chose to align with people who lied about having attended GCI. He needs to retrace his steps back to the more ennobling company of his youth, that exemplif(ies) the ideals imparted to all authentic GCI old boys…”

But not one to shy away from calling a mongrel by its name, the Kongi struck all those who said his Sango lacks the bravura of a god. That reply was however a potpourri of ad-hominem arguments, disparaging the commentators and neglecting to reply to their seemingly water-tight arguments. Among others, he said what was being sired was “a climate of fear” and “the refusal to entertain corrective criticism, even differing perspectives of the same position (which) has become a badge of honour and certificate of commitment. What is at stake, ultimately is – Truth, and at a most elementary level of social regulation: when you are party to a conflict, you do not attempt to intimidate the arbiter, attempt to dictate the outcome, or impugn, without credible cause, his or her neutrality even before hearing has commenced.” He called the Obidents so many unprintable names.

If the truth must be told, though Soyinka, like many other Nigerians, must be shocked at the bewildering irascibility of the Obidient gang on the social media, the Nobel Laureate’s oft decision to lap up every trickle of spittle from Bourdillon is worrisome. Just as Kayode Samuel said, the Kongi is not being called out for taking an unpopular stand. He is being repelled because people know that each time the matter had Bourdillon’s imprimatur as this, his voice is always that of Jacob and the hand, Esau’s. Age and experience should have taught the Kongi, as Yoruba elders counsel, that it is not every forested jungle that the itinerant herbal forager plucks; nor is it every palm tree that the palm-wine tapper taps – gbogbo ewe ko ni ojawe nja; gbogbo ope ko ni onigba ngun. There are some poisonous leaves that are forbidden from being plucked and some palm-trees are havens of lethal vipers. If anyone ignores this time-worn aphorism, they sink into oblivion. 

Our values as a people have broken down. There is no better place to witness the madness than the social media where apparent cowards hide behind digital anonymity to cast aspersions on the integrity of their betters.

It was sad seeing the kind of insults some misguided elements were flinging at Prof Wole Soyinka over his recent tv interview at which he addressed a number of national issues on his return from an overseas trip.

Wole Soyinka is probably the most violated public figure in our recent history. There is a whole industry devoted to misattributing various sentiments to the Nobel Laureate on virtually every subject under the sun.

In the run-up to the recent elections in Nigeria, some candidates resorted to name dropping and outright fake endorsements to hoodwink the public. Soyinka’s name featured prominently in the many endorsement tracts circulated by candidates who couldn’t even manage to compose such endorsements in Soyinka’s inimitable style. Imagine a string of ill-composed sentences violently standing logic on its head with the name Wole Soyinka at the end as the author!

Prof Soyinka had issued rebuttals on many occasions. But these never-say-die nonentities are so committed to their evil pastime that they compound their insolence with even more odious impudence. Last year, when cyberwarriors assembled by one of the presidential candidates issued a barely literate statement in the name of Prof Soyinka endorsing their candidate, I warned that they were taking their desperation too far.

Soyinka had been out of the country. On his return he reiterated that he had not endorsed any candidate in the elections. He described the 2023 elections as “not exactly the most edifying exercise that we’ve been through.”

“On arriving”, he said, ”I was bombarded by the most horrendous narratives both pre and after the elections. Since then, I’ve also read columns; I’ve seen Nigerian papers for the first time in months and I didn’t like what I read at all… My trust has broken down completely … and even the minimum restraint that we’ve learnt to expect from seasoned politicians have been jettisoned completely.”

He noted that the nation was moving towards a situation, which was not planned, but one that happened fortuitously, where the existing mould would be broken “despite die-hard opposition to the breaking of that mould”. He was not enamoured of the do-or-die style of politicking in Nigeria, advocating instead for a celebratory kind of ballot exercise in which elections are like festivals of democracy.

Prof Soyinka noted that the comments of the Labour Party Vice Presidential Candidate, Datti Baba-Ahmed, on Channels Television were unacceptable and capable of alienating supporters. Senator Babe-Ahmed had said the decision of the Supreme Court must be favourable to the Labour Party and that swearing in the man declared by the electoral commission as the President-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, would truncate Nigeria’s democracy. Of all the things Soyinka said, the only part singled out for excoriation was his comment on the recent interview of Datti Baba-Ahmed.

Many people who fancy themselves as ‘more obidient than Peter Obi’ have reduced the discourse to a feast of diatribes and an exhibition of ill breeding. I do not expect us all to have the same reactions to the same stimuli. However, I will never get tired of repeating that in Africa, we do not insult our elders the way some of these hyperactive activists do. One could disagree with Soyinka on matters of fact or principle, but that cannot be a licence to insult a man with Soyinka’s pedigree.

Soyinka has been a beacon, not only for his generation, but for several generations since he burst onto the national scene with his play, A Dance of the Forests, which was staged as part of the celebration of Nigeria’s Independence in 1960.

When the civil war broke out, at a time when it wasn’t fashionable to associate with anything ‘Biafran’, Soyinka took the risk to try and broker some sort of truce between the federal and Eastern sides. He sneaked into Biafra to meet with Ojukwu, a visit which the erstwhile Biafran leader shared with me during a MONTHLY LIFE interview with him in the 80s. When I asked Ojukwu why he and Soyinka could not agree on a way out of the shooting war, Ojukwu smiled and said, “Let me just say that he had his strong views and I had mine. There is no doubt that Soyinka is a man of strong convictions, but so am I”.

Soyinka was thrown into jail when he returned from Biafra. He spent the rest of the war years in jail. He  has since made up with the principal actors of the civil war on both sides of the divide, General Gowon and General Ojukwu. It is quite a feat to have been relevant to one’s nation for more than six decades and that privilege is given only to a few. On the academic turf, he has numbered among the very best on the planet with a Nobel under his belt. He is a man of his convictions.

To be sure, Soyinka is not infallible. He can be wrong like any of us. But on the issue of totally ceding control in electoral contests to the judiciary, I do agree with him; no one should be seen to be threatening the arbiter.  And I don’t subscribe to the emerging culture of mob intimidation and lowlife lingo.

The dim side of this cyber-bullying is that it splits the ranks of progressive elements down the middle. The other day, I received a lesson in how cohesive groups could be torn asunder. It was an interview on a popular US tv network. The interviewee, a noted Republican, was educating the reporter on how Donald Trump’s  shenanigans had divided the Republican Party. He noted that the party was now made up of the die-hards on one side and ‘rationalists’ on the other.

In the same vein, I’m afraid, the supporters of the Labour Party are entering a phase of unnecessary division. For a party which has set a historic template of leveraging on mass-oriented e-groups whose selflessness is unprecedented, the wise thing to do at this stage is to concentrate on the court cases. I have said it before, and it bears repeating: In matters such as the ones before their Lordships, Justices of the Supreme Court, water can still run uphill!

It doesn’t take much time for matters such as the intemperate language being deployed by some of those who think they are doing the Obi-Datti ticket a favour, to take the centre-stage and turn brother against brother — even within the movement.

Former presidential aspirant, Kingsley Moghalu quickly intervened on Soyinka’s side: “Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka is a principled fighter for justice in our country and around the world. He is a phenomenon that unlettered and uncultured people may not fully understand in an age of lazy social media in which many don’t read or think deep.”

I have read some of the arguments justifying the use of intemperate language on some media platforms. One contributor even made allusion to a statement credited to General Buhari in the heat of his quest for the presidency. The kare jini biri jini Hausa parable was interpreted by some to denote ‘fire for fire’. But educators like Dr. Aliyu U. Tilde have deconstructed the proverb to mean a tough contest in which both parties suffer injuries: “The dog gives up hunting for that day, returns home and is granted a sick leave by its master. The baboon keeps his life and his baby and remains in his territory or migrates to a safer one.…”

So, weaponising the Hausa parable to justify incendiary language easily goes up in smoke.

However, one remembers that the ruling APC threatened in 2015 to form a parallel government if the elections were rigged. I do, by the way, consider that threat fascistic too. The security agencies looked the other way at that time, so why all the hoopla against the Labour Party this time around?

Whatever happens, I repudiate the culture of insolence gaining a foothold on social media. I insist that everyone has a right to determine where he draws the line in human relations and shared passions. I have drawn mine.

ADIEU, ALHAJI B. A. IDRIS-ANIMASHAUN

Alhaji Bashir Alade Idris-Animashaun, former Chairman of Academy Press Plc and other sister companies, was called to glory last week at 89. He was a mentor of mentors and one of the pioneers and pillars of the printing industry in Nigeria. He came, he saw, he conquered. He will be sorely missed by all who knew him. May Allah grant him Aljannah firdaus.

“Life is short. Life is short. Life is short. Make hay while the sun shines. Make hay while the sun shines. Make hay while the sun shines,” the preacher bellowed. While I was still in a state of bewilderment trying to grasp his drift, the preacher said, “Work while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work”.

It was not a lengthy sermon, but the clergyman concluded by calling on all who heard him to channel their time, energy and resources to do the things they wish to be remembered for, before their time on earth is over, because according to him, life is short.

As I drove home in sober meditation, the words of my mentor of blessed memory, the unforgettable Oronto Natei Douglas, popularly known as OND, came knocking in the innermost recesses of my heart: “Ipi, the world is not waiting for us. We must work fast and work right too.” But why would Oronto be so much immersed in a work that he profits little or nothing from directly? This was a question I couldn’t ask him for the close to two decades period that I worked with him as an aide. On the other hand, was Oronto like the children of Issachar, who were men that had understanding of the times?

In my curiosity to link the words of the preacher with those of OND, I perused through the several Bible references the preacher quoted and I discovered the hidden secret of OND’s untiring commitment to his advocacy and developmental work  in John 3: 16 - “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life”.

I came to the understanding that the only thing that would make someone to give his or her best sacrificially to others is love. OND lived a sacrificial life of service, powered by love. He gave his best to his community, state, region and country. Oronto joined his ancestors on 9^th April, 2015 at the prime age of forty-eight (48) years. His departure has created a very large void that is still noticeable, eight years after.

Oronto did contribute to the advancement of the human race much more than most people who lived for over a century, and this is a lesson that age is only but a number. His enduring legacies as a brand of exceptional enthusiast for justice and development remains glaring.

OND’s life as a crusader of social/human rights and environmental justice manifested in his childhood age. Growing up, the Okoroba, Ebela Kingdom-born activist challenged his teacher at St Mark’s Primary School, Okoroba, in his early years of primary education. The contention was that OND failed to attend a Sunday Church Service (which was compulsory in those days for all pupils) and a particular teacher who was on a fishing expedition instead of being in church wanted to flog him as punishment.

OND vehemently protested to the headmaster of the school, contending that the teacher had no moral right to flog him since that teacher also failed to attend the church service. The headmaster listened to the case and set Oronto and the other pupils who were yet to receive their punishment, free. From that day till Oronto left his community, he became a voice to all the pupils in the school, and he never disappointed any. He was loved by both the pupils and teachers as well because he was not only brilliant but would always speak the truth.

Oronto’s voice against injustice became louder as he grew older. At the United Comprehensive High School (UCHS), Wasimi, Abeokuta, where he had his post-primary education, Oronto became a symbol of justice. He defended severally, especially the weak students in the school, against unwarranted punishments. At a point, his name became a brand. When OND was appointed as the Deputy Senior Prefect, he ensured that no student was punished unjustly. Oronto’s personal belief was that good must be rewarded with good and evil must in same manner receive its due reprimand. Academically, OND was a force to be reckoned with, in the arts subjects. He was the leader of the UCHS Wasimi drama/debating society and he won several laurels for the school within and outside Ogun State.

During his tertiary education at the Rivers State University of Science and Technology (RSUST), now Rivers State University, Port Harcourt, OND served his favorite platter of intellectually fighting against injustice, to the university community. He was the Editor-in-Chief of the University Press Club. He also coordinated activities of the Civil Liberty Organization. Through these platforms, OND defended and promoted the rights of students on campus. His press work became so strong that the University authorities of RSUST as well as the leadership of the Student Union Government were kept on their toes throughout the duration of his Bachelor of Laws (LLB) study. Oronto also attended the famous De Monfort University, Leicester - United Kingdom, where he obtained a master’s degree in environmental law.

Like my beloved father of blessed memory (Elder Elegumo Jackson Oruwari Oghe) would always stress – the greatness of a man is not in his possessions, but in the sacrifices he makes for the good of others and the society. Oronto’s greatness was neither in his possession nor in his intellectual/oratorical prowess. Oronto is remembered today for his life of sacrifice and service propelled by love. In his lifework, communities and peoples were at the center stage. OND was a voice for the voiceless, a defender for the defenseless, an environmental and human rights advocate and above all, a lover of peace, justice and development.

It was for the love of Nigeria that Oronto joined others to fight for the return of democracy. He suffered several arrests, detentions and brutalization from the Nigerian military in the struggle to end military dictatorship in Nigeria.

It was for the love of Ogoni that Oronto joined the team of lawyers that defended Ken Saro Wiwa pro bono. In his stance and battle on the side of justice for the people and land of Ogoni, OND and others received the beating of their lives on the orders of the despicable Lieutenant-Colonel Paul Okuntimo, the commander of the Rivers State Internal Security Task Force, then. Oronto, Uche Onyeagucha and Nick Ashon-Jones, a British national, each received one hundred strokes of the cane and forced to lie in the rain thereafter.

The plan was for the trio to be shot once Okuntimo returned from the Officer’s Mess, where he had gone to watch the FIFA World Cup football match between Nigeria and Bulgaria. It was the victory of Nigeria over Bulgaria, that made Okuntimo to change his mind. Indeed, God moves in a mysterious way.

It was for the love of the hapless people of the Niger Delta that OND confronted the multinational oil companies in Nigeria such as Shell, Agip, Chevron and Elf over the environmental degradation occasioned by the activities of the oil companies. He advocated for resource control, self-determination and environmental security in Nigeria.  On this cause, he met with world leaders, including President Bill Clinton, and gave parliamentary briefings in many countries on issues of environmental/human rights and livelihood.

Oronto believed that oppressed people only had their chains to lose. In this regard, he founded and co-founded several non-governmental and community-based organizations to serve as platforms for the oppressed communities and locals to confront the brazen injustice that was being dished out on them daily. Organizations such as the reputable Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth (ERA), Ijaw Youth Council (IYC), Chikoko Movement, Niger Delta Resource Centre, Ogbia Study Group (OSG), Community Defence Law Foundation (CDLF), Douglas Educational Foundation, and many more. His commitment to strengthening the organizations was unflagging and strong as if the entirety of his life depended on them.

OND committed his body, soul and spirit to doggedly fight, not only for the people and the environment of the Niger Delta, but also for a better Nigeria. He was fearless in his call for the abrogation of the Land Use Decree and the restructuring of Nigeria.

I recall vividly in 1999, when former President Olusegun Obasanjo forcefully grasped a microphone from Oronto in Port Harcourt, when Oronto called on him to retract the Land Use Act and grant the Niger Delta Region self-determination and resource control. It resulted in a physical struggle between Oronto and President Obasanjo on who should have the microphone, but thanks to the elders who intervened.

It is worthy of note that the tension and resistance Obasanjo met from the Niger Delta under the intellectual command of OND were the major factors that made him establish the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC). His crusade as well as pressures on the Federal Government from other credible voices in the region resulted in the increase in oil Derivation Fund to 13%.

Oronto’s exploits are too numerous to be listed in this short piece of eulogy for want of space. He did a lot to advance the prosperity of humanity. In all his outstanding legacies, one area that displayed his exceptional love for children and youth progress was in his well-crafted educational programmes.

When in the 90s Oronto initiated an annual programme he christened “EDUCATION FIRST” in his native home of Okoroba, I never knew that it was a prelude to what is set to spread in different dimensions. The idea of the programme was to promote education as the nerve centre of community development and to make it available to all children of his hometown.

In the programme, Oronto gave prizes accompanied with an award of scholarship to the three best pupils in each class. He also provided complimentary prizes and educational gift items to all the pupils. It was a programme that thrusted a new concept of academic competition amongst the pupils on who next to win Oronto’s prize and scholarship.

In pursuit of his vision to provide quality education for all kids living in Okoroba, OND later built and equipped a world-class nursery school to serve as ‘feedstock’ to the primary school. At the kindergarten school, Oronto provided all educational materials needed by the enrollees, ranging from school uniforms, shoes, bags, books/writing materials to snacks, etc.

As one who believes in the collective growth and development of all, and not just his native home, Oronto provided educational support services to some schools in rural communities. Oronto launched the “FREE SCHOOL UNIFORM PROJECT” to make it exciting for children to want to go to school. Under this programme OND provided free school uniforms to pupils. Notable amongst them are Community Primary School, Obeduma, State School I, Idema, State School II, Idema, State School, Agrisaba, State School I, Epebu, State School II, Epebu, Community Primary School Ewoma II, State School I Anyama, State School II, Anyama, Oruamabiri Primary School, Nembe, Okoroba School I, Okoroba School II, etc., all in Bayelsa State. This was done in 2005, 2007, 2009, 20011, 2013 and 2015.

When OND served as a Special Adviser to former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, he launched the Bring Back the Book (BBB) Initiative.  This was a strategy to revitalize the reading culture, with knowledge serving as a tool for development. This programme derived from OND’s belief that the secrets of good governance, amazing discoveries, development, progressive management principles and every legitimate desire of prosperous nations are hidden in books, and that only through reading, can the leaders of tomorrow nurture dreams and values that can change society for the common good. The programme which was launched in Lagos attracted Nigeria’s literary giants in attendance. One of the highlights of the BBB was the distribution of books in tens of thousands to attendees and children in the slums of Lagos such as Makoko. The BBB programme spread to Jos, Benin City, Yenagoa and Abuja before the transition of OND.

As a lover of academics and driven by the need to provide a resource base for the continuing support of communal development and for the public good, Oronto also initiated the COMMUNITY LIBRARY PROJECTS, wherein he built and equipped several community libraries. Under this project, OND facilitated the construction of libraries in communities across the country.

The first library and pilot project started in the personal house of Oronto Douglas in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, and he named it in honour of foremost educationist, historian and specialist on Niger Delta, Professor E.J Alagoa. Others include the Chief Melford Okilo Library in Ogbia Town; Dr. Goodluck Jonathan Library in Okoroba; Prof Bruce Powell Library at the Federal University, Otuoke; Obigbo Mikimiki Library in Opume; Prof C.T.I Odu Library in Twon Brass; Obafemi Awolowo Library in Irele-Ikole Ekiti - Ekiti State; Resident Tuodolo Library in Bomadi - Delta State; Nkwot Library/Resource Centre Akwa-Ibom State, and a yet-to-be-named library in Umuobuna-Ohaozara - Ebonyi State.

Oronto also provided support to several organizations. Groups such as Women Writers of Nigeria (WRITA), Human Rights Writers Association, CORA Art & Cultural Foundation, Journalists for Democratic Rights (JODER), Association of Women Librarians (AWLIN) etc., were beneficiaries of OND’s benevolence.

As I reflect on the departure of this great soul, I am pained that many of Oronto’s projects, especially the ones in Bayelsa State are left to rot away. As I pen this piece of tribute in remembrance of Oronto, the Professor E.J Alagoa Library, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan Library, Chief Melford Okilo Library etc., are no longer functional. I therefore wish to use this medium to appeal to the Bayelsa State Government to revive these legacy library projects and bring them back to a state of usefulness. This is necessary as it will serve as a means of encouraging others who have good intentions to impact on their communities. Also, the libraries are viable resources that can positively shape the minds of our youths for greatness.

Like my grandmother will say “he who gives you a book, gives you a great future”, Oronto indeed, gave a great future to Ogbia, Bayelsa, the Niger Delta and Nigeria. But how are these regions memorializing this great soul? Will the good works of Oronto go unrewarded? On this 8^th memorial of OND, these thoughts now cloud my brow.

Though the erudite Oronto Natei Douglas lived a short life, he greatly impacted positively on humanity. He was a lover of people, a crusader of peace and equity, a detribalized Nigerian, a scholar, a strategist, a philanthropist, a helper, a giver, a mobilizer, a mentor, a motivator and a conduit for blessing others. He was a brand of exceptional enthusiast for justice and development. One of the global best and Nigeria’s shining light has gone. What a pain! What an irreplaceable loss!

However, I am particularly grateful to God for the privilege to know and work with this extraordinary soul, whose heart for charity was legendary. May God who never rests by day or night, continue to rest OND’s soul in eternity and grant his family peace and comfort. Amen.

Engr. Ipigansi Okumo is the General Secretary of the Ogbia Brotherhood Unity Branch - Abuja, and a member of the Ogbia Study Group. He worked with Oronto Douglas for about two decades.