The burial of Comrade Bene Madunagu on Friday in Calabar will be a fitting farewell to a socialist revolutionary, scholar, feminist and patriot whose life and times could be summed up as the struggle for human progress. 

Tomorrow, family members, comrades, friends, colleagues and well wishers are expected to assemble to celebrate her in a potpourri of funeral activities including a feminist forum, lecture, tributes, cultural performances and renditions by mentees.

She was 77.

Comrade Bene, who died on November 26 last year, retired from the University of Calabar (Unical) as a professor of botany after many years of teaching and influencing generations of students and mentees. Before then she was an assistant lecturer at the University of Lagos.  Bene and her spouse, comrade and life-long collaborator, Comrade Eddie Madunagu, moved to Calabar in 1976. 

She earned degrees from the University of Lagos and University of Ibadan.  

Not a few members of the generation of university students of the late 1970s would, perhaps, have it etched in their memories the momentous events now historically dubbed “Ali Must Go.” The Ali in the slogan was Colonel Ahmadu Ali, the federal commissioner for education in the military government of General Olusegun Obasanjo. While tuition was free, students had staged a nation-wide protest against increases in the cost of accommodation and feeding. Things turned bloody and lives were lost. In the aftermath of this struggle for socio-economic justice, the military government responded with some repressive measures. Two vice chancellors, some lecturers, non-academic staff and a journalist were sacked. Student leaders were rusticated.

Among the victims was a Unical couple- Bene and Eddie Madunagu. The military government got Bene deported from the United Kingdom where she was pursuing an academic programme. They were ejected from the staff quarters.

This was just one of the better known sacrifices that Bene made gallantly in the course of the struggle.

In her younger days of revolutionary energy, she had even elected in company of other comrades to make the struggle for socialist Nigeria a full-time career. 

Significantly, a number of Bene’s comrades have been paying tributes to her revolutionary memory. These include the recall of events at different periods in the last 50 years of Bene’s life by Comrades Najeem Jimoh, Owei Lakemfa and Chido Onumah in sweep reviews of her activities and thoughts in various organisations to which she belonged. Some of those organisations were the Nigerian Youth Action Committee (NYAC) Anti-Poverty Movement of Nigeria (APMON), the Calabar Group of Socialists and the Movement of Peoples Democracy and the Democratic Action Committee (DACOM).

 Hopefully after the funeral there would still be conferences and publications on the various aspects of her versatile life defined by remarkable brilliance and untiring hard work.

From whichever perspective you reflect on the revolutionary career of Comrade Bene what you would find unmistakable was her immense humanity.  Ideologically, she was distinguished by her clarity of purpose, courage of conviction, notable consistency and unyielding commitment.  She was never a pretender on matters of principle. A well-organised human being, Bene could be brutally honest in making her point. I used to tease her that if we had a socialist government I could never propose her for the job of a diplomat because she was frank to a fault. She would retort that I was rather suited for that purpose because the nature of the movement was such that comrades had attributes for different purposes. Hence she nominated me to be the external relations officer in our Calabar group, DACOM. My task was to liaise with other comrades and groups in different parts of the country.

To her younger comrades, Bene was first and foremost an inspirer. She never doubted that popular-democratic struggles could be the basis for the transformation of Nigeria into a humane social order. She was always quick to add that this could only be a result of a disciplined organisation. Rather than agonise, she would rather call for proper organisation. In her praxis, she demonstrated a good mastery of the dialectics of tactics and strategy.

After the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, many socialists in the world became disillusioned and began to doubt the efficacy of socialism as system that could be efficiently productive as well as ensure distributive justice. The Nigerian Left was not spared of this atmosphere of despair enveloping many socialist parties and groups globally.

In many ways, Comrade Bene’s ideological personality was an exemplar of her generation of the Nigerian Left and the generation preceding it. The virtues of this generation include deep comprehension of the ideas of the struggle and the conscious efforts to reproduce cadres. For instance, Comrade Eskor Toyo, who also operated from Calabar during the same period, was in the generation before that of Comrade Bene. He was also a huge inspirer and a great mobiliser. Unfortunately, and this is on a self-critical note, succeeding generations have not been able to make sufficient advancement of this legacy.

 As a Marxist, Bene was also a self-professed feminist. In a 2008 piece she wrote for an international publication entitled “Voice, Power and Soul: Portraits of African Feminism,” Bene put the matter squarely like this: “I am an absolutely confirmed feminist, with no ”ifs’ or ‘buts.”  I am a feminist by choice and conviction… I am passionate about combating gender discrimination and insensitivity in whatever forms. I am a committed human rights defender and I work in defence of victims of sexual abuse and all forms of violence against women and girls.” She was neither abstract nor vulgar in her feminism. The feat she achieved with the Calabar branch of Girls Power Initiative (GPI) remains a testament to her feminist practice. Here is a solid establishment on ground for the empowerment and orientation of girls about their rights and responsibilities in the society. In partnership with Grace Osakue, the GPI was established in Nigeria in 1993 with the national headquarters in Nigeria. Scores of girls have been trained in the institution and its community activities have extended to other south-south states. Bene was also a founding member of Women in Nigeria (WIN), a feminist movement that emerged in 1982 to reframe the gender debates in Nigeria.   

Bene was a leader in the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).  She was a two-term chairperson the Unical branch of ASUU with a national prominence.

It was Comrade Sonni Anyang who introduced me to Bene and Eddie in 1978 and since then I became a comrade member of the family. I often stayed in their house during holidays.  Anyang, now a member of the Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Commission (RMAC), was then the leader of the Unical branch of the Movement for a Progressive Nigeria (MPN), a Marxist students’ group, with branches and allied groups on campuses. MPN was such a fertile ground for breeding cadres with ideological clarity. For instance, President Umaru Yar’Adua once said in an interview that he was a product of the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) branch of MPN.   

Comrade Bene often referred to me as her ideological son and I called her my ideological mother. In a 2017 publication of tributes to mark the 70th birthday of Bene, Eddie expressly acknowledged this relationship between me and Bene.  In that piece, Eddie also said the same thing of Comrade Biodun Jeyifo (BJ), who is the Chairman of the Advisory Board of the magnificent Socialist Library and Archives (SOLAR), the nucleus of which is constituted by the books, papers and other documents. The digitalization of SOLAR is in earnest. By the way, at another level Eddie and BJ constitute an ideological duo.  

Comrade Bene could sometimes be sharply critical of me; yet she was often my unyielding defender. Whatever concerned me was taken as her business.

Maybe it would suffice to recall a few touching moments to illustrate this mother-son relationship.  

In the light of the mood in the family during Bene’s 70th birthday, she and Eddie opted to have a quiet moment at a resort in Uyo. I was invited to make a trio for the occasion to reflect on a number of issues.

Some years ago, Bene called to inform me about an attack on her by robbers, who dispossessed her of some valuables.  From her voice it was evident she was seriously traumatised. In the evening of the following day I called to ask about her condition and how to replace some of the lost items especially the handsets. Her response: “KK, I had expected you would be in Calabar by now given what happened to me.” I was speechless and moved to tears. I arrived Calabar two days later in the true sense of solidarity.

The day I introduced my wife, Funmi, to Bene as my fiancée, Bene told her that I was her son and she should be conscious of the implication of getting married to a Marxist socialist. From that day on she also adopted Funmi as a daughter.  When she died the sad news was broken to our children as the death of the grandma in Calabar.

Very early in the relationship, Bene and Eddie left me in no doubt about my integration into their family apart from the fact that all of us belonged to the same movement as comrades. There was an issue on which both of them not  only agreed to seek my view but  to consent  whatever verdict I passed on the matter. With Bene behind the steering in their blue Volkswagen Beetle, the comrades came from Calabar to see me, a 22-year old youth corps member, in Takum Taraba State (it was then part of   the old Gongola State). I shared a humble three-bed room flat with two other corps members. To the amazement of my co-tenants who had known my visitors by reputation as radical lecturers, we didn’t look for a hotel room. Eddie and Bene spent the night in the little house where we had frank and comradely discussions till early hours of the following day. Issues were resolved and the visitors returned to Calabar in the morning. Till I left Takum other youth corps members kept talking about the comradeship displayed by Bene and Eddie. 

Invariably, a tribute to the memory of Bene would compel a salute to Eddie, in particular for one reason. The last seven years of Comrade Bene battling with Alzheimer’s have indeed been trying times for Eddie. His movement has been restricted to Calabar (without any court order!) as the chief career of Bene. I often told those who asked after Eddie that he had been virtually a detainee as he took care of Bene every day. The condition of Bene has also progressively drained Eddie physically, mentally, emotionally and, of course, materially. But he has soldiered on with a rare dedication to his wife and comrade.

In a tribute paid to Bene on her 70th birthday, Eddie dwelt on “the meaning and attributes of love.” Eddie, who professes no religion, wrote inter alia: “I refer my readers – revolutionaries and non- revolutionaries, Christians and non-Christians- to what Saint Paul said in the 13th Chapter of the First Letter to the People of Corinth…” My comrade was referring to this passage in the Bible: “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love’’ – 1 Corinthians 13:13

Eddie found himself later in a psychological laboratory for testing this biblical doctrine for seven years. I dare say that he has done incredibly well by demonstrating to Bene the genuine love while she might  not even be conscious of his presence.   

Yet, this tribute would not be complete without expressing gratitude to comrades, friends, colleagues and well -wishers who have shown love and solidarity to both Bene  and Eddie in the last seven years. The support received  so far  has been nothing but great.

With the death of Comrade Bene a genuine revolutionary has indeed departed from our midst.

May her tribe increase.