Afenifere Leader Senator Abraham Adesanya passed on five years ago. Group Political Editor EMMANUEL OLADESU writes on the legacies of the elder statesman and the effects of his demise on the pan-Yoruba socio-political group.
Five years ago, the news of his demise reverberated across the six geo-political zones. The incident marked the depletion of the Awoists, who have faithfully propagated the ideals of the sage, the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo. At 86, he died a fulfilled politician after a protracted illness, although he often lamented that civil rule, and not democracy, was restored in 1999, following a protracted battle against the military by the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO).
Abraham Aderibigbe Adesanya, successful transporter, astute lawyer and shrewd politician was a member of the old order. The Yoruba chief from Ijebu-Igbo, Ogun State, was, until his demise, the National Leader of Afenifere and chieftain of the now weakened Alliance for Democracy (AD). It was not a salaried position. When one of his aides, a journalist, asked him to mobilise the Southwest functionaries in government to contribute salaries for the leader, thereby converting he position into a lucrative one, Adesanya, who was in the same car with him, kept mute.
On getting to a market in Yaba, Lagos Mainland, he asked the aide to get down and approach the masses there for the reward he had in mind for Afenifere. He said to him: âGet down from the car and go to these people in the market and ask for the salary for Afenifere leader. They are the people we are servingâ. The aide was rebuked by that explanation. When the governors of the Southwest later presented a jeep to him, he was not excited. He requested for small ladder, which he would climb to get to the vehicle.
As the Afenifere leader, he canvassed the national question. He favoured a return to parliamentary system. He was also an advocate of true federalism, state police, restructuring and decentralisation of power. At the recent anniversary lecture in his memory at the Afe Babalola Hall, University of Lagos, Akoka, eminent Nigerians, including Lagos State Governor Babatunde (SAN), who was represented by Regional Integration Special Adviser Rev. Tunji Adebiyi, Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) elder, Aremo Segun Osoba, and Oodua peoples Congress (OPC) founder Dr. Fredrick Fasehun, described him as a great nationalist who served his nation and country creditably. The event was organised by the Ogun State Students Association.
A lecturer from the Department of International Relations, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Prof. Alade Fawole, who spoke on âThe place of the Yoruba in Nigerian politics and developmentâ, said that Adesanya took a cue from Awolowo by being a good citizen of Yoruba before being a good citizen of Nigeria. âIn his several endeavours and engagements, his life was defined by integrity, honour, the Omoluabi concept, selflessness, unwavering commitment to principles, loyalty to the people and their cause, and commitment to ensuring the greatest happiness for the greatest number of the peopleâ, he added.
Adesanya was a role model and mentor to many politicians who relished values and principles. For him, contentment was a great virtue. Thus, as a regional legislator in the First Republic, senator in the Second Republic, and NADECO Leader during the dark days of the military rule, his watchword was service to humanity. He loathed avarice, materialism, primitive accumulation and other acts of political indecency. He objected to lateness to meetings. Thus, he was perceived as a moral voice moderating the activities of the progressive Yoruba actors who were ultimately divided by the scramble for power at the federal, state and local governments.
That stiff competition for political offices took its toll on the umbrella organisation he led till he passed on. The signs of strains were visible, owing to the cracks in the fold since the late Chief Ganiyu Dawodu opposed the candidature of Senator Bola Tinubu for the Lagos State governorship and the late Chief Bola Ige and Chief Oluyemisi Falae clashed at DâRovans, Ibadan, during the controversial AD presidential primaries. Although he managed, to a large extent, to unite the two caucuses, it was evident that the group only wobbled on into a perilous future. Following his departure to the great beyond, Afenifere broke down.
During his burial at Ijebu-Igbo, the rivalry and division came to the fore. The two factions of Afenifere led by Chief Rueben Fasoranti and Senator Ayo Fasanmi were in the ancient town to pay their last respects and score political points. The death of their leader failed to unite them. Up to now, reconciliation has proved difficult. The acrimony, observers contend, is not only a disservice to the memory of Adesanya, but also to the memory of Ajasin and Awo.
For Adesanya, politics was not a profession. It was a vocation. Before he joined the fray, he had established himself as a businessman and lawyer. He successfully ran a transport business. He was also not a failure at the bar. But he entered politics as a rebel, who was estranged from the party tradition of the time. He questioned the voice of political leadership, which advised him not to contest election into the Western Regional House of Assembly in 1956. When he acted contrary, he lost his deposit at the poll.
Adesanya was already a household name in his Ijebu-Igbo Constituency before independence. The people were rooting for him. However, the ruling Action Group (AG) advised him to opt out of the contest, promising to reward him with the seat in 1960. He jettisoned the advice and contested as an independent candidate. He suffered the same fate like the young lawyer from Akure, Akinola Aguda, who despite his popularity, lost to the AG candidate. But in 1960, Adesanya bounced back. He retraced his steps to the AG, contested for the same seat on that platform and won resoundingly. Since then, he treasured the doctrine of party supremacy.
The Ijebu-Igbo politician loved his leader, Awo. But he always refrained from playing to the gallery.That lack of flair for frivolities endeared him to his leader. Whenever he visited the sage, the old man would instantly grant him an audience because he believed that Adesanya must have come for an important business. When the AG split into two factions, following the AG crisis, which reached the peak at the rancorous Jos Congress in 1962, he rejected the entreaties from Premier Ladoke Akintola to dump Awoâs AG for the Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP), which was derisively referred to as âDemo Partyâ.
Adesanya was present at the court throughout the treason felony trial of Awolowo. As a young lawyer, he had the privilege to carry the gown of the British legal icon, Dingle Foot, to the court. The trial was window dressing as the leader of the Northern Peoples Congress (NPC) and Premier of the Northern region, Sardauna Ahmadu Bello, Prime Minister Abubakar Balewa and Akintola had made up their minds that Awo should be liquidated. When the judge, whose hands were tied, Justice Soniran Sowemimo, sentenced the Leader of Opposition to ten year imprisonment, the AG members wailed inside and outside the High Court.
Awo was unperturbed. He sur-
veyed the court, looking for a
faithful whose eyes were not soaked with tears. Adesanya, who he fondly called âAjantalaâ, was the man. Awo wanted to give him a parting note for his wife, Hannah Idowu Dideolu. But as he handed over the note to him, he too burst into tears. Awo, who had refused to be seized by emotion, rebuked his faithful disciple. âWhat do you want me to be doing now when you are crying?â, he asked. Immediately, Adesanya wiped away his tears.
In the seventies, Adesanya was a strong member of the Committee of Friends, which metamorphosed into the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN). He was elected a senator in 1979 and re-elected in 1983. Up to now, that part-time legislature remains the best. Adesanya, who was not a bench warmer, contributed to robust debates on the floor. He also rendered valuable legal services to his party when the notorious National Party of Nigeria (NPN) rigged elections in some parts of the country. When the military sacked the legitimate authorities from power in 1983, the Adesanyaâs parliamentary career ended on that note.
In the Third Republic, politicians were in disarray. They were tossed around by former military President Ibrahim Babangida, who, through his dubious political experimentation, extended the handover date. Initially, Adesanya heeded Awoâs advice to the progressives that they should learn to wine with the devil with a long spoon. But when the proscribed Social Democratic Party (SDP) aspirant, the late Chief Moshood Abiola, showed remorse and pleaded with the Yoruba establishment to endorse his candidature, Adesanya was one of the delegates who elected him as the candidate in Jos, the Plateau State capital.
The annulment of the historic June 12, 1993 presidential election won by Abiola threw up Adesanya as an activist in his old age. Following the death of the Afenifere Leader, Chief Adekunle Ajasin, he was selected as the new leader at Ibadan by Yoruba stakeholders. Ige became his deputy. He also doubled as the NADECO leader at the home front, when the late Chief Anthony Enahoro escaped abroad. He suffered bruises in the hand of the military. When he escaped death by whiskers when his vehicle was attacked, he earned the appellation, Apamaku. He was unwavering in his staunch support for the enthronement of democracy to the end.
Adesanya and other Afenifere leaders, including Chief Ayo Adebanjo and Sir Olaniwun Ajayi, played an active role in the emergence of Tinubu as the governor of Lagos State in 1999. The Third Republic senator had expressed his desire to return to the Upper Chamber. But, in their wisdom, the Yoruba leaders advised him to run for the governorship, a move that enraged their colleague, Dawodu, a member of the Afenifere Controlling Leadership, who resisted their decision, but without success.
How to bring Tinubu and Dawodu to a truce was a challenge. Also, it was difficult to fully reconcile Ige with Adebanjo and Ajayi, who he believed moved against him at DâRovans. Ige accepted to serve as minister under President Olusegun Obasanjo without consultation or clearance from the umbrella group. He never returned alive. Up came the Yoruba Council of Elders (YCE), which tended to reduce Afenifereâs influence. The first President was Ven. Emmanuel Alayande. The secretary was Justice Adewale Thompson, who was a day older than Adesanya. When Alayande shunned Afenifere meeting, he fired salvos at the Afenifere leader. âIs it because we (AG) leaders asked him to carry the gown of Dingle Foot that he now thinks that he is the leader?â, he asked. At domestic level, Adesanyaâs daughter, Mrs. Dupe Adelaja, was also appointed as a minister. She was divided between loyalty to her father and husband. Her father, Adesanya enjoined her to reject the offer, saying: âIf she is a daughter of his father, she will not accept itâ. But other relations thought differently.
Former Governor Tinubu felt threatened when Dawodu, the Lagos AD chairman, indicated that he could not be persuaded to support him for a second term. Tinubu moved swiftly. He objected to Dawoduâs continuation in office as the chairman, preferring Prince Abiodun Ogunleye for the position. He offered other big appointments to the god of Lagos. Adesanya was torn between Tinubu and Dawodu. He could not abandon his friend of AG and UPN days. Yet, he understood Tinubu perfectly. He even received bashing for not permitting other members of the Controlling Leadership to descend on the former governor during the initial reconciliation. The Afenifere leader strategically allowed a committee chaired by Ajayi to suggest a power sharing formula, ahead of the 2003 elections. The committee came up with the controversial 60:40 formula. Also for strategic reasons, Tinubu camp rejected the proposal.
Under Adesanyaâs watchful eyes, Afenifere was on the brink. Dawodu pulled his supporters out of the political family and took refuge in PAC. On the eve of the 2003 election, he directed his supporters to support the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, the late Funso Williams. At that stage, Afenifereâs influence has been weakened, because while the five governors it supported in Ogun, Osun, Oyo, Ondo and Ekiti states were displaced by the PDP, Tinubu of Lagos survived the earthquake.
Ahead of 2003, there were pressures on the group to support Obasanjo,
based on ethnic sentiment. Opinion was divided. Previously, Afenifere
was said to have interceded for a prominent Yoruba captain of industry in the banking and communication sectors, who had fled the country, following victimisation by the federal Government. The mission to Aso Rock failed. So, Adesanya expressed reservations about any pact with Obasanjo. Former Ogun State Governor Osoba and his Oyo State counterpart, the late Alhaji Lam Adesina, thought otherwise. When Osoba, Adesina, Ade Adefarati, Adebisi Akande and Adeniyi Adebayo were allegedly rigged out, it was evident that Afenifere had been reduced to a toothless bulldog which could only bark but not bite. Between 1999 and 2003, there were also complaints that Afenifere was losing its grip on the governors. Its monitoring activities in the six states were allegedly resisted.
The crises in the six chapters of Afenifere/AD in Lagos, Ondo, Ogun, Osun, Ekiti, Oyo, and to some extent, Ekiti, took their tolls on the group. Fed up with the rift between governors and their deputies, the lieutenants of Awo , who had witnessed similar feuds between Awo and Akintola, Ige and Sunday Afolabi and Ajasin and Omoboriowo, asked the deputy governors who could not cooperate with their bosses to resign. Thus, Senator Kofoworola Bucknor-Akerele and Iyiola Omisore, who had become estranged with Tinubu and Akande had to leave the administrations. Also, scores of the AD chieftains defected to the PDP, firing salvos to their former camps. Yoruba was also being marginalised, although their son was the President.
These were not Adesanyaâs making. But these tragedies, especially the loss of power to their conservative rivals, were too heavy for the leader to bear. Afenifere warriors refused to listen to his fatherly counsels, which he offered in words laced with proverbs. Soon, the leader succumbed to illness. There was no succession plan. Ige, his deputy, had died and there was no replacement yet. At that twilight of life, chieftains from Ijebu axis started to jostle for the position of leader. But the younger elements like Dayo Adeyeye, Niyi Afuye and Jimi Agbaje advised Adesanya to nominate Fasoranti as the Acting Leader to halt the insinuation that Afenifere was âIjebu Mafiaâ. He did not recover from the illness.
The first test for his successor, Fasoranti, as it were, was the crisis in the AD. Two members of Ige camp, Senator Mojisoluwa Akinfenwa and Akande, were jostling for the national chairmanship of AD. Two parallel congresses were held in Abuja and Lagos where the rival chairmen emerged. But during the meeting of Afenifere at Akure, Fasoranti recognised Akinfenwa as the chairman, claiming that the convention that produced him complied with the guidelines. The majority, which backed Akande at the Lagos convention rejected the Akure Declaration, accusing Fasoranti of bias. At the meeting of Afenifere in Jibowu, Lagos, those opposed to him proclaimed Fasanmi as the deputy leader. Since then, efforts to reconcile the camps by the members of the Afenifere Renewal Group (ARG) led by Hon. Wale Oshun, has proved abortive.
Adesanya left behind a divided Yoruba race. He did inherit a fully united race as leader. In post-Adesanya era, progressives in Yorubaland have continued to work at cross-purpose. They have refused to rise beyond the personality clashes of the past. Although the 80th birthday of Adebanjo should have provided the opportunity for reunion, it was bungled. Certain progressives even prefer to work with the conservatives, ahead of the 2015 elections.
Fawole however, charged them to remember that their strength lies in the progressive creed bequeathed by Awo and sustained by Ajasin and Adesanya. He urged Yoruba to defend its legacies in education. The don also called for support for the integration agenda mooted by the ARG and implemented by the Southwest governors.
