Fifty-seven years after his demise, successive governments have not immortalised the populist politician and Ibadan leader, Alhaji Adegoke Adelabu. As the people of the ancient city prepare for his centenary, Group Political Editor EMMANUEL OLADESU writes on the life and times of the foremost nationalist, who died at 43.
Ibadan, the modern political headquarter of the Southwest, has produced men and women of valour, great warriors, administrators and statesmen in the last 200 years. Many of them, including the legendary Lagelu, Balogun Oluyole, Basorun Ogunmola, Aare Latoosa, Baale Fijabi, Apampa, Awanibaku Elempe, Oba Sanusi Alesinloye, Oba Babalola Akinyele, Iyalode Efunsetan Aniwura and Iyalode Wuraola Esan, left indelible marks on the sand of time.
In post-colonial era,t he ancient city has also produced great politicians. They include Chief Adisa Akinloye, Chief S.O Lanlehin, Chief Durosaro, Canon Emmanuel Alayande, Chief Moyosore Aboderin, Chief Busari Adelakun, Chief Busari Obisesan, Chief Richard Akinjide, and Chief Lamidi Adedibu. But, none of them has been able to match the exploits of the irrepressible grassroots politician and mobiliser, the late Chief Adegoke Gbadamosi Sanusi Adelabu, fondly called Peculiar Mess (Penkelemeesi) by admirers.
The Ibadan megastar died 57 years ago. He was 43. The indomitable politician, according to historians, passed on without realising his full potentials. But, his name continues to ring bell. Indeed, death was cruel to his generation by plucking other colleagues in their prime. His contemporaries who were snatched by the cold hand of death included the famous politician, Chief Bode Thomas, who died in 1953 at the age of 34, Mazi Mbonu Ojike, who died in 1957 and Hon. Olokesusi from Ondo Province, who passed on in 1958. Thomas, an Action Grouper, was a federal parliamentarian and minister like Adelabu. Like Adelabu, Ojike and Olokesusi were disciples of Dr. Nnamidi Azikiwe, the leader of the defunct National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC).
Next month, Ibadan will celebrate the centenary anniversary of Adelabu. A Planning Committee headed by the Are Alasa Olubadan, Chief Lekan Alabi, has already unfolded a programme of events. Only few of his contemporaries are still alive. These elder statesmen and the children of their departed colleagues will converge on the city for a memorial. Also, old students of the Government College, Ibadan, Adelabu’s alma mater, will honour to his memory.
The name towers. The records of the eminent politicians are impeccable. But, according to observers, the legacies are not sustained. To keep his memory alive, Ibadan Foundation, a socio-economic group led by Dr. Lekan Are, has been hosting eminent Nigerians for memorial lectures in the memory of the undisputed Ibadan political leader. Many have described him as an astute, charismatic and controversial politician, who left behind a big vacuum.
He was the indefatigable NCNC National Vice President, a member of the old Western Regional House of Assembly, councilor and Chairman of Ibadan Distric Council, member of the House of Representatives and Federal Minister of Social Services in the fifties. Adelabu was one of the pathfinders of modern Nigeria and a political crusader for freedom. Ironically, he died in an auto crash two years before the country achieved independence. To the consternation of his admirers, the great politician has not been immortalised by successive administrations.
He was Ibadan’s folk hero. He was a crowd puller. In the ancient city, people are full of nostalgia for the glorious past when the iconoclast and egoist bestrode Ibadan district politics like a colossus. During the maiden yearly lecture in his memory, Are, who ran errands for Adelabu in the fifties, said Adelabu was a man of the people. “He contributed immensely to the social, economic and political development of Nigeria. He struggled for independence, the attainment of which he did not witness,” he noted.
A vocal legislator, Adelabu was a combatant debater whose mouth was sharper that razor. His colleagues and orators like him, Ayo Rosiji, Remi Fani-Kayode and Samuel Akintola, who were parliamentarians in pre-independence days, envied his verbal facility. In the parliament and council of ministers, he was acknowledged as a man of ideas. His ideas gave birth to productive agricultural policies, especially the River Basin Development, Mass Literacy Scheme, and indigenization, which he enunciated in 1957.
But, the grassroots was his base. Adelabu bestrode Ibadan political firmament as a bright, irrespressible star. He was exceptionally charismatic. His oratorical power enhanced his magnetism. But, as Are noted, he identified with the poor and the down trodden by adapting to “the uncomfortable circumstance of their low estate.”
In life, he was a towering figure. But in death, he has become more famous among his die hard admirers who make glowing reference to the Penkelemesi years as the baseline for Ibadan patriotism. Under his guidance, Ibadan rose to its political zenith. Adelabu’s organizational prowess, his pursuit of power and uncanny capacity for acrimony and antagonism were legendary. Adelabu’s power and influence were awesome. While alive, he was the main political issue in Ibadan.
he was not born with a sliver spoon in his mouth. But, from a poor background, he rose to prominence as an Ibadan irredentist. AAs Professor Emeritus R.L. Skalar noted: “Probably no politician in Nigerian has ever had organisational power in local sphere comparable to that of Adelabu in Ibadan in 1954,” observed Prof. R.L Skalar, who added: “No Nigerian leader was closer to his people or more familiar with their thinking … when they rejoiced, he danced with them, when they sorrowed, he wept and when they mocked their enemies, he was the rudest of tongue.”
Adelabu rode to stardom in Ibadan on the back of the historic “Agbaje crisis,” which threw him up as a populist leader. Chief Salami Agbaje, an educated chief at that time, was the like the prime minister of the city, next in rank to the Olubadan. The junior chiefs had signed a petition in 1949 to the Native Authority, accusing the high chief of appropriating official largesses. The crisis engulfed the town, thereby living to its billing as a garrison.A mock coffin was carried from the Olubadan palace to Ayeye residence of Agbaje by the crowd, who demanded for his exit from the exalted position.
The colonial masters set up the Butcher Commission of Inquiry to look into the allegation of misconduct against Agbaje. The chief was exonerated. But, Adelabu had stolen the show. As Taslim Layonu, author of “Politics of Adegoke Adelabu” noted in his book, “Adelabu emerged out of the chaos a hero, a young man to be reckoned with in politics.” The late politician subsequently built on that profile of anti-oppression campaigner. His party, Ibadan Peoples Party (IPP), won the 1951 elections at Ibadan with a clear majority.
As a pioneer member of Western Region House of Assembly, his colleagues included the late Chief Adisa Akinloye, S. O. Lanlehin, S. A. Akinyemi and Daniel Akinbiyi, who later became the Olubadan. On the day he took his seat in the House, Adelabu whispered to a reporter: “I will shake this House.”
Unlike another Ibadan kingpin, Adelabu was a highly educated man in the context of his days. He was also a brilliant writer. He was proud of his status. “I had a brilliant scholastic career, earning accelerated promotion on three occasions in the elementary, primary and secondary schools. Despite this, I never took a second position throughout my school days. Instead, I was always in several laps ahead of my runner-up and not infrequently, saved tutors from tight holes,” Adelabu wrote.
A historian, Dr. Nina Mba, Rosiji’s biographer, described the Ibadan politican as a brilliant pupil, who achieved double promotion twice at Government College, Ibadan (GCI). His school mates were Rosiji, Saburi Biobaku, histoty scholar and former Vice Chancellor of University of Lagos, and Akintola Williams, foremost chartered accountant.
“He was also reputed in school for being first in all subjects. He was always taking the first position in the class he was promoted to. His essays were passed around the school for everyone to read. He also came first the entrance examination to Yaba Higher College,” Mba added.
In his reminiscences, Adelabu had tested to the power of schooling and education. He paid tribute in his writings to his teachers, employers and super ordinates at work.
According to him, “Powell (GCI teacher) inculcated into me at a very impressionable age, the value of team work in all human undertakings, Richardson (of UAC) taught me how to apply a vigorous intellect to the task of economic organization and administrative co-ordination. Haig (of Colonial Cooperative Department), with his great implicit contempt for wordly possessions, set me the example of idealistic who had crossed the corrupting bridge of materialism.”
In Mba’s contention, Adelabu shone with the same brilliance as a politician. It is an understatement. His deft moves as a politician often sent his opponents jittery. Once he pronounced Ibadan as his political base, he guarded his territory jealously against external political aggression. While his colleagues in IPP cross carpet to the Action Group (AG), led by late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, he stayed back in the NCNC alliance. As the Leader of the Opposition in the region, he was a thorn in the flesh of the AG government.
Adelabu could be described as a politician with a national outlook. Thus, while all Yoruba rooted for Awo during the parliamentary race for premiership, he collaborated with Adeniran Ogunsanya, Theophilus Benson, Odeleye Fadahunsi and Denis Osadebey to rally support for Azikiwe, an Igbo.
Paradoxically, despite being the seat of the AG government, Ibadan remained an NCNC fotress. Awo’s party could not gain control of Ibadan city, despite the fact that Awo and Rosiji, the influencial AG secretary, had resided in the town for years. Neither did the efforts of starwalts of Ibadan origin, including Emmanuel Alayande, Akinloye, Adedibu, Aboderin and Yinuola Ogundeji, make a difference. To prevent the acceptance of the ruling party, Adelabu mobilised his people to rally support for his Mabolaje Group, which from 1954 was in an uneasy alliance with the NCNC
His intense campaign against AG, which had an ethnic toga, was effective. A great political manipulator and propagandist, Adelabu was fond of inciting Ibadan against Ijebu by branding Awo as a chief promoter of Ijebu interest. As the Chairman of Ibadan District Council, Adelabu once locked up Mapo Hall to prevent Awo from holding a rally. On that day, Lamidi Adedibu, a member of the AG, forced the door open.
The late politician re-enacted the primodal sentiments, urging the people of Ibadan not to support AG because it was controlled by Ijebu. When Awolowo appointed Akinloye as Minister of Agriculture, Adelabu went to town with the propaganda that the Ijebu premier, who appointed Oba C. D. Akran as Minister of Finance and Chief E.A. Babalola from Ekiti as Minister of Works, made Ibadan son Minister of Ege (cassava).
When Western Regional Attorney-General and Justice Minister Chief Rotimi Williams set up a panel to probe his administration as Ibadan District Council chairman, he turned the heat on the eminent lawyer. To Adelabu, Wiliams was a chief without a kingdom, a reference to his emergence as cabinet minister from the House of Chiefs. The Ibadan Council was dissolved. But, in the next election, Adelabu won back his seat.
His political career was turbulent. As a member of House of Representatives, he was a federal minister for one year. Adelabu had to resign to face a murder case in his natiuve Ibadan. Layonu noted that Adelabu was arraigned 17 times for murder in the court and he triumphed on each count.
The politician was also humorous. When he survived a mob attack sponsored by his opponents at Ibadan, he said that, if he had died, that would have been the end of Adelabuism. The concept encapsulated his ideas as a radical, an intelleectual, political evangelist, socialist, and community man with a passion for the poor and downtrodden.
No doubt, Penkelemeesi was a controversial actor. But,when he was accused of corruption by the Western Regional Government, his subsquent indictment did not diminish his political stature. The people of Ibadan said they were contented, if Adelabu, and not outsiders, carted away the resources meant for their welfare because he was the greatest defender of their cause.
His career as an NCNCer, was also turbulent. Despite his commitment and services to the NCNC, Adelabu confided in his friend, Rosiji, that the party discriminated against him because he was not an Igbo. The historian, Mba, noted that his anti-NCNC propaganda campaign was so successful that the party leaders arranged to ‘placate’ him.
Adelabu had foresight. As a nationalist, he anticipated independence for Nigeria. But, he could not witness the glorious dawn. Hdid not have a premonition of his death. The auto-crash that claimed his life on the Lagos – Ibadan Expressway occured at Ode-Remo. He had left Ibadan for Lagos in company of Albar Yuanan, a Lebanese. His death unleashed a communal violence in Ibadan. Mba said his death robbed the country of a brilliant leader who never realized his full potential.”
As the House received the news of his death, proceedings were adjourned to enable lawmakers pay him tribute. Some of his colleagues wept. Tributes poured in torrents. Journalists also eulogised him because of his mettle of speech and brilliant ideas. Veteran journalist the late Alhaji Babatunde Jose said that the politician was a factor in the old Western Region. “Adelabu was a powerful speaker, a crowd puller. At a time when parliamentary carpet crossing was being practiced for reasons other than that of conviction, Adelabu stood his ground, a strong character,” he added.
His colleague in the parliament, the late Anthony Enahoro, said that he left enviable records as a legislator. “He is the first leader of opposition in any part of Nigeria to die in office. The House will not easily forget him,” he said.
To Fadahunsi, who later became the governor of Western Region, Adelabu was a courageous man, whose death was an unforgettable loss. Osadebey said: “while we are living, we are next door to death. None of us knows who will be next.” Hailing his resilience, Awolowo said: “As he was uncompromising in his opposition to his political opponents, so he was in every cause that he believed in and espoused, and in particular, in the cause of Nigerian freedom.”
The Prime Minister, the late Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, said: “If anybody died fighting for a cause, it was Adelabu.
