There is a dramatic and faintly mystical quality to their final exit. Elders who have been mumbling and sighing for over a decade that they have arrived at the Departure Lounge and were merely waiting for their boarding passes received the summons to board. Within a week, Nigeria has lost two of her most prominent political gladiators and Old Testament pathfinders, Chief Ayo Adebanjo and Pa Edwin Clark. They were no doubt avatars of the colonial and postcolonial coliseum, that blood-splattered site of agonistic contention. They no doubt hid their bruises and wounds very well, crying in the rain and relentlessly seeking combat and confrontation as if their life depended on the punishing schedule.
Given their gladiators’ regimen, it is a miracle and a great riddle that they lived for so long and to ripe old age, exceeding their makers allotted timeline of three scores and ten years by over two decades. When they departed this past week, it began to feel like the end of an era. Perhaps we are beginning to see the final working out of what began sixty three years earlier with the implosion of the fabled Action Group, the subsequent collapse of the First Republic and the seizure of the dominion by the military faction of the ruling group, a seismic development whose ripple effects continue to be felt in the nation’s political firmament.
Consequently, this piece cannot be a critique of political praxis but a celebration and eulogy of the life and time of four of Nigeria’s greatest sons and daughters ever. These personages were no doubt titans of Nigeria’s modern history. The two aforementioned political giants were severely flawed human-beings and conflicted individuals. But the criticism of their politics can wait until they have been properly interred. It is the time to roll out the gongs and drums of celebration and ululations rather than the whistle of disapproval and disapprobation. Let us enjoy the vignettes, cameos, mementoes, bits and tidbits of their rich, colourful if occasionally controversial life and see if we can come up with tropes of redemption about their storied exertions, their heroic disavowal, their memorable derring-do and their willingness to tempt fate and martyrdom in the pursuit of their ideal of a just and egalitarian society.
If we are to maintain a fidelity to historical accuracy, it will not be accurate to maintain that the two titans were the first to sign off. Shortly before them, there were two other notable departures, but simply because the other two were not political luminaries, their death has been less heralded. Yet in a curious and mysterious sense, their own departure now seem to complement and reinforce the feeling that an age of giants was winding down and we may just be lucky to capture the last snapshot for posterity. Bidding us a final goodbye a few months short of his ninetieth birthday was the man who wrote the cheques, Chief Olabode Emanuel, the old Gregorian, a vastly successful international businessman and publisher with octopoidal reach and range. There was a ferocious focus and steely armature about him which suggested a man not to be lightly crossed if you are not a feckless yokel from the provinces. On the few occasions one had the honour and privilege of sitting close to him, he came across as a man of immense refinement, cultivation and culture; a citizen of the globe. On those few occasions, the two of us often exchanged wary and cagey glances with each wondering just how much the other knew without letting on. He was a money man for the ages without any hint of extravagance or fiscal incontinence.
The last titan and the first to depart a few weeks back is a woman. By the time she departed, Khadijat Adebisi Edionsere had already passed into legend and folklore as a woman of Croesus-like wealth and riches. If you are wondering what a mere woman is doing among a conclave of elders, then you are wrong, dead wrong and you do not understand Yoruba culture. The Yoruba people appreciate the power of power and the means of immense means which they believe is a transgender affair. Certain women become “unsexed”, cultural monument as a result of their wealth and power. As Ebenezer Obey sang sonorously and suggestively: “Agba loto Oro lo o hun niti Iyalode Egba”. A powerful woman can no longer be excluded from the conclave of the Oro cult.
It was said that in the late sixties, bank officials who were mystified and pleasantly bewildered by the daily haulage of raw cash coming into her accounts promptly nicknamed her as the “cash woman”. It is a golden tradition that harks back to the glorious era of Madam Efunroye Tinubu, Efunsetan Aniwura, Humani Alaga, Bisoye Tejuoso, Janet Alatede, Abibatu Mogaji and some other female figures of remote antiquity such as Moremi and Oya. Last week’s Friday a grateful Egba nation sent off one of its greatest daughters and it was a carnival-like procession throughout the city ending up in a punishing traffic snarl right up to the main venue of Abeokuta Sports Club. As a frail and autumnal master crooner Ebenezer Obey dished out memorable lyrics from his extraordinary musical tribute to the late magnate, the crowd swooned and applauded.
At a point, a lithe and winsome lady appeared on stage swinging methodically and aristocratically to Obey’s beat. She was a dead ringer for her late illustrious mother. Many of the state dignitaries that converged on the stage would have been in their infancy when Ebenezer’s Obey’s classic rendition came out at the tail end of 1971. It all goes to show that life goes on and must go on. Life may often appear like a cruel continuous punishment, or just one damned thing after the other, as an English cynic dismissed it. But it depends on the meaning you give it. This is what makes life bearable, despite its wicked absurdities and brutal contingencies.
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There are times in life when fate seems to conjoin you with certain colourful and larger than life personalities who can only make meaning out of life by subjecting it to their own eccentric interpretation and idiosyncratic narrative no matter how odd and unhelpful such narratives have become in the light of new developments. Chief Ayo Adebanjo was one of such titanic personages and you always sensed where you stood with him whether he was wearing a benign scowl or his trademark boyish grin. It is fair to conclude that in the in the closing phase of his political career we were in the same book but not on the same page.
This was to lead to some awkward moments and a particularly nasty public spat at the Tola Adeniyi book launch where this columnist was forced to give the late chief some candid roasting. Moments later, a well-known public intellectual who was not well known to the columnist at that point in time, accosted one and said that he had never imagined that anybody could engage the master pugilist in a toe to toe contention and in public purview, too. But a few weeks after this encounter, the old Action Group stalwart was smiling and winking conspiratorially at his former blue-eyed boy as one sat under the canopy at his Ijebu Ogbogbo homestead to honour him on his ninetieth birthday. As far as he was concerned, it was all in a day’s work.
The circumstances of our first meeting were no less awkward but far more heroic and cheering. At one of the exploratory meetings preparatory to the convening of an All Politicians’ Summit in 1995, I was assigned to the task of manning the gates to prevent any embarrassing infiltration or the customary state shenanigans. It was the brainchild of a group of patriots including some top journalists, well-heeled Yoruba tycoons and some topnotch technocrats from the middle belt. After the annulment of the June 12 presidential election, the incarceration of MKO Abiola and the brutal hammering of the political class by General Sani Abacha, this group of patriots came to the conclusion that the military juggernaut was the greatest threat to the civilian class irrespective of whether they were from the north or the south. If they didn’t hang together, they were going to hang separately.
That night, Chief Adebanjo sauntered into the expansive lobby of the hotel with his friend and constant companion, Chief Olaniwun Ajayi. A cherubic smile of faint disapproval hovered around Adebanjo’s face as he sized one up while Ajayi remained his calm, urbane and diplomatic self. As one ushered them to the hall, Adebanjo cleared his throat. “So tiri awon ara ile ee?” he grunted to his friend. “Have you seen your friends? They say they want friendship and reconciliation and yet they have brought a Fulani boy to come and man the gates here in Lagos. What type of rubbish is this?” Ajayi merely chuckled diplomatically. Later on as the proceedings got underway, Chief Adebanjo began tirelessly complaining about a briefcase under the table that was getting in his way. Somebody then told him about the owner of the briefcase and that he was the person who had ushered them in. Upon realizing their error, the two old men burst into prolonged laughter that resonated around the hall.
Let us leave our readers with an incident which showcases Chief Adebanjo’s remarkable sense of irony and his biting humour. After delivering the eighty fifth anniversary lecture of the Yoruba Tennis Club in September, 2001, yours sincerely was hosted to dinner by Yoruba grandees and leaders of business in the vast lobby of the hall. As Chief Adebanjo who had earlier survived a major health scare was about to tuck into a glass of wine, he was cautioned in a low tone by his friend that somebody was around and was indeed approaching. “Ara ile e ti mbo”. It was obviously his doctor. “I am not doing what you asked me not to do oo” Chief Adebanjo mumbled like a child caught in familiar pranks. “Ti e loju”, the doctor observed with a frown and then disappeared. Almost two decades later, yours sincerely inquired about the doctor from his patient. “Ha, you see, he has since gone to join his maker”, the old Action Grouper responded with mischievous solemnity. Papa was one hell of a fellow. May his great soul rest in peace.
