Of Bala Mohammed, Ajibade Onibokun’s purity of political struggle
By Isaac Olusesi
When Richard Weaver wrote “ideas have consequences but when it comes to working their way through society, it normally takes a generation of ideas to flower in effective direction,” he perfectly, had in mind the purity of Prince Ajibade Onibokun’s unrepentant political struggle that emancipated his Ijesa North Federal Constituency of Osun State from the clutches of the oppressive Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), then the government party of his time. While his own party, Action Congress(AC), later Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and now, All Progressives Congress (APC) was in the opposition, downtrodden.
Ajibade Onibokun’s thrust is reminiscent of the commitment of Dr Bala Mohammed. I came to know the learned Bala Mohammed as erudite intellectual, versatile scholar, voracious reader, acclaimed writer, and chivalrous activist through many of his writings which philosophy, longitudinally and horizontally, intertwined with Ajibade Onibokun’s cross- cutting leadership much needed at the time.
Both Bala Mohammed and Ajibade Onibokun showcased common identities, how else, the duet, eminently grassroots politicians with the interest of the people at heart. Notwithstanding the generational gap, with Bala Mohammed, born in November, 1944 in Bauchi and Ajibade Onibokun, November 6,1957 in Iwoye-Ijesa, Oriade local government council area of Osun, the couplet, birthed into a noble, royal background of aristocracy, were marked by the badge of destiny that pointed to greatness. And at puberty, the road to travel in life was already laid before them – they rebelled against the unjust, reactionary political tendencies. Bala Mohammed belonged to the now rested People’s Redemption Party (PRP) and struggled against the defunct National Party of Nigeria (NPN) elements in Kano State, and Ajibade Onibokun, of the Ijesa North, Osun APC, surmounted Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state. The NPN and PDP, both conservative political parties.
The two men were suave, quintessential integrity carriers, finest libertarians and thoroughbred patriots who knew their onions by quality deeds and character of mind and heart, with broad vision that called a spade no other name and spoke truth to the throne. And they were intelligent, diligent and fearless who loathed procrastination but stayed persistent and confident, with great capacity for industry who stood up well to experts, outside their callings and with ease.
The two of them were rigid risk takers who paid for zealotry adherence to change, today’s mantra of APC which Ajibade Onibokun raked home for his party. And the duo were at all times self boxed into audacious perspectives, daring angles and temerity and made the political unfamiliar, familiar for political advantages, not for themselves. In the wise, Ajibade Onibokun made sense, resplendent with tremendous sway such that he produced the council chairmanship of the Lagos State Oshodi/Isolo local government after he vehemently protested his candidate’s loss. He singularly rattled that part of Lagos and was ‘mobbed’ with accolades and chants by the party men and women, and that became a watershed in his politics.
And Ajibade Onibokun dived into the Osun rustic, caustic and toxic politics and he visited, not infrequently, his APC party formations at the unit, ward and local government levels in his federal constituency, encouraged regular party meetings to hold, adequately funded same, and nibbed intra party crises in the bud at purposeful and energetic pace that otherwise could have aggravated such crises after the 2007 governorship election, bungled by PDP in the state. The theme of change was audible in his actions and visible in his character as his somewhat transcendental aura, mystical and magnetic kept his party intact. He vehemently worked against the PDP penchants for election rigging and wrestled his federal constituency. In tandem with Charles Caleb Calton’s “we owe almost all our knowledge…to those who have differed.”
The pair of Bala Mohammed and Ajibade Onibokun, at different times, schooled in the University of Indiana, Seattle University, and University of Howard, all in the United States of America, USA, and were both amiable in manner and honest to a fault that strongly endeared them to many, the lowly and highly; they were decisively sophisticated strategists, philosopher kings, progressive moulders, and matchless humanitarians; and they were jurists in their own right who gave empirical meaning to service, reward and punishment with equal ferocity as they solidly resisted all proclivities to turn their peoples to ‘drawers of water and hewers of wood,’ to borrow the phrase from Walter Rodney, with a whiff of Frants Fannon’s.
But the duo, Bala Mohammed, political adviser to Rimi Abubakar, erstwhile Kano State governor, and Ajibade Onibokun, a chieftain and two times House of Representatives aspirant, were politically hated and pursued after by hired thugs and killers on the payroll of agent provocateurs in oppositional party politics, governance and government, the reactionary elements, otherwise. The two alike, were benignant, big-hearted and statesmanlike who keyed into Harold Laski’s “People who hold power will not relinquish it voluntarily without armed struggle and great resistance.” And in the corollary, the twosome bore suicidal risks and suffered unspeakable oppositional humiliations, threats, actual bruises, other political mudslinging and death, one, in the US hospital after illness and the other, death by arson in the hands of the organised Kano satanic soulless souls because they saw in the doublet, a profound revolutionary process.
Trust Ajibade Onibokun! He would have acted the Gani Fawehinmi, Beko Ransome-Kuti, with preferment to be in prison in the face of the PDP unjust government in his Ijesa North federal constituency of his days if death hadn’t come at the time it came. Why? “Under an unjust government, the true place for a just man is prison,” Henry David Thoreau noted in 1849.
Ajibade Onibokun did more than anyone else, dead, in the politics of his constituency. He solidly craved for freedom, independence and uplifted politics and politico- mental level of the constituency as he combated the corrosive instincts of the reactionary PDP and wrestled power from the party to his progressive party. A deeper history of political struggle in the constituency cannot unfold without a mention of Ajibade Onibokun’s politics, political wisdom, gallantry and humongous popularity with much political mileage gained. He conquered the party that was opposed to his own party. Here I cannot agree less with the Adai Stevenson 1954 thesis: “all progress has resulted from people who take an unpopular position.”
The 10th year Memorial Service in honour of Ajibade Onibokun held a Sunday October 29, 2023 at Saint Thomas’ Anglican Church, Iwoye-Ijesha meant his virtues were remembered as a fearless grassroots politician at turbulent times in the late nineties and early twenties in Nigeria under one President Olusegun Obasanjo’s PDP’s ‘do ur die’ electoral politics. While a book, “Political Repression in Nigeria” edited by Yusuf Bala Usman, and dedicated to Bala Mohammed has its dedication note thus: “Dedicated to the memory of our beloved brother, friend and comrade Bala Mohammed who was assassinated and his corpse burnt at his house by higher thugs and killers of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN), July 10, 1981.”
And one thing more to do to honour the firebrand Ajibade Onibokun is to galvanize his constituency to continue his unfinished mission. Gani Fawehinmi got it when he forcefully postulated, “those who govern must not mis-govern and those governed must not be oppressed.”
Olusesi writes via [email protected]
