30th Anniversary tribute to Chief Victor Olabisi Onabanjo part 1

I met the late Chief Olabisi Onabanjo on the rough turf of Nigerian politics. It’s a field characterised by all sorts, the good, the bad and the ugly. It’s a field in which even the valiant fear to tread. It’s a place where dogs eat dogs even within the same party, talkless, in different political parties.

Yet, some of the finest people I have met in life have been through politics. Golf, my later day game, comes second. The stakes in golf are not always high except you are in a PGA contest or have taken a bet with your car! But even at that point,you have to be at your best comportment and composure. In politics the stakes are always high.

Yet some exceptional men play politics with their heads properly screwed up, their honour unbent and their integrity intact. This is why I always say that politics is a game that brings out the best and the worst in people. Abraham Lincoln was a good man in politics, otherwise known as “honest Abbey.

”The politics of his days was said to be characterized by malcontents, never-do-wells, thugs, thieves and so on. Yet Abraham Lincoln meandered through the rough terrain, contested elections 7 times all of which he failed until the last when he emerged, arguably, as the finest and best President America ever had. He fought for the unity of the country and the emancipation of slaves through the civil war.

Back home, I had the fortune of associating with some of such gallant men. Chief Awolowo is pre-eminent among them. He was an avatar, decent, keen, intellectual and always in the search for progress and knowledge.These were men who worked hard for the upliftment of this country.

But today our searchlight is on one of the protégés of Awo, the late Chief Victor Olabisi Onabanjo one of the finest and most brilliant journalists, legislators and politicians that this country has ever bred.

I had the good fortune of having been taken in under the wings of the late Chief Olabisi Onabanjo. Though a neophyte, I shared the political rostrum with him in the days of the Committee of Friends at Chief Awolowo’s Park Lane residence, Apapa, through his campaigns for the governorship and then as his Commissioner for Health and Social Welfare In 1979 and some other ministries to which he assigned me at his will and absolute discretion over the next 4 years and three months.

They are days the memories of which I will always carry with pride and a deep feeling of contentment. They were the days in which I had the privilege of giving an unadulterated and undiluted service. Chief Olabisi Onabanjo as Governor was the Captain of our ship in Ogun State. And what a captain he was! He commanded it with authority, empathy, courage, love for the people and a deep sense of responsibility. His sense of decency and propriety was simply proverbial.

30 years ago, Chief Olabisi Onabanjo, on the 14th of April, 1990, at 64, passed on to the world beyond. It was a mighty blow to many, family and friends. It was a terrible blow to me personally. He had suffered detention, trial, imprisonment, humiliation and deprivation under the military government headed by General Muhammadu Buhari. The deprivation often deprived him of access to his drugs and medical care that he badly needed. It was too much for his frail health.

Many believed that this deprivation cut his life short. The military had dealt a decent man a most undeserving injustice and a brutalization a dog should not have been subjected to. And so the good man died! The man born for public service,the man of probity was liquidated and vanquished!

I will be putting it very mildly to say the late Chief Onabanjo was a great influence on me. I adored and absorbed his courage, values and the essential goodness and decency for which he was an epitome. Given all that he imparted in me in knowledge, strategy and tactics, particularly, of politics and governance, I owe him many books to pass on his values. He was as much my political father as my dad was my biological father. Though not always indulgent, yet he was a good man with a clean heart.

In thinking of a tribute to this noble man on the 30th year of his passage, during this lockdown period, I remembered a piece I wrote fifteen years ago for the book- ‘OLABISI ONABANJO: footprints of a patriot’ which was authored and published in 2005 by his Personal Assistant, Mr. Femi Odugbose who kindly sent me a copy of my writeup included therein. I adapt and adopt that writeup as my tribute on this 30th posthumous birthday and hereby re-publish it as Part 2 of my 30th anniversary tribute to this great man.

Onabanjo was a warrior who always swam against the tide. Aiyekoto knew that the world rejects truth, yet he held on to truth as if his life depended on it. He knew as Mohammed Ali succinctly put it that “the face of truth is open, the eyes of truth are bright….the gaze of truth is straight, the words of truth is touching, the voice of truth is deep…… truth stands above all sin……the life of truth is eternal……” How true!

Every man of principle must bear the inevitable persecution and be ready to carry his cross. This man of courage never flinched from his conviction.

In these  heady days of lockdown in our country, we cannot but remember that, indeed, truth died in our land a long time ago just as did some good people just as some became “the best President Nigeria never had” only in  death. No one epitomized and embodied truth more than Onabanjo. He lived it and savored it.

The world rejected it then and rejects it now. But the colour of truth never changes, it is always constant. Happy 30th to my boss, my mentor, my father and my friend. You fought a good fight and finished the race. You left an outstanding heritage which is difficult to match. You stand tall and we are deeply proud of you. History which, you deeply respected, will be kind to you and your legacy. When the greats who have ruled Ogun State are counted you will be ahead by the quality of your service, the justice of your cause, the content of your character and the fairness of your mind. May your beautiful soul find rest. Amen

Prince Yemi Adefulu, MFR, was Ogun State Commissioner for Health Social Welfare; Forestry and  Water Resources; Local Government ( Home Affairs) 1979-1983