Odumakin: Triumph Of Activism Over Materialism

By Dr Muiz Banire SAN

The remnants of the Revolutionary Left in Nigeria were recently
dealt a devastating blow on the 2nd day of April, 2021, with the
demise of the fiery activist, Yinka Odumakin. It is not that his
death did not confound others of different orientations and
ideological backgrounds, but the Leftists in Nigeria would probably
lay claim to Odumakin as belonging to their primary constituency
based on his antecedents and activism till death. The announcement
of his death has left many in a state of shock, as there was no
public knowledge of his prior ill health. On the same day, it was
announced that another civil society activist, Innocent Chukwuma,
bowed to the cold hands of death. It has been one death too many
considering the fate that befell the same community of activists
with the demise of some other ferocious fighters for human rights
and revolutionary activism in the persons of Professor Abubakar
Momoh and Bamidele Aturu who died a few years ago. However, news of
Yinka’s death has continued to shake the firmaments ever since it
was announced and one wonders if his achievements could be matched
by his age at the time of his death.

A student union leader of the late 1980s, Yinka rose to become
the public relations officer of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile
Ife, where he left an indelible mark in the golden days of student
activism. Those were days when the student movement determined the
pulse of the nation and the government could be sure of an
immediate response once a policy unfavourable to the masses was
rolled out. Those were days when the National Association of
Nigerian Students (NANS) was a barometer for determining whether
the government was doing well or not. Despite victimization by the
university authorities in the days of military despotism, Yinka and
his colleagues stood firm and projected responsible radicalism that
did not give way to personal interests.

It was a period in Nigerian history when leaders of conscience
were leading the student movement, unlike what we have today where
student leaders cannot be distinguished from cultists and political
jobbers whose sole aim is to become political parasites and partake
in the national loot as being done by the condemnable leaders of
the land. His graduation from OAU did not rest his revolutionary
spirit, he consistently fought for the nation he believed in until
his last moments as he served on various platforms leading to the
emergence of the current democratic dispensation in 1999. Yinka
rose to the call for a better Nigeria by serving as the
spokesperson for Afenifere, the pan-Yoruba organization modelled
after the lofty aspirations and wisdom of Chief Obafemi
Awolowo. 

Notwithstanding that he was the youngest in the midst of old but
established politicians of the First and Second Republics, like Sir
Olaniwun Ajayi, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, Pa Ayo Opadokun, Chief Reuben
Fasoranti and many others, he was nominated as the voice of the
organisation and served in that capacity for not less than 13
years.

Yinka was in the 2014 Confab, where he made gargantuan
contributions on how he believed Nigeria could be remodelled to
achieve social equality and justice. He was a passionate believer
in Nigeria and his conviction on the need to find a worthy leader
and reformer made him work with others for Muhammadu Buhari to
become President. His agitations for a greater Nigeria were never
hidden and despite criticisms and disagreements from some of his
old comrades, he stuck to his guns on his conviction on how he
believed the struggle for a better nation could be achieved. His
days as the Secretary of Save Nigeria Group (SNG), led by Pastor
Tunde Bakare and others in 2012, were an endorsement of what
conscionable activism can do in rebuilding a nation that has fallen
into a terrible moral and economic miasma like ours. Yinka was a
dogged fighter who would not bat an eyelid in projecting his views
and mobilizing to achieve his aim. He travelled the length and
breadth of Nigeria with a strong resolve to ensure that the
otherwise endowed country could be placed in its rightful place in
the comity of nations. He was a great writer, a good speaker of
English language, a manufactory of brilliant ideas and a complete
package of intellectual sagacity.

He was a strident voice against ethnic marginalization, tribal
favouritism or nepotism. His agitation for the protection of his
ethnic origin within the context of a restructured Nigeria has no
sentiments for tribal irredentism. It was a struggle balanced on
the pivot of right to self-determination of all peoples within a
united country. As if trying to avoid the problems of wrongly
marrying a woman without an understanding of his ideological
orientation, Yinka’s choice of a woman is a perfect combination of
two souls with a single conscience. He married Joe-Okei Odumakin, a
Ph.D holder whose activism dates back to the student movement in
Ilorin and whose entire life has been dedicated to the cause of
agitating for a better humanity. In all these, Yinka neither asked
for, bagged a government portfolio nor served in an executive
capacity in any government. Yet, he left an indelible mark in the
sands of time.

There is a lesson to learn in his lifestyle by both the younger
and the older ones. The fad today is to enter politics fresh from
the university and aspire to be a local government chairman, be
appointed a commissioner, get elected into the state House of
Assembly or National Assembly and struggle to convince the unwary
masses that the only way they can have a better life is to
eternally have you in office. It has become the vogue to think that
it is only in public office that one can make a substantial
contribution to the development of the people. It is certain that
this line of thinking is not borne out of altruism as examples of
self-seeking politicians have shown that, in most cases, it is to
line a private pocket and achieve personal aggrandizement. I have
repeatedly said that no one needs to particularly occupy a public
office before making unforgettable contributions to the service of
humanity.

The death of Yinka Odumakin has proven this philosophy right.
His death has made a harvest of eulogies, soporific tributes and
fulsome praises tumbling down from both worthy and unworthy mouths.
Both enemies and friends have converged in unison to acknowledge
that this gentleman was an embodiment of service to humanity. The
past few days have proven that a man could live a worthy and
unforgettable life without necessarily occupying a public office
where he could have unrestricted access to public funds. Yinka’s
house has become a Mecca of a sort to which mandatory pilgrimage
has been made a pillar of political relevance. His wife, another
fiery activist with multiple laurels to her name, Dr. Joe
Okei-Odumakin, could not hide her surprise for the recognition and
praises accorded her husband in death by those who would not give
him a drop of water in a desert. She wishes her husband were alive
to listen to his avowed traducers and haters as they keep on
singing hosanna to his name during this Easter season. Could Yinka
have had a fate with the aura and lessons of the resurrection of
Jesus that he chose to leave around the same time? Hmmm! The Yoruba
say eniyan o sunwon laaye. Ojo a ba ku laa d’ere, which means
humans are not treasured while alive. It is in death we become
wondrously invaluable.

You can learn a thing or two from the life and times of Yinka
Odumakin. You can serve humanity without necessarily aspiring to or
holding a public office. You can lead from the rear and give
commands into the future. You can sow into humanity without having
to be enveloped in the grandeur of public office. You can become a
pillar to rest on without having all the money in this world. Let
these praise singers by way of honouring the dead emulate his ways,
adopt his philosophy and be repentant, as death is
inevitable. 

A few activists are in Nigeria who still embody these virtues.
When Alhaji Lateef Jakande, the inimitable former Governor of Lagos
State, died earlier this year, we saw a harvest of praises,
eulogies and enticing and exciting condolences like are being
accorded Yinka Odumakin now. But how many of these emergency
‘recognisers’ of these virtues are ready to live such a worthy
life? How many of them are ready to make life worth living for the
masses as campaigned for by Odumakin and delivered by Jakande? How
many of them are ready to give to the masses what belongs to the
masses? The cosmogenic Ifa verse of Eji Ogbe decrees that what
belongs to the people should not be denied them. It renders stupid
the ambitious craze of the Leviathan that seeks a contract of
agistment of a fowl with Death. Ogbe f’ohun f’olohun is the warning
of the oracle that deplores gluttony and stealing. Where the rights
of the people are accorded them, where the nation is allowed to
breathe without the suffocating noose of incompetence, corruption
and nepotism, where the leaders of the land would allow the
resources of the nation to serve the people and stop redecorating a
dead horse, setting up a committee on how to ride a dead horse of a
refinery and creating white elephants to loot our commonwealth,
where the youths are meaningfully engaged and a future is carved
out for them to enable them live without a pang of hunger,
certainly the memory of Yinka Odumakin and others like him would
have been well preserved.

Yinka is gone but his works live after him. One wonders if his
death is not a condemnation of ill-gotten wealth as many
billionaires have died in the past one year of COVID-19 harvests,
including several supposedly powerful men in public office and,
yet, hardly did the world know that a soul was harvested by the
Grim Reaper; hardly were they sung for more than hours but quickly
forgotten together with the allure of their Rolls Royce,
Lamborghini and other terrifyingly intimidating moving machines.
They had eaten up their contributions to humanity while cruising
the surface of the earth in luxurious splendour that took no
cognizance of the wailings of the poor.  For the other
activists, this is a reinforcement of our conviction that there are
absolutely returns on investment than material.

We are on the right path, notwithstanding the victimization,
intimidation and persecution we might be going through. Yinka’s
death is a testimony triumph of activism over materialism. Yinka’s
death is a brochure of how to die young as a hero than to depart
this world unsung. As American poet, Maya Angelou, counselled Oprah
Winfrey, “Your legacy is every life you have touched and every
moment you are building your legacy.” Adieu, Yinka Odumakin!

By Dr Muiz Banire SAN

The remnants of the Revolutionary Left in Nigeria were recently
dealt a devastating blow on the 2nd day of April, 2021, with the
demise of the fiery activist, Yinka Odumakin. It is not that his
death did not confound others of different orientations and
ideological backgrounds, but the Leftists in Nigeria would probably
lay claim to Odumakin as belonging to their primary constituency
based on his antecedents and activism till death. The announcement
of his death has left many in a state of shock, as there was no
public knowledge of his prior ill health. On the same day, it was
announced that another civil society activist, Innocent Chukwuma,
bowed to the cold hands of death. It has been one death too many
considering the fate that befell the same community of activists
with the demise of some other ferocious fighters for human rights
and revolutionary activism in the persons of Professor Abubakar
Momoh and Bamidele Aturu who died a few years ago. However, news of
Yinka’s death has continued to shake the firmaments ever since it
was announced and one wonders if his achievements could be matched
by his age at the time of his death.

A student union leader of the late 1980s, Yinka rose to become
the public relations officer of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile
Ife, where he left an indelible mark in the golden days of student
activism. Those were days when the student movement determined the
pulse of the nation and the government could be sure of an
immediate response once a policy unfavourable to the masses was
rolled out. Those were days when the National Association of
Nigerian Students (NANS) was a barometer for determining whether
the government was doing well or not. Despite victimization by the
university authorities in the days of military despotism, Yinka and
his colleagues stood firm and projected responsible radicalism that
did not give way to personal interests.

It was a period in Nigerian history when leaders of conscience
were leading the student movement, unlike what we have today where
student leaders cannot be distinguished from cultists and political
jobbers whose sole aim is to become political parasites and partake
in the national loot as being done by the condemnable leaders of
the land. His graduation from OAU did not rest his revolutionary
spirit, he consistently fought for the nation he believed in until
his last moments as he served on various platforms leading to the
emergence of the current democratic dispensation in 1999. Yinka
rose to the call for a better Nigeria by serving as the
spokesperson for Afenifere, the pan-Yoruba organization modelled
after the lofty aspirations and wisdom of Chief Obafemi
Awolowo. 

Notwithstanding that he was the youngest in the midst of old but
established politicians of the First and Second Republics, like Sir
Olaniwun Ajayi, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, Pa Ayo Opadokun, Chief Reuben
Fasoranti and many others, he was nominated as the voice of the
organisation and served in that capacity for not less than 13
years.

Yinka was in the 2014 Confab, where he made gargantuan
contributions on how he believed Nigeria could be remodelled to
achieve social equality and justice. He was a passionate believer
in Nigeria and his conviction on the need to find a worthy leader
and reformer made him work with others for Muhammadu Buhari to
become President. His agitations for a greater Nigeria were never
hidden and despite criticisms and disagreements from some of his
old comrades, he stuck to his guns on his conviction on how he
believed the struggle for a better nation could be achieved. His
days as the Secretary of Save Nigeria Group (SNG), led by Pastor
Tunde Bakare and others in 2012, were an endorsement of what
conscionable activism can do in rebuilding a nation that has fallen
into a terrible moral and economic miasma like ours. Yinka was a
dogged fighter who would not bat an eyelid in projecting his views
and mobilizing to achieve his aim. He travelled the length and
breadth of Nigeria with a strong resolve to ensure that the
otherwise endowed country could be placed in its rightful place in
the comity of nations. He was a great writer, a good speaker of
English language, a manufactory of brilliant ideas and a complete
package of intellectual sagacity.

He was a strident voice against ethnic marginalization, tribal
favouritism or nepotism. His agitation for the protection of his
ethnic origin within the context of a restructured Nigeria has no
sentiments for tribal irredentism. It was a struggle balanced on
the pivot of right to self-determination of all peoples within a
united country. As if trying to avoid the problems of wrongly
marrying a woman without an understanding of his ideological
orientation, Yinka’s choice of a woman is a perfect combination of
two souls with a single conscience. He married Joe-Okei Odumakin, a
Ph.D holder whose activism dates back to the student movement in
Ilorin and whose entire life has been dedicated to the cause of
agitating for a better humanity. In all these, Yinka neither asked
for, bagged a government portfolio nor served in an executive
capacity in any government. Yet, he left an indelible mark in the
sands of time.

There is a lesson to learn in his lifestyle by both the younger
and the older ones. The fad today is to enter politics fresh from
the university and aspire to be a local government chairman, be
appointed a commissioner, get elected into the state House of
Assembly or National Assembly and struggle to convince the unwary
masses that the only way they can have a better life is to
eternally have you in office. It has become the vogue to think that
it is only in public office that one can make a substantial
contribution to the development of the people. It is certain that
this line of thinking is not borne out of altruism as examples of
self-seeking politicians have shown that, in most cases, it is to
line a private pocket and achieve personal aggrandizement. I have
repeatedly said that no one needs to particularly occupy a public
office before making unforgettable contributions to the service of
humanity.

The death of Yinka Odumakin has proven this philosophy right.
His death has made a harvest of eulogies, soporific tributes and
fulsome praises tumbling down from both worthy and unworthy mouths.
Both enemies and friends have converged in unison to acknowledge
that this gentleman was an embodiment of service to humanity. The
past few days have proven that a man could live a worthy and
unforgettable life without necessarily occupying a public office
where he could have unrestricted access to public funds. Yinka’s
house has become a Mecca of a sort to which mandatory pilgrimage
has been made a pillar of political relevance. His wife, another
fiery activist with multiple laurels to her name, Dr. Joe
Okei-Odumakin, could not hide her surprise for the recognition and
praises accorded her husband in death by those who would not give
him a drop of water in a desert. She wishes her husband were alive
to listen to his avowed traducers and haters as they keep on
singing hosanna to his name during this Easter season. Could Yinka
have had a fate with the aura and lessons of the resurrection of
Jesus that he chose to leave around the same time? Hmmm! The Yoruba
say eniyan o sunwon laaye. Ojo a ba ku laa d’ere, which means
humans are not treasured while alive. It is in death we become
wondrously invaluable.

You can learn a thing or two from the life and times of Yinka
Odumakin. You can serve humanity without necessarily aspiring to or
holding a public office. You can lead from the rear and give
commands into the future. You can sow into humanity without having
to be enveloped in the grandeur of public office. You can become a
pillar to rest on without having all the money in this world. Let
these praise singers by way of honouring the dead emulate his ways,
adopt his philosophy and be repentant, as death is
inevitable. 

A few activists are in Nigeria who still embody these virtues.
When Alhaji Lateef Jakande, the inimitable former Governor of Lagos
State, died earlier this year, we saw a harvest of praises,
eulogies and enticing and exciting condolences like are being
accorded Yinka Odumakin now. But how many of these emergency
‘recognisers’ of these virtues are ready to live such a worthy
life? How many of them are ready to make life worth living for the
masses as campaigned for by Odumakin and delivered by Jakande? How
many of them are ready to give to the masses what belongs to the
masses? The cosmogenic Ifa verse of Eji Ogbe decrees that what
belongs to the people should not be denied them. It renders stupid
the ambitious craze of the Leviathan that seeks a contract of
agistment of a fowl with Death. Ogbe f’ohun f’olohun is the warning
of the oracle that deplores gluttony and stealing. Where the rights
of the people are accorded them, where the nation is allowed to
breathe without the suffocating noose of incompetence, corruption
and nepotism, where the leaders of the land would allow the
resources of the nation to serve the people and stop redecorating a
dead horse, setting up a committee on how to ride a dead horse of a
refinery and creating white elephants to loot our commonwealth,
where the youths are meaningfully engaged and a future is carved
out for them to enable them live without a pang of hunger,
certainly the memory of Yinka Odumakin and others like him would
have been well preserved.

Yinka is gone but his works live after him. One wonders if his
death is not a condemnation of ill-gotten wealth as many
billionaires have died in the past one year of COVID-19 harvests,
including several supposedly powerful men in public office and,
yet, hardly did the world know that a soul was harvested by the
Grim Reaper; hardly were they sung for more than hours but quickly
forgotten together with the allure of their Rolls Royce,
Lamborghini and other terrifyingly intimidating moving machines.
They had eaten up their contributions to humanity while cruising
the surface of the earth in luxurious splendour that took no
cognizance of the wailings of the poor.  For the other
activists, this is a reinforcement of our conviction that there are
absolutely returns on investment than material.

We are on the right path, notwithstanding the victimization,
intimidation and persecution we might be going through. Yinka’s
death is a testimony triumph of activism over materialism. Yinka’s
death is a brochure of how to die young as a hero than to depart
this world unsung. As American poet, Maya Angelou, counselled Oprah
Winfrey, “Your legacy is every life you have touched and every
moment you are building your legacy.” Adieu, Yinka Odumakin!