THE PASSAGE OF ADEBANJO AND CLARK

Ayo Adebanjo and Edwin Clark, both lawyers and statesmen, deserve to be immortalised

The death of Chief Ayo Adebanjo, 96, and Chief Edwin Clark, 97, few days apart, has marked not only the end of an era in Nigeria but also that of a generation. The two men, who incidentally were both lawyers, embraced Nigeria as it was meant to be, experienced it as it once was and have regrettably left it as a nightmare that they spent their last days lamenting. Yet, in continuously dreaming new dreams of a prosperous fatherland and pointing younger leaders in the direction of the Nigerian ideal, they kept the hope alive that our country is worth fighting for. That is an enduring legacy that the present and future generations of leaders must embrace.

For the duo of Adebanjo and Clark, their patriotism shined through their utterances and actions. Their sense of nation defied ethnicity, religion, region and division. They relished our diversity, preached inclusiveness, social justice, equity and fairness. In recent years, despite their age, they longed for the day when future generations would live in a new Nigeria, an egalitarian society that we all can call home. It is because these men rose above petty interests and sectional creeds that they are being mourned by admirers across divisions.

Born on 10 April 1928, Adebanjo joined politics in 1943 as a follower of the late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe but became a member of the youth wing of the Chief Obafemi Awolowo-led Action Group in 1951. He would later become one of the staunchest disciples of Awolowo. Following the political crisis in Western Nigeria in 1962 for which Awolowo was arrested, tried and jailed, Adebanjo was also charged with treasonable felony alongside 30 others. He fled on exile to Ghana. While he spent most of the Second Republic practicing his law profession, Adebanjo became politically active during the transition to civil programme that birthed the ill-fated Third Republic.

At the commencement of the Fourth Republic in 1999, Adebanjo was the founding Deputy National Chairman of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) which won the governorship election in all the Southwest States of Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Oyo, Ekiti and Osun. As leader of Afenifere, a pan-Yoruba socio-political group, a member of the 1978 Constituent Assembly and the 2014 National Political Conference, Adebanjo was consistent in demanding a restructuring of Nigeria through the vehicle of a Sovereign National Conference. He shared this conviction with Clark.

Born on 25 May 1927, Clark was the de facto leader of the Ijaw people, and foremost and courageous politician committed to the development of the Niger Delta region. He served as Midwestern Commissioner for Education and later, Finance from 1966 to 1975 before he was appointed Federal Commissioner for Information by the administration of General Yakubu Gowon. His political journey started during the pre-independence days in 1953 when he was elected as Councillor for Bomadi. He was an elected Senator in the ill-fated Second Republic.  In 2016, Clark founded the Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) along with other leaders with the objective “to dialogue with stakeholders and lobby for increased attention and implementation of restructuring, development and security policies by the Government of Nigeria.”

While Adebanjo and Clark may have gone, they left lasting legacies. To the younger generation of political activists, their lives and work should serve as sterling beacons of patriotism and selfless devotion to national good. To our present crop of leaders, let them mourn the loss of these great men but not bury their legacy of national idealism. It is perhaps self-defeating to lament that the generation represented by Adebanjo and Clark has become extinct. Instead, we should insist that the values they stood for and lived by should be replicated in our youth. What these great men deserve is beyond transient obituary and passing tributes. They should be immortalised.