THE HEADLINE seems misleading. It reads as if I am set for some esoteric excursion into spiritism to unravel hidden facts. The capacity to do that is not among my unique selling points. I am simply here to say that a life of impact does not die just like that. It lives on to ultimately answer the ancient quest for immortality differently. Pa Obafemi Awolowo died on May 9, 1987, at the age of 78. By the same date this year, it will be 38 years since the sage left us. But his name has remained with us and persons yet unborn as at the time of his so-called death, are very familiar with him. This is despite the criminal exclusion of history from the curriculum of basic and secondary education in Nigeria by the authorities.
They understand that Awo is the reference point for good leadership in the nation. In the Southwest, he has remained a moral and leadership compass. Stranded politicians reach out to the compass, called Pa Awo, to navigate through difficult political terrains to safe destinations. And that has been a small problem also. There has not been due diligence to separate butterflies from birds. And so, every Bola, Yemi, Ayo, Abiodun, etc, who shouts Awo passes for a disciple of the great sage. Some have even promoted themselves to Apostles without apostolic content. Politicians have just come to understand that the shortest route to a political Eldorado, is to proclaim the discipleship of Pa Awo. And they have been calling and even shouting that high name in vain. Mere identification with the name earns instant marks on the political scoreboard.
There is life in his dress accessories that he left behind. There is so much life in his signature round velvet cum woollen cap. There is also life in his circular eyeglasses. Some people who claim his mentorship have recreated these items in their sartorial turn-outs to strengthen the impression. The ability to recreate the Awo persona in any way possible has become a winning formula in political contests in the South West. This is all because the life of Pa Awo has continued after his physical death in 1987. This is my understanding of life after death. It is not in the mystery of tracking the spent entity in its original form to some other location outside or within planet Earth.
Neither is it in the belief of the indestructibility of the soul being after physical expiration. Only people with monumental impact like Pa Awo have defied the limitations of death to continue to live on. The life they have lived after death is even larger. That is the point I am making here.
There are a few parallels in Urhobo land; at least within the context of that geo-ethnic space. There is Chief Mukoro Mowoe, reputed as the founder of the modern Urhobo nation. His efforts birthed the pan-Urhobo socio-cultural group, Urhobo Progress Union (UPU) in 1931. Chief Mowoe coordinated the movement for Urhobo self-help, culminating in the short run, in some landmark achievements including the establishment of Urhobo College, Effurun in 1948 and the building of a Government College in Ughelli in 1945. In the long run, the Urhobo have come from almost point zero to assume leading positions in business and academics. There is also Olorogun Michael Ibru, a business colossus, who is however, defined more by his excellent character than his stupendous wealth among the Urhobo.
We can also add Chief Demas Akpore, a man who chose to forgo all the attendant privileges of a Master’s Degree in Classics in 1958 and relocated to his village that had no electricity, good access road and potable water, to found Orogun Grammar School Orogun in 1966 to nurture future great men and women. The line-up is almost inexhaustible but just to highlight: retired Deputy Inspector-General of Police (DIG), Marvel Akpoyibo, former MD of Seplat Petroleum, Dr Austin Avuru, the Vice Chancellor of Denis Osadebe University, Asa-ba, Professor Ben Oghojafor and retired military ophthalmologist, Brig-General Anthony Okpobrisi. Like Pa Awo, these men and a few others in Urhobo land have been living long after their death on account of the sheer impact of their advent on planet Earth.
Why am I teaching on the pages of a newspaper, the history that has been prohibited in classrooms? Yes, it has become necessary to explain the passing of two elder statesmen who died three days after each other. They are Pa Ayo Adebanjo, leader of the pan-Yoruba group, Afenifere, and Pa Edwin Kiagbodo Clark, leader of Pan Delta Forum (PANDEF). The former died on February 14, 2025, at age 96 and the latter on February 17 at age 97. The ink with which sympathisers wrote messages in the condolence register at the Lagos home of Pa Adebanjo had not dried when another register was opened at Pa Clark’s home in Abuja to record condolence messages. They died at 96 and 97 in a country where life expectancy is below 60 years. And so, they lived very well and also died very well.
In the ensuing messages, no sympathiser is writing about the wealth, investments, buildings, etc, the two old men left behind. Everyone, including pretenders, is pained by the loss of these two oases in the desert of national decadence. People are even saying it was not time for the men who were almost a century old to die. Agreed, there is a time to be born and a time to die. But just when would have been appropriate, as demanded in the Book of Ecclesiastes, for these two old timers to time out? We think it was not time for them to die because others have refused to run their part in the national race. And so, after finishing theirs, Pa Adebanjo and Pa Clark had nobody to take over the batten. By the records; 96 and 97 years, they had covered extra distance and time waiting for relievers that didn’t show up.
That was unfair. Life does not operate that way. Either in the divine or mundane scheme, there is equity and responsibility.
People must be made to play their roles. Even Apostle Paul finished his race and left the field for Silas and Timothy to continue. And so, the national question that requires an urgent answer at this moment, is not this true federalism that has become a cheap anthem among pretenders. It is the dearth of good men to do good things. Once the issue of good men and women is guaranteed, no further questions, including the quest for equity through a good constitution, shall subsist. The one, who rode on these cheap sentiments of seeking to cure a faulty federal structure to the pinnacle, has remained insulated in his maximum habitat called Aso Rock Villa. He is now doing it as if the trouble with Nigeria is over and the rest of us talking are the real troublemakers. As it were, the character, competence and courage to act in good conscience were never present in him in the first place. It was all a scheme to feed an expansive ego and greed.
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No actor likes to play by the script of justice in Nigeria. Once put on stage, every political actor invents his or her own lines and stage business to circumvent the central purpose. Ordinary people cannot just comprehend the degree of wickedness in high places and how and why the same is sustained forever despite efforts to cause a change. After conquering wealth and fame, King Solomon in moments of deep reflection, dismissed his great conquests, including 700 wives and 300 concubines, as a multiplicity of nothingness. “Vanity upon vanity is vanity.” In the journey of life, every man and woman too has two priced possessions. These are his name and his soul.
At death, he leaves behind one and goes with the other. His activities will either nourish or starve his soul. While a nourished soul connects with God for a place in heaven, a starved soul creates its orbit in an unending cycle of perdition. At least, this is the perspective of Christian theology. And I am a Christian.
It follows also that a well-nourished soul leaves a good name behind and a starved soul leaves behind a bad name.
It translates to double portions of acclamation or damnation as the case may be. The nourished soul enjoys endorsement here and in the hereafter and it is absolute condemnation in both contexts for the starved soul. In cloaking the subject of economics with existentialist flavour, John Maynard Keynes noted that, in the very long run, we would all be dead. Nobody lives forever.
The real achievers are those who die and still live on. Those who die and blackout never really lived. They only stayed to promote consumption and ostentation. Their place on earth is finite and their place in hell is eternal.
From what has been said so far about these two elders that passed, it is obvious they shall experience a very robust life on earth after death. Something may endure for good or bad. Both men lived very long even by the most ambitious scale of life expectancy. Yet the people still wanted them to stay longer as if they, in the real sense, still had more points to prove.
Pa Ayo Adebanjo and Pa Edwin Clark finished well according to popular verdict. Vox Populi, vox Dei. The voice of the people is the voice of God. Both have departed with nourished souls and in a blaze of glory. Good enough, they are both Christians and so their double portions are ensured here on earth and there in heaven on account of the life they lived on earth.
