Omotayo, Akhaine Decry Absence Of Activists In Government

DEAN, Faculty of Social Sciences at the Lagos State University (LASU), Prof. Tayo Omotayo, has expressed sadness over the absence of pro-democracy activists in government 16 years after the berthing of democratic governance in Nigeria.

Omotayo recalled the personal sacrifices made by Nigerian students under the aegis of National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), and other civil rights champions whose impassioned struggle against military regimes led to the return to democratic rule in 1999.

He insisted that the activists made a strategic error by pulling back and letting ‘pretenders’ to hijack democracy in the country.

He spoke at the launch of the book, Ideas for Socio-Political Change, authored by Wale Olaitan, a former student activist, now a criminal justice practitioner in Melbourne, Australia.

The book is a collection of Olaitan’s public comments on social media since 2008.
Reviewer of the book and Senior Political Science Lecturer at LASU, Dr Sylvester Odion Akhaine, who was also a leading figure in the pro-democracy struggles of the 1990s, took a look at the enigma of the social media which provided the platform for the materials that forms Olaitan’s book.