Comrade Jonathan Ihonde, whose 87th post-humous birthday event in the form of a public lecture happened in Benin City last Saturday July 19, 2025 was well remembered – by his family members, associates, friends, mentees, university students, labour personages, activists and sundry persons and professionals, all of whom trooped to his lively residence of activism where the beautifully memorable event held. Attendance at the event certainly won the wide respect – which the late Comrade’s memory richly deserved and will always deserve.

Ihonde, one of the most influential activists of our country who died last year was a role model of consistency. His professional integrity and exemplary conduct could not (and cannot) but be seen and accepted as aesthetic of the Nigerian culture of decorous activism. All of current philosophy and culture of our activism, without mincing words, is less than a footnote to Comrade Ihonde.

Dr Osagie Obayuwana, a past Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice of Edo State, in his memorial lecture, actually the first memorial lecture, which centred on “The Man Comrade Jonathan Ihonde and his Historical Significance as an Activist and Labour Leader” raised significant issues concerning the fallen comrade’s nature of being as an activist, a top Nigerian activist, and a human being, the question of how he did things, the purposes of right actions, the meaning of patriotic love and beauty and other matters pertaining to the democratic spirit and mind which underlined the remembered leader of leaders’ selflessness which everyone, leader and followers, in the country and respective institutions, unions and associations should emulate.

As a labour leader and activist who was fully committed to his country your country my country and our country’s wellbeing and progress, Comrade Jonathan Ihonde was enthusiastically concerned about the advances in leadership and followership education that his methods and philosophy would usher into our lives.

As Dr Obayuwana said, and it is historically true, Comrade Ihonde built upon the foundations of the past, that is, of the Pa Michael Imoudus, our ancient and pre-independence labour leaders, but he desired to progress beyond their achievements. In this wise, the gleaner, this gleaner, who chaired the occasion, could not but recall in his mind what Isaac Newton (1643-1727) said, to wit: “Dwarfs who stand on the shoulders of giants may see farther than the giants themselves.” Comrade Ihonde, even though not exactly a dwarf in matters of activism, proved right this philosophical statement of the English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, and philosopher, particularly remembered today for his law of gravitation.

Pa Imoudu was a pioneer labour leader noted particularly for his ruggedness, courage, truthfulness, goodness and incorruptibility, but was not shaped by ideology from the perspective of scholars who strictly employ the term in their analyses of political and cultural societies and institutions, for instance.

This is not in any way an attempt to do a comparison of the ancient labour leader and activist and the modern one – both of whom shared the same geo-political background and space of Owan in present day Edo State. The point is that the modern one was a teacher and inspirer who used rhetoric and compassion, the dramatic arts to shape his labour endeavours and right actions on behalf of the people and masses. Comrade Ihonde was an intellectual who was profoundly familiar with Marxist and socialist ideology and the matisation that inevitably were the mainstay of his Hotel De Jordan, the opera bouffe (or a kind of opera bouffe) he created in the 1970s at the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), Benin City where he retired after working there for decades.

At the time Hotel De Jordan ruled the Nigerian television screens across Nigeria there was no Nollywood as is presently the case. He was an artist that employed art as a form of therapy, a medicinally useful one, to arouse and purge dangerous emotions. Hotel De Jordan provided enlightenment that for many years benefitted the people.

As Dr Obayuwana, the impeccable communicator, pointed out, Comrade Ihonde never fell prey to more than numerous temptations that were lined before him. He resisted them all and remained true to his virtuous consciousness which illustrated his capacity to be unmoved by thick encrustations and delicate apparels of something-less something of something-less-ness that is non-something. He had the gift and knack to resist what he must resist to the very end.

All he wanted was to serve his country and people as a patriot, egalitarian and humanist to the very end. Painfully, he also knew betrayals from some labour colleagues and activists, who were not true activists. But he never allowed them to impoverish his thought, intellect, conviction and world.

We know those who clearly and explicitly failed him. Several of them (we won’t mention their names and illustrate them here) found themselves in positions where they were expected to be of great help to our suffering people by stirring them to life through egalitarian considerations, principles and laws, but they instead furnished themselves with thoughts, feelings and attitudes of physical intoxication that their greed engendered (and still engender up to now).

Dr Osagie Obayuwana dwelt extensively on the Nigerian conundrum which he believes only good laws and justice engendered by a people’s constitution can solve or resolve to the satisfaction and benefit of all. The Patriots Group, a group of diverse professionals recently met in Abuja primarily for this purpose. The subject of the current abject living, working and health conditions of Nigerians, including pensioners, was also painstakingly tackled by the lecturer to the adulation of Dr Osahon Enabulele, the immediate past president of the World Medical Council, and medical personnel and academic unionists who graced the occasion.

Ihonde will in his grave stride with elation and ecstasy for the inaugural memorial lecture. It was a brilliant afternoon that nicely floated to an evening of harmony which Dr Bello Idaevbor, the ingenious master of ceremony at the event, anchored to the glorious satisfaction of all who reconciled themselves harmoniously to the lecture and the remarks and questions it generated.

What a memorial day the family of Comrade Jonathan Ihonde was proud of! Joy, a last daughter of the comrade who spoke for the family, said it all in her precious marble of words. And what a professional time the professional photographers at the event had!

Afejuku can be reached via 08055213059.