Witness to a byegone age

Three things dominated Sir Olaniwun Ajayi long and eventful life: faith, ideas and nation. He was always ready to lay down his life for any of these three. He would have agreed with the heroic lore of ancient Rome as recorded by the great poet, Thomas Babington Macaulay in the poem, Horiatis:
To every man upon the earth
Death cometh soon or late
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers
And the temples of his Gods

But Ajayi died on his bed in his country home at Isara, Ogun State, the same place he had enjoyed domestic felicity with his late wife, Adunola, for more than half a century. He was 91.

Love of country, of humanity and faith in God and the belief in the tenets of the Methodist Church dominated his life. When the church made him a Knight of John Wesley, he notified his friends that he would prefer to be addressed as Sir Olaniwun Ajayi. He was always ready to serve the church. It is not an exaggeration that the giant Methodist church in Ishara would not have been built without his singular contribution and commitment. On Monday October 10, 2016, I had expected him and his lifelong friend, Chief Ayo Adebanjo at the public presentation of my book, One Day and a Story, the reminiscences of an African Journalist. However, Sir Olaniwun called to say he would not be able to join us because he had a church assignment.

Despite his age and the intervention of age related ailments, he was always busy with church activities. He was also on duty call to serve Yoruba land and Nigeria. In 2014, he attended the National Constitutional Conference put together by former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. One is not surprised that Kanyinsola, Papa’s lawyer son who is also a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, is a Methodist priest. About 10 years ago when my mother was being installed the Iyalode of Saint John Anglican Church, Okemesi, Ekiti State, Papa Ajayi, along with his friend, Chief Adebanjo, was one of the first to arrive in the church all the way from Ishara.

For him, faith and politics were not far apart. It is faith in God that gives strength for political struggles and battles. The last major political battle of Ajayi’s epic career was the struggle against military rule especially under the ruthless General Sani Abacha. Like many of his contemporaries and colleagues, he was a believer in the ideas and ideals of Obafemi Awolowo. After the death of Awolowo in 1987, the believers gave the mantle to Chief Adekunle Ajasin, one of the founders of the Awoist Movement, host of the first meeting of the defunct Action Group and by the time of the Abacha dictatorship, leader of Afenifere.

The Afenifere gave qualified approval to the seizure of power by General Abacha in November 1993 when he sacked the government of Chief Ernest Adegunle Shonekan, the Head of the Interim National Government. Few months down the line, the group would no longer see eye to eye with the dictator over the issue of the electoral mandate given to the President-presumptive, Chief Moshood Abiola, who had won the June 12, 1993 presidential election. Though Afenifere had earlier agreed that some of its members, including Chief (Mrs) Mobolaji Osomo and Chief Ebenezer Babatope, should join the regime, it found enough reasons to withdraw its support and ask its erstwhile members to leave the Abacha government. They refused. By the time the Ogoni Environmental activist and internationally famous writer, Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight of his colleagues were executed in 1995, the Afenifere team knew they were at war.

It was to the eternal credit of these old men that not one of them excused himself from the battle field and in the face of the unrelenting terror from the Abacha gang. They were old, but not one of them took the excuse that he had medical issues or was going to take care of his grandchildren. If there were heroes of our fight against military dictatorship, these valiant and dignified old men were the heroes. Their stolid heart, their unblemished patriotism, their forthrightness and their dedication gave us courage to pursue our singular assignment to rid Nigeria of military dictatorship. We owe them an eternal debt of gratitude.

Papa Ajayi was a proud member of that gerontocracy each of which was ready to die for The Cause. In 1997, I had led some of my colleagues in Idile Oodua, a pan Yoruba resistance movement against the Abacha tyranny, to meet Ajayi and the Afenifere leadership. The meeting was at the well-appointed office of Ajayi law firm within the high-rise headquarters of the United Bank for Africa, UBA. That meeting was being presided over by Senator Abraham Adesanya, who had recently survived an assassination attempt by the Abacha killer squad. Present, apart from Ajayi and Adesanya, were top members of the leadership including Chief Bola Ige, Otunba Solanke Onasanya, Chief Olu Falae, Chief Ganiyu Dawudu and Chief Ayo Adebanjo. On our team were the likes of Engineer Bayo Adenekan, Funminiyi Afuye, Pascal Adeleke Idowu, Ademola Oyinlola, Dayo Adeyeye, Dokun Abolarin (now our royal father, the Orangun of Oke-Ila), Biodun Bankefa and Kayode Anwo.

We were surprised when at the middle of our meeting, the old men suddenly paused and Onasanya was asked to pray. It was 3 p.m. We joined in prayer. After the short prayer, it was Ajayi who explained what happened.

“Our leader has instructed us that wherever we are at 3 p.m., we must pause and offer prayers for Nigeria and Yoruba land,” he said.

The leader was Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the man who changed the course of our history and dictated the contours of Ajayi public service. After he finished his law studies in England, Ajayi was welcomed home to Ishara with public celebration. It was at the turbulent era when Awolowo Action Group party was fighting to save its soul and by 1963, the leader and many of his followers were to earn long prison sentences for alleged treasonable felony. It was at this period of turbulence that Ajayi got acquitted with many of the young Awoist of that era, including his Ayo Adebanjo, the party organising secretary, who was also listed to be tried along with Awo. Adebanjo fled to Kwame Nkrumah’s Ghana where he found refuge until he was deported after Nkrumah was toppled in 1966.

If anyone absorbed the fullness of Awo’s ideas, it was Ajayi. His sartorial taste, his speech mannerism and his rigorous adherence to details were tailor-made after the great lawyer and nationalist. Papa Ajayi loved to debate with us his younger friends and he had a full repertoire of stories and reminiscences. What was not open to debate was the central truth of Awo’s ideas, its relevance to our world and its importance to the development of Nigeria. He witnessed the era when public service meant service to the public and nothing more.

Nothing will make him to shy away from a just battle. As a young man, he was confronted with the overarching influence of Oba Samuel Akinsanya, the Odemo of Ishara who was a childhood friend of Awolowo. Ajayi and Akinsanya had some disagreement especially on the running of the central organ of the town unions. Akinsanya was a staunch supporter of Awolowo and during the crisis of the 1960s his salary was reduced to one penny per annum by the regime of Chief Ladoke Akintola, the Premier of the Western Region. Akinsanya’s heroic status did not stop Ajayi and his supporters from making demands from the Oba about the running of the town. Such was the courage of Ajayi.

In his closing years, he tried to bring peace to the divided House of Oduduwa, where the obas, unmindful of the impact of their public affrays on the progress of Yoruba land, were always finding reasons to disagree. Sir Olaniwun and his friend, Chief Ayo Adebanjo had given themselves the assignment to bring peace among leading Yoruba traditional rulers. A meeting was called at Premier Hotel, Ibadan, which did not produce the desired result. The late Ooni of Ife, Oba Okunade Sijuwade, as a sign of his great respect for Ajayi, agreed to come to Ishara to hold a peace meeting with Kabiyesi, Oba Sikiru Adetona, the Awujale of Ijebuland. The meeting was hosted by Ajayi in his country home. The meeting was not very successful. It was one of the few occasions when Ajayi, the Knight of John Wesley, knew he had lost a battle for peace.

Ajayi was a living library of Yoruba and national history. He wrote books, expressing his deep convictions and instructing future generations. His dedication never wavered. I thank God for the privilege of knowing Sir Olaniwun Ajayi.