Clark, the man who saved my life; Adebanjo, the quintessential federalist, a reminiscence
- Clark, the man who saved my life; Adebanjo, the quintessential federalist, a reminiscence
- Pa Edwin Kiagbodo Clark and Pa Ayo Adebanjo
By Ikechukwu Amaechi
Nigerians have been falling over themselves eulogising two of the country’s elder statesmen who passed away recently. It is as if there is a national essay competition to determine who will pen the most moving panegyric. Citizens have been regaled with heartfelt tributes that share memories, stories and achievements of Chiefs Ayo Adebanjo and Edwin Clark.
To be sure, Adebanjo and Clark – two of a kind – were all that have been said about them, and even more. They were not only greatness, grace and patriotism personified, but also positive forces for change in Nigeria; men who lived lives of great impact. And their departure at such a critical time has created a gaping void.
But despite their incredible achievements, both men are going to their graves with regrets at what Nigeria has become. As Pa Adebanjo told me on the eve of his 95th birthday, “I am still in the trenches because the country is not what I fought for.” What he and fellow compatriots fought for was a country that will work for all. That remains an illusion.
Both men were blessed with longevity. In a country where life expectancy hovers in the 50s, it takes the grace of God to become a nonagenarian. Born on April 10, 1928, Chief Adebanjo died on Friday, February 14, 2025, less than two months from his 97th birthday. Pa Clark, who also died at 97 was only eleven months older, having been born on May 25, 1927.
In the course of my journalistic odyssey, I encountered both men and Pa Edwin Clark actually saved my life in 1997. I will come back to that shortly.
Chief Adebanjo who was born barely six years after the Clifford Constitution and the first legislative elections in Nigeria, lived through the finest and ugliest moments of Nigeria’s history – the constitutional conferences, struggle for independence, party politics leading to independence, the civil war, military rule, return to democracy, the struggle for the protection of democracy, and the bigger struggle of ensuring the development of Nigeria. He joined the struggle early in 1943 as a Zikist, but in 1951, he became a member of the youth wing of the Action Group, and a mentee, political disciple of Chief Obafemi Awolowo. That became the defining moment of his life.
As a young journalist at the Independent Communications Network Limited (ICNL) – publishers of TheNews/TEMPO magazine, AM News and PM News – in 1996, the Western House building on 8-10 Broad Street, Lagos, was quite significant. TheNews was embedded in the pro-democracy struggle and Western House was the de facto headquarters of the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO).
Many of the NADECO chieftains engaged in a mortal battle with the military junta of General Sani Abacha, had office in that complex. It became a natural destination for journalists seeking for news. Chief Adebanjo’s office was on the third floor. When you start from there and climb up to the offices of Senator Kofoworola Bucknor-Akerele – a lawyer, who became deputy governor of Lagos State in 1999, and Chief Ganiyu Olawale Dawodu, popularly known as G.O.D. – your day would have been made.
In those days, I developed a strong liking for Adebanjo because he was an interviewer’s delight, shooting from the hip. I remember doing a story in the TEMPO titled, ‘June 12: The Saints and Villains’. He was one of the ‘saints.’ Once when I went to his office, he gave me a ride back to Ogba.
When I left TheNews magazine for The Diet newspaper in 1997, I lost contact with him until February 9, 2022 when I sat down, once again, with the now 93-year-old man in his Lagos home for a two-hour interview. Of course, a lot had changed over the years but he still had a razor-sharp mind. He had become ideologically very rigid and unbendable. He had become distrustful of journalists, who he claimed had been compromised. Sooner, the interview deteriorated into a dogfight. There was a whiff of frustration and he spoke about death in a way he didn’t even in those days of thunder and trepidation.
Chief Adebanjo insisted that Nigeria was at a crossroads and needed to be restructured urgently. He dismissed the 1999 Constitution as a big fraud that was at the root of all the country’s woes. “Talk about any problem you can think of in this country today and you will find out that it has to do with this Constitution,” he intoned gravely.
Unless the constitution was changed and the country restructured, the 2023 election would be “an exercise in futility,” he said. “Tell me that Ayo Adebanjo is talking nonsense, it does not concern me. When it will happen, I may have gone but you will be around and you will remember that I said it… I am pitying your generation because I am done. At 94, what I am expecting now is my funeral dirge. Baba rele! That is the song they sing for an old man they are going to bury.”
But when I sat down again with him one year after on February 13, 2023, a few days before the February 25, 2023 presidential election, he had slightly moderated his position.
Apparently, he was taken in by the dubious promises of the INEC chairman, Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu. “I am hopeful,” he said. A credible election will bequeath the country with a Peter Obi presidency, he intoned. And when that happens, “The first thing that Obi will do when he gets into office is to call all the ethnic groups together and agree on a Constitution. Any other thing to the contrary, there will be chaos… If we don’t enthrone fairness, equity and justice which the Obi presidency will represent, all our problems will continue.”
Asked if he was being harassed by the Nigerian state because of his very strong views, he smiled: “They know that I am ready for them. Most governments in this country imprisoned me. I am a jailbird. I was involved in the Awolowo treasonable felony trial. Abacha detained me. You remember they said we killed Abiola’s wife. And when we were holding a reception for Ambassador Walter Carrington in my house, they came there and broke the place… I think they have given up on me. They must be telling themselves, that old man, he will soon go.
“I have every reason to be grateful to God. My leader – Awolowo – was only 78 years when he died. Ajasin who followed him was only 88, Adesanya who followed him was 88. My friend and colleague, Olanihun Ajayi, was 92. I will be 95 years in April 2023. Why should I not thank God? It is only the funeral dirge that I am waiting for now. If I die now and my children say, oh, the devil has done his worst, will you not laugh at them? So, anybody who is trying to attack or kill me is just wasting his time.”
Now, back to Chief Clark. As the Features Editor of The Diet, I went to Delta State at the height of the internecine Itsekiri, Ijaw crisis to do a special report. The conflict broke out following a government decision that changed the location of the Warri South West Local Government Council headquarters to the Itsekeri community of Ogidigben from the Ijaw town of Ogbe Ijoh.
Having spent five days in Warri, I had spoken to all the people that mattered, except one – Chief Edwin Clark. But there was a snag. He had relocated to his ancestral riverine community of Kiagbodo. But it was inconceivable to do a story on the crisis without talking to the de facto Ijaw leader. My Warri correspondent, Monday Whiskey, a very resourceful reporter, volunteered to take me to Kiagbodo to see Chief Clark. It was a shot in the dark but we hit the target, nevertheless by not only meeting him at home, but also getting an incredible interview even without prior appointment.
Today, that my correspondent is His Majesty King Obukowho Monday Whiskey, Uduehie 1, the Ovie of Idjerhe Kingdom, a first class traditional ruler in Delta State.
All through my stay in Warri, Ogbe Ijoh market was on everyone’s lips. Claimed by both warring groups, the market had become a theatre of war. When we came back from Kiagbodo, I decided to visit the market before going back to Lagos the next day. When I got to the entrance where soldiers mounted a barricade, I identified myself, explained my mission and they let me in. I had no premonition of any danger. But as soon as I got to the middle of the market, far away from where the soldiers were, I was surrounded by a horde of youths with bloodshot eyes.
Even as I write, 28 years after, I still have not figured out where they emerged from. Brandishing very dangerous weapons, they asked me what I was doing there and I explained to them as I did to the soldiers. They demurred and accused me of being an Itsekiri spy. I froze in fear remembering the many headless bodies on the streets of Warri.
Then remembering Pa Clark, I asked them if it was possible for his friend to be an Ijaw enemy. That seemed to have worked. I pressed further, telling that I was coming from Kiagbodo and Clark told me to visit the market. When they asked for evidence, I whipped out my tape recorder and played back the interview. The sound of his voice which they apparently recognized worked magic. They were disarmed, literally.
It was a narrow escape. Had I gone to the hotel before visiting the Ogbe Ijoh market, I would have probably dropped the tape recorder and I may not have come out of that market alive. The sound of Pa Edwin Clarke’s voice saved my life. Incidentally, that was the first and last time I met him in person.
Since Pa Ayo Adebanjo and Chief Edwin Clark passed away, Nigerians have been talking about how best to immortalise them. There are suggestions of national monuments being named after them. I have nothing against that. They deserve all for their labour of love and great service to fatherland. But from my interaction with both men, particularly Adebanjo, a man who never aspired to any public office, either elected or appointed, the most enduring way to immortalise them is to enthrone equity, fairness and justice by restructuring Nigeria in a way that the country works for all.
