In April 2023 when he turned 95, Afenifere leader, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, who died on Friday had an interview with Saturday Tribune. In that interview by Deputy Editor, SAM NWAOKO, Chief Adebanjo spoke for the first time on many issues surrounding his life and politics and what he thought of his eventual exit.
Chief, it is a great privilege to be 95 and this agile. How does it feel to be 95 years old sir?
I am grateful to God for it because I don’t know why, particularly that I am in good health. All my contemporaries are gone. I just give thanks to God because I don’t know but I know that being straightforward and consistent, particularly in your public life will give you rest of mind. Another fact is to be completely contented.
Some people took a second look at your photograph to agree that you were the one in the published photos. Their thought was that you look 59 or thereabouts. Is a secret to your energy?
No matter what you do, it’s just the grace of God. I can only say that I take a good diet, I take to physical exercise and I do all that is required for a healthy living. But my belief is that in spite of it all, but for the grace of God, I can’t be what I am. It is the grace of God that keeps me. I was asked this same question when I was 80. I was asked ‘what is your secret?’ when I was 90. One of the things is that I don’t harbour malice. I don’t pretend, when I don’t like you I say I don’t like you. I say it as it is. Whether you like it or not I will tell you the truth as I believe it. No malice, if I disagree with you I tell you and I will tell you why I disagree with you.
What is your average day like, how do you spend your normal day?
Of late since I’ve been above 80, I don’t wake up early. I don’t sleep early either because many a time, when many people have retired, that is when I get to see my papers. That is why some times I sleep at 7am. After dinner, I sleep off, I might wake up before 12 or 1am. I watch the TV too and, sometimes, before the news is finished, I might doze off. Sometimes I sleep intermittently and sleep properly only at early mornings. That is why I normally fix appointments in the early afternoon. Before I was 80, I was doing my regular morning exercise. I walk about a mile or two. I did my morning walk at the Bourdillon Bridge and when I was in Surulere, I kept to the routine so much that some of my children said I encouraged them by that.
In terms of food, do you have favourites? What is your diet like?
I don’t have a favourite, I eat anything but there are some things I enjoy just like anyone else. Anything properly cooked and tasty, I enjoy it. One of my friends saw me eating, he was surprised and he said ‘so, there is nothing you don’t eat?’ You know some old men avoid some things, that is why I said it is the grace of God.
When you unwind, what kind of music do you listen to and who are your favourite artistes?
When we were young, it was Sunny Ade and Ebenezer Obey, but before then, it was Ayinde Bakare. Then there were the Sakara groups from Osogbo and all that. That was a long time ago anyway because politics took from me a lot of what other young men took to. My close association with Chief Obafemi Awolowo has a great influence on my life. I was the pioneer Organising Secretary of the Action Group. I left grammar school in 1949 and joined the Action Group in 1950/51. I was employed in the civil service and I was attending the Egbe Omo Oduduwa. We were fighting then for the Northern Yoruba to be merged with the West; that is why I laugh at those who are just talking Yoruba, they don’t know how long we’ve come in that fight. By the time I became the full time Organising Secretary of the Action Group, I was very close to Chief Awolowo because I was attached to his constituency. I don’t come from Remo but many people think I come from Remo. I was the foundation secretary of the Action Group Youth Association which we formed in 1953 with Chief Remi Fani-Kayode, the father of Femi Fani-Kayode. That was the Youth Wing of the Action Group. We were the ones who adopted ‘Mosquito’. The party bought me a vehicle then and it was the late Fani-Kayode that got me Learner’s Permit. He said I could not be the youth secretary and couldn’t drive. He could not afford the time of driving me around Lagos. I was in the civil service with the Ikorodu Trading Company and with Daily Service as a journalist. At the Daily Service I was able to continue my activities as the secretary of Action Group Youth Association until the Action Group decided to employ a full time secretary. Up till 1951, all we were doing as Action Group Youth Association was like a free service. By 1954, they decided to employ full time secretaries from each division of the Western Region. They interviewed people but Chief S. L. Akintola told Chief Awolowo ‘don’t interview Ayo, you have to speak to him because he has been doing party work without receiving any money’. Party loyalists contributed money with which vehicles were bought for the organising secretaries. That was one of the reasons people said the Action Group was the best organised political party.
Who were your best friends with whom you rocked the city?
Politically I can’t remember but as school mates, church mates – we had that. As at that time I was a lone ranger about my youth because Action Group was not popular among the youths. In fact, when I was working for the Action Group, people said I was doing it so as to benefit from the scholarship being offered by the Action Group. Unfortunately, by the time they started the scholarship, I was never a beneficiary. But some of my friends then like the late Professor Tunde Oloko and Professor Onitiri benefitted. When I encouraged them to apply, they said they did not know anybody but I said no, Action Group is not like that, that they should go ahead and apply. Another young man, we were friends too, said he was an NCNC supporter and I told him to also apply. We didn’t do bitterness like these days. They thought except you knew somebody they would not give you. I advised him to apply for something that many people would not apply for and he did. He applied for Insurance and was granted. He was surprised. That was the beginning of the 200 scholarships of that era. We were the first political party in this country to offer such number of scholarships when we came in in 1952. The total scholarship offered by the colonial government at that time, including diploma was just above 100. The colonial education officer (a European) asked ‘where are you going to get the people to go to the university’? Chief Awolowo said never mind. And we were overwhelmed by the quantity of applications. There were so many qualified people. The white man asked again: where are you going to get the universities? We said if we don’t get in London, we go to Russia or China, anywhere we can get accommodation. Those were the things that bothered my life more. By the time I became the secretary to Chief Awolowo in Shagamu, whenever I came home, I must always brief him. He was in Ikenne; my office was in Shagamu, that was why I knew him inside out.
Chief Awolowo employed so many professionals across Nigeria, including myself. Chief Awolowo had been a champion of a united Nigeria long before these rascals came in. Members of the party like Lawyer Michael Omisade, Sir Olaniwun Ajayi and I worked all over Nigeria. I was sent to Maiduguri. I was there for a whole year. That is why I tell Buhari that he caused all these things. You cannot be preaching “one Nigeria” to me, if I didn’t believe in one Nigeria, why would I have gone to Borno? I was already a lawyer then in 1979 and we had already formed the government in Western Nigeria. Why did Chief Awolowo not ask us to stay back here? Some were sent to Kano, some to Jos – all over the country preaching the doctrine of the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN).
If you compare that experience of that time and what you see now, would you say our judicial system has improved?
Let’s take the politics first: we didn’t kill ourselves, we abhorred violence. We were preaching the policy of the party, telling the people why they should vote for us. We were selling our manifesto all over the country. At that time we had already performed wonders in the Western Region in the 50s before the military came in. The name Afenifere they are using is the name the Action Group was bearing in Yorubaland. The welfare programme of the Action Group was interpreted to our people to mean that we are ‘somebody who likes goodness for himself and for others.’
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It was not that perfect but it was not as bad as it is now. We had spectacular people but just as it is now too, as bad as the people might complain now, we still have some elements in the judiciary who still keep the dignity. But they are not as many as we had in those days. That is the truth. Those were the days judgement would be given and the minority judgement would be sound.
Your activism has come a long way. You were said to have lost a job in the Ministry of Health in Lagos because you were impolite to an expatriate. What would you regard as the greatest risk you had taken or the greatest cost you have borne because of activism?
It is nothing compared to believing in the freedom of Nigeria and the sanctity of good government as preached by Chief Awolowo. Mind you, I was a Zikist when I was in school because it was his activities that opened our eyes. Even Awolowo himself also confessed that he too was following the philosophy of Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe. We were following Zik through his newspaper, the West African Pilot. I started buying West African Pilot in 1942 when I was in Primary 5. I bought it with my pocket money. I would read Azikiwe’s column “Inside Storm by Zik”; Magnus Williams wrote “Between Ourselves”. I got my copy early in the morning and by the time I got to class at the Cathedral School, my teacher would ask ‘Adebanjo where is your paper?’ because they would supply his own around 9 or 10am. I stored all my copies of the paper in my mother’s shop. My mother used to sell sugar in pieces and all that. So when she wanted to sell cubes of sugar and would be looking for paper, people would show her my pile of papers and she would say ‘don’t touch it o!’ We grew political activism as prescribed by Zik to the extent that he had several football clubs at that time. There was Zik’s Athletics Club, Bombers, Spitfire and so on. Zik was a great man. He was in the heart of the youths teaching them how to drive the colonial masters away. The point of disagreement was after the McPherson Constitution which divided the country into East, West and the North. Before then, Awolowo had written a book called Path to Nigerian Freedom in which he said the system by which the colonial people were ruling Nigeria then cannot survive as a unitary form of government because of the multicultural, multilingual and multiethnic nature of the people of Nigeria. He said that we were not a nation but a geographical expression and that it must have a system of government whereby each nationality could develop at its own pace. That is what led to federalism. When he started to preach that, we departed from Azikiwe. We departed from Azikiwe on principle.
You must have taken risks as an activist or even in school as pranks. Which were your stand out risks?
I wasn’t particularly much into those. Even when I was in the grammar school, I was known mostly because I was very critical of the principal. We had something like civic education. The teacher would come you would discuss anything particularly as they affected the school. Our principal was so liberal that he would come to the class and say ‘tell me anything I am doing that is not right’. Each time he came to the classroom I was the only one who would speak on things I thought he was not doing right. I did it to the extent that some of my classmates said ‘Ayo you are taking a risk, the man will give you a bad testimonial’. But to their surprise, I had the best testimonial from that man. He praised me in the testimonial and ended it by saying “He is a strong character.” And people knew Reverend Kale then, he was not a man you could push around. He later became Canon, then a Bishop. He was critical of politicians at that time, particularly Azikiwe and we were following Azikiwe at that time. He could see some of the faults of Azikiwe but we didn’t see it. It was that federal system that separated me from Azikiwe. I was a Zikist before.
When you left Chief S.O. Gbadamosi at Ikorodu and became a journalist, was it to further your activism or was it to seek greener pasture?
I left because I said I wanted to do journalism. I went to work with Daily Service newspaper. Then, S.O. Shonibare, one of the founders of the Action Group was the managing director of Amalgamated Press. Those were the founders of the Action Group so when these people talk about Yoruba struggle I laugh. They are now telling me things they didn’t know how it started. That is why many times, I just don’t reply them. It was when I was there as the central secretary of the youth association that Chief Awolowo spoke to Shonibare that he wanted me to be organising secretary. After I was appointed the organising secretary, I wasn’t released from Daily Service to go and resume. So, it was from there that I went to Shagamu to rsume as the organising secretary of the party. It was at that time that the Amalgamated Youths was formed. I never worked with the Tribune; I worked at Daily Service with Bisi Onabanjo as the Editor.
You still look very handsome sir. We wonder if women still make passes at you or you at them?
Well, I won’t deny that I was a smart boy when I was in grammar school. To be candid, my classmates called me “Demon Chaser” and not only that, I was the neatest of my classmates and in the school so much so that they also called me “Spotless Magus”. Even my canvass shoes were so spotless that one of my teachers gave me his own to treat for him like I did mine. Then, we used runner shows with blue tape around the sole. When they nugget their own, they covered the blue tapering but when I did mine, I would cover the blue to be so distinct. I was noted for that and by that I had a lot of admirers and received a lot of admiration from girls. I walked together with some girls from Idumota to Odunlami and people thought… Anyway, I had my youthful days as a young man and I did all the rascality a young man can do. But when I became the Organising Secretary, I did it so perfectly that Chief Awolowo did not know and regarded me as an angel because I did not joke with my job. As a young man I had my time but what I learnt most was when to stop. The moral stature of Chief Awolowo and the moral stature of Canon Kale at the grammar school had a lot of influence on me.
It is five years to your centenary, what should Nigeria expect from you? Are you going to take a break from public life?
That is not possible. Until I am buried in the grave I won’t stop and I took that from Chief Awolowo. When we asked him are you going to retire, he would say no, “when I’m in the grave I will still be tall fighting”. We didn’t know what he meant at that time. He is dead now but is there any day people don’t mention the name Awolowo? Oh, Awolowo did this! Oh, Awolowo did that! That is what I’m doing. I’m a lone ranger now. “He doesn’t like Tinubu” “He is against a Yoruba man” “He is against Igbo man” I don’t go the popular way that is not good. We always chart a path for the future. By the time Chief Awolowo founded the Action Group, how many people followed him in the Western Region, including the obas? Some of them are talking now, how many of them followed Chief Awolowo. It was when we won election in 1951 and we began to do the wonders of development and education and everything, everybody now started saying ‘all of us are Afenifere’. That is why some people confuse Afenifere with Egbe Omo Oduduwa which Chief Awolowo founded with Sir Adeyemo Alakija in 1938 before the founding of Action Group. Egbe Omo Oduduwa was founded to unite the Yorubas. Egba, Ijebu and so on, all of us were so scattered, Egbe Omo Oduduwa brought everybody together and that was what preceded the Action Group. When politics came and the question of dividing the country into three came in, Chief Awolowo said we could not fight the war under a cultural organisation because there are certain principles that must guide us. And that time, it was NCNC that was all over the place and what we stand for was different from what they stood for. Those were the days of politics of principle. It was the principles and manifesto that we used to defeat the NCNC in the Western Region. We never killed ourselves, we never did murder. That was why I could not celebrate my 95th birthday.
Is it because of how things are now?
Are the people happy? The country is not happy. The Bible says when the righteous are in power the people rejoice. Who will say so now, including the Obas who are shouting around? How many people are happy in the country? It was in their presence that they killed and murdered. People who want to become president or governor committing murder in your domain and you keep mute because of dollars and think it’s alright? It is not right. The judgement will come. God is a God of justice.
Credit: Nigerian Tribune