Paper delivered by the Governor of the State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, in honour of Professor Bade Onimode, late Deputy Vice Chancellor of the University of Ibadan, Nigeria,on Saturday 10th December, 2011 at Lokoja, Kogi State.
Protocols,
REMEMBERING PROFESSOR BADE ONIMODE.
THE SPARKS SET OFF BY OLA ONI
I belong to a generation of direct beneficiaries of the labour and ideas of the pioneer leftwing academics who taught and fought in the struggles for the socialist transformation of Nigeria, guided by the thoughts of Marx, Engels and Lenin, adapted to the concrete conditions of Nigeria. This fine circle of leaders was the core of the Left movement at Ibadan inspired by the open, courageous, hard working, resourceful, and Spartan Comrade Ola Oni. We were inspired and educated by this circle of leading lights of the movement that included Comrade and Professor Bade Onimode, the effable, cerebral, suave, courageous organic intellectual and protégé of Ola Oni. To remember Bade Onimode is to recall and critically re-examine the story of the formation of that generation of student leaders of the Left (to which I belonged) and on whose shoulders fell the burden of leading the movement at Ibadan after the catastrophe of ‘Ali Must Go’, the wholesale removal in one single day of the most advanced sections in thought and praxis of the Nigerian Left (my categorisation). This is the story of a most-critical period in our development and our emergence, evolution and ascendancy in the leftist student movement and leading up to where we are today. Our emergence is inextricably linked to that tragic and unjust expulsion of the movement’s leading lights, who were all based in the higher institutions in Ibadan. The leadership, schooled in the grand tradition of leftwing debate: studied public criticism, grand standing and propaganda did not ponder much its weakness, until that event. It was now forced by the undisguised tyranny of General Obasanjo’s military rule to ‘go underground’, working quietly and becoming generally more cautious and alert to its many vulnerabilities, including security, one-way strategy, financial and organizational. Literally, we (the stub that was now left of the movement) had to learn to stay hidden in plain sight. This compelling situation imposed a burden on us to become more intelligent and more strategic, rather than to remain sacrificial saints, (no more show-boating), and to pose the question concretely for the first time about our simplistic and noisy debates on “tactics and strategy” on the pages of newspaper. We now must pose more damning questions about our self-awareness, direction, etc and examine the movement’s survivability, once taken for granted, tough questions for a student-movement. We soon recognized that we were now the movement’s engines, but now of fractional horsepower, and dispersed; we were visible but we must choose anonymity, guise and coordinated tactics as the keys to survival, not bravado. We knew we had to dig deep into the texts and liaise more actively but not always openly to quicken our education and organising skills. That burden fell squarely on GG, Jimi Adesina, Dan and Olanubi, and demanded to criss-cross the land for kindred spirits. We were present but chose to not be seen, until our time would come (when overwhelming necessity of action compelled identification). For, were the movement to lose its young, budding and inexperienced second line leaders, it would have perished and gone into oblivion, left with cadres with insufficient grasp of Marxist theory, and who could be respected and trusted by the seniors now forced into limbo. Literally we were holding the x-ray to our bodies in self examination. Who really are we? What are we up to and what would it take? How helpful is our approach to the situation? How do we cope relying on our lean resources? Are we being creative, thinking and acting right in the direction of our objectives? What are we not doing right? It was a time of soul searching in the Left. All of a sudden, from the euphoria of public debate and public action we retreated and learnt to reconfigure for effectiveness, not merely media noise. It would appear that we have been all along only a bunch of brash, young and “radical” publicists enjoying our fantasies and a larger-than-life media presence, but little prepared for the realities of the daunting struggle to change society, until this turning point event. We had come to the ultimate question and challenge: how to change one’s self (first), in order to change society meaningfully. The new generation of very young leaders rose to the challenge and eventually deepened the movement’s roots and appeal and groomed their successors, many of whom continued along the line of the publicist-cadre and would become better known. And thanks to the yearly Ife Book fair. Always resourceful, finding solutions to daunting problems, Comrade Ola Oni revved up the Socialist and Progressive Books, and 5 Odeku Close, Bodija, Ibadan never diminished but the bare furniture took more bashing and his wonderful wife Mrs Kehinde Ola Oni was ever ready to receive and attend to the needs of any number of itinerant visitors, good and evil. The known and proven comrades were assured of a place to lay their heads when stranded in the sprawling universe of Ibadan.
BADE ONIMODE IN THE CONTEXT OF OUR STRUGGLES TO CHANGE NIGERIA GROWING CONSCIOUSNES THROUGH A LEARNING-CENTRED CULTURE
The name Bade Onimode, Professor, leading Marxist political economist, intellectual of high standing and a natural leader among his peers, still evokes positive emotions for our generation. We were a generation first lured and excited to radical and later revolutionary thought by the many rancorous debates and symposia organized virtually weekly by the remarkable Black Nationalist Movement and the Marxist Socialist Youth Movement at Ibadan, the shapers-in-chief of campus public opinion in the 70s and early 80s. The crisis and trauma following the killing of Kunle Adepeju, a student not actually involved in the protest of that fateful February day in 1972, not far from the UI Library, aroused from slumber a new generation of Nigerian students formally used to compliant (obsequious) conduct. They became assertive and amenable to marshalling by enchanting leaders, who resolutely rallied students and society behind the banner of Scientific Socialism and Pan-Africanism, even though few had clear ideas about what it really meant. The generation soon began finding and making a steady stream of fine, persuasive, committed, sometimes truculent and most of all courageous debaters and intellectuals that had ever trodden the Nigerian soil. They represented several academic disciplines and fields like in the heydays of the Greek Democracy, assuredly attracting and holding spell-bound large crowds of students and teachers alike, toward socialist ideas, like a compelling magnetic force that soon became regular fixtures of campus life. Plain hand-written posters were the means of announcing and publicising the big debates and symposia on the campus, and every new poster on the wall, (and we had many) immediately drew crowds in throngs and riveted their attention to the next feast of words, words that struck a chord the young generation of the 1970s students and won their hearts and attention of the relatively young teachers (and still resonates today decades after). We were gradually drawn into critical thinking and examination of the world (Our Divided World), of our society (Africa in History), and later of our own very lives (The role of the educated youth in the transformation of society). The members of the inner circle (cells) would get more tutoring on the works of Herskovits, Maurice Confort, ‘Three Sources of Marx’s Thought’, Mandel’s ‘Marxist Economic Theory’ Theory of Surplus Value, ‘The Manifesto of the Communist Party’, ‘Lenin on Religion’, ‘The Path Played by Labour in the Ascent from Ape to Man’, Criticism and Self-criticism, Frantz Fanon (Wretched of the Earth), Amilcar Cabral (PAIGC African Liberation), and many more texts, including combined volumes of the turgid works of Marx, Engels and Lenin, and texts from Mao Zedong (Yenan Forum on Literature; Remembering Dr Norman Bethune; Little Red Book). From Zed Publishers UK flowed in pamphlets of Ernesto Guevara’s works on the Socialist Transformation of Man; Intercontinental Press (Journal of the CP USA); Theory & Practice; all were voraciously consumed as the struggle rapidly became our very lives. Some of us even contemplated taking the struggle full time! Thanks to Comrade Ola Oni who had persuaded us against such a course- the Revolution will need you to man Industry and Technology, Comrade, ah don’t do that! Such was the commitment of that generation in the face of the catastrophe. Bade Onimode and all members of that circle served the people’s cause with so much commitment we were ready to give up our career on realising the enormity of the work thrust upon us at the time.
BADE ONIMODE AS WE KNEW HIM
SPEAKER, TEACHER AND MENTOR
That movement brought in speakers and teachers from diverse fields but honed in the radical tradition, with only one vision- the radical transformation of Nigeria. A movement whose intellectual wing, and invariably its foundation, was laid in Ibadan by none other than the mentor of many radical leftwing intellectuals, Comrade Ola Oni, the evangelistic, ascetic purveyor of the socialist vision of the ideal society, the Ekiti-born anti-capitalist high flier from King’s College, Lagos who had just returned from the crucible of leftwing British intellection, The London School of Economics and became a lecturer in the Faculty of Social Science, University of Ibadan in 1961. Ola Oni, simple, very accessible, calm, self effacing, self-assured intellectual power- house of the Nigerian Left, lit the socialist torch in UI, the light of which attracted a small number of devoted followers in Ibadan. Ola Oni taught the course ‘Marxist Economic Theory’ by Ernest Mandel, an elective from which many students indoctrinated to treat Communism with suspicion bothering on fear kept their distance. One important exception was the courageous Bade Onimode (‘Bade’) as Comrade Oni fondly called his most devoted student, the notable one who had the courage to enrol. Others were soon to follow as the balance of social forces began to shift in favour of new strange ideas that many had in the past generation distanced themselves from out of fear. He would feature in many student union symposia that gained for him increasing audience and soon became the natural first port of call for those with alternative world views.
CLOSE COLLABORATORS & NOTABLE CHAMPIONS OF STRUGGLE
UNIVERSITY OF IBADAN
Dr Akin Ojo, Olu Agunloye, Laoye Sanda, Biodun Jeyifo, Eddy Madunagu, Niyi Osundare, Lara Leslie, Godwin Darah, Jimi Adesina, (these were first, students, and later, Lecturers in UI). Omafume Onoge joined the Faculty of Social Science from Harvard University in 1974. Notable transient figures in Ibadan circle: Zondo Sakala (ZANU scholar in the late 70s and later Resident Representative of the African Development Bank about 2004 -6); Jonathan Zwungina 1977, Senator 1999 to 2003, and Gboyega Adeyefa who moved over from The Polytechnic, Ibadan in the mid-80s. Seeking new horizons some of these moved to various institutions and joined the stems of the movement they found or started up from scratch. The Ola Oni circle collaborated with groups far and wide in Nigeria to support their efforts and to exchange ideas.
OBAFEMI AWOLOWO UNIVERSITY
Dr Segun Osoba, Biodun Jeyifo, Dipo Fashina, Toye Olorode, GG Darah, Femi Taiwo, and several more were the academic core.
Notables in the student core over the years: Femi Taiwo, Dapo Olorunyomi, Owei Lakemfa, Femi Falana, Lanre Arogundade, and many more.
UNIVERSITY OF LAGOS
The staff core of the movement in the University of Lagos: Dr Akin Oyebode, Opeyemi Ola Ebenezer Babatope, were notable.
UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA, NSUKKA
Further afield other poles were forming around Comrade Ikenna Nzimiro
UNIVERSITY OF CALABAR: Dr Eskor Toyo and the Madunagu Pair, ever so dedicated spurned several protégés through unceasing activities. AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY ZARIA
Late Yusuf Bala Usman and Ntiem Kongwai, Yusufu Abdurahman, Kabir Yusuf, Tanko Abdulai, and others.
KANO: 45 BELLO DANDAGO ROAD: Baba & Sally Omojola paired to mentor several cadres and created a natural base for dissemination ideas to the fruits and flowers of the coming revolution.
MATURING EFFORTS
A whole movement grew up under the wings of Ola Oni, his cohorts and his protégés, leading up to the linking of efforts across the country’s higher institutions, and to the eventual formation of the Patriotic Youth Movement. With Labour Education as his forte, Ola Oni, always found ways to link hands with Labour, and Farmers Movement- the Agbekoya in Ibadan (under Chief Tafa Adeoye). All the leg work, organizing skills, and amazing courage of conviction and doggedness required were never in short supply from Comrade Ola Oni and his loyal protégé and political economist, Bade Onimode, Sociologist, Laoye Sanda, always following in tow with the research work, propaganda writing falling on the Literary Critics, BJ, GG working into the deep night for several days to make sure a publication, press release, or a major socio-economic thesis was churned out in response to an issue from the student movement, workers, farmers, Government, the international arena, the socialist countries, etc. The zenith of this activism and for the entire movement was and remains the All Nigeria Socialist Conference in Zaria, 1977 and thereafter the individual egos made an issue of every little point of difference. The Socialist Working People’s Party of Comrade Dapo Fatogun, and later the Socialist Party of Workers, Farmers and Youths was formed by Comrade Ola Oni following the split. A personality often barely mentioned and when mentioned is given a secondary role is the late Marxist lawyer and past President Alao Aka-Bashorun, by far the most popular and principled past President of the Nigerian Bar Association, provided financial support to the movement across the board regardless of the cleavage. That is the awkward price paid for anonymity, and quiescence in every generation. The socialists were never obsequious servitors, never timid, and never short of sophisticated reasons why not, but always short on reasons why they should choose to work together. This was strength but it also constituted one of the movement’s main weaknesses-no one wants to be seen to back down in an argument, public or private. Where everybody is so bright and tenacious in the defence of their favourite thing, chaos is never far off.
BACKDROPS TO THE DYNAMIC CAMPUS LIFE OF THE 1970s
These debates, which backdrop was the social ferment that had been brewing in Nigerian society following the catastrophic civil war, ended in 1970, the predatory manoeuvrings among the ruling elite that precipitated it, and the war’s aftermath that made the military the lords of Nigeria the consequences of which concretised in successions of oppressive and murderous rulers, and bottomed in the demonised rule of General Abacha and the ironic effect of draconian and murderous rule that galvanised the dead collective conscience of Nigerians and finally re-energised our dulled senses and re-awakened the pro-democracy movement.
The unrelenting criticisms against military rule, the ever resonating calls for more equitable distribution of the benefit accruing from the ballooning proceeds from crude oil exports to a broader segment of society led to robust debates for free education nationwide, democratic governance of university education. General Gowon’s reneging on his promise to return Nigeria to civilian rule in 1973 led to mass demonstrations in the leading higher institutions of learning and the three big cities of the West, Ibadan, Lagos and Benin and gradually Zaria. The call for democratic governance followed the rapid succession of military coups resulting from ambitions to gain political ascendancy over rivals in the power usurpation game as the means to control the national treasure chest. The resulting instability from the constant threat of coups had made military rule so risky even to the usurpers that the military yielded ground and set itself a date to return to the
Barracks to allow its generals to retire to enjoy in peace the wealth they had accumulated.
MURTALA MOHAMMED AND THE SPEECH AT THE OAU ‘AFRICA HAS COME OF AGE’
Murtala Mohammed’s regime which supplanted that of Gowon indulged in populist radicalism: the purges in the corrupt bureaucracy, backing Nigeria’s foreign policy with the power of petro-naira by stamping Nigeria’s authority position as the Black World’s most populous nation, calling the bluff of colonialists and racists in Southern Africa, and generally backing all nations who were seeking independence from proxy and direct colonial rule. The zenith of this radical posturing was the speech at the Organization of African Unity (OAU) summit in Addis Ababa in 1975 which radically changed Nigeria’s political alignment and gradually accelerated the internal political orientation in favour of radical, socialist world-view. Nigeria had entered into a definitive support for the liberation movement across Southern Africa. The Ibadan circle linked up with Mohammed to support his radical vision by liaising with the liberation movements. This would soon lead to an influx of students and representatives of the liberation movements from South Africa, Namibia, Angola, Zimbabwe, principally, and more concrete support for the liberation struggles. Mohammed was assassinated by the imperialist inspired reactionary international plot which main goal was to truncate the radical direction that Nigeria was towing and thus prolong the stranglehold on Africa.
STRUGGLE FOR CIVILIAN DEMOCRATIC RULE
The Constitution Drafting Committee of (50 minus 1) wise men was set up to write a military ordered Constitution for us. Nigerians were now more reflective about the tragic course of our history and were determined to take power out of the hands of the anti-democratic forces. The entire process without a doubt, nudged and compelled us toward the formation of a coherent world view, and formulating our own construct of the world as it then was, and creating our dreams for what the future should be, and challenging us to build that world. In other words, we learnt to articulate our own alternative perspectives on life in the underdeveloped neo-colonial reality that Nigeria was in our days growing up, and worse still today, in our mature adult life.
The stimulating cerebral, and challenging postulations issuing forth from the many weekly discourses, debates, symposia that always pitched the establishment academics in the fast-paced battles of wit and grit conducted virtually on weekly basis and built on the podium in the North Campus Assembly Hall. For us in the movement that was the public show, we had more direct exchanges in Room GD1 at the ideological classes of the MSYM when we took lessons on the Dialectics: Logic, Philosophy, History, Economics, and Nature. Sooner the works of the great men who were our ideological teachers and models would become permanent public fixtures as the Nigerian crisis of underdevelopment deepened beyond easy remedy and cosmetics.
THE MOVEMENT IN IBADAN: TWO BRANCHES OF THE SAME TREE
Both the Marxist Socialist and the Progressive Pan-Africanist movements (Black Nationalist Movement) started out in the University of Ibadan. That act of courage in response to the turning point event (the killing of Kunle Adepeju in 1972) helped to radicalise the students’ movement in both the University and the Polytechnic. Late Banji Adegboro and his late cohort Solomon Agunbiade (Chairman Mao) were the leaders in UI. The Polytechnic, Ibadan caught the bug in the same year of the felling in cold blood of Kunle Adepeju, 1972. It launched out immediately after the Nkrumah Day celebration in Lagos where Comrade Ola Oni and his circle of young academics (Bade Onimode, Laoye Sanda, Omafume Onoge, Akin Ojo, Adebisi, and others) were in the fore front of this ground-breaking endeavour, as usual. Our many symposia featured late Tai Solarin, Ebenezer Babatope, Chief Arifayan, Bisi Morafa, and others.
THE POLYTECHNIC, IBADAN
Danladi Oladele (Lado) a Polytechnic Building Engineering student who was present at the 1972 Nkrumah Day celebration in Lagos, brought the news leading to the move to inaugurate the BNM Polytechnic Branch. The first President was Egunjobi (Electrical Engineering student) and the General Secretary was a lady, Dupe Ajayi-Gbadebo (the well known TV broadcaster in 1990s). The Polytechnic Ibadan Chapter had the likes of Civil engineer Peter Esione, Tosin Awonusi, Tunde Adewunmi, Segun Odegbami, Danladi (Lado) as founding members of the movement at the South Campus. The Basic Studies students would join two years later in 1974 when the Higher Schools were stepped back and in its place A-Level programmes were consolidated in the Polytechnic, Ibadan, thus bringing together many of the bright students from secondary schools in the West in one place for a taste of higher education! In the same year 1974, barely two years after the founding of the BNM, there was a bloody conflict between the traditional owners of the Poly (the Professionals) and the new and larger population of no-holds-barred young men just out of secondary school (the Basics). The conflict led to the unification of the Students Union as one entity and its formal recognition through a single all-embracing Constitution (Your Polytechnic Hand Book, 1975), leading to a more vibrant campus life. More female students enrolled in the ‘A’ Levels Commerce & Communications and Natural (Biology, Chemistry) courses, dramatically raising the female presence in the then almost male only Polytechnic. This had a salutary effect on student life and increased the number of ears attentive to radical Pan-Africanist and Socialist ideas canvassed by young persons like themselves. The UI-Poly interactions drew in radical leftwing ideas from the University teachers and enabled the desire for debate and excitement common to young people when not repressed to blossom, and from this point forward a new and younger generation was drawn into the struggle at the Poly end. This was where we caught the sparks from Ola Oni which were being rekindled by his protégé and former student Comrade Laoye Sanda who taught the General Studies course on the Evolution of Human Societies, an application of the socialist theory of Historical Materialism, (Dialectics and Philosophy was left for the faithful who would soon be joining the Marxist Socialist Movement in room GD1 or Small Auditorium). This little auditorium was also the inaugural place of election into the Students Representative Council (SRC). The first notable and genuinely leftwing student in the SRC was Comrade Ayo Oladipo Ajayi (1976/77 Deputy Speaker), nominated by another (Abimbola Daniyan) for Speaker position but was defeated by one vote by Shina Agboluaje. Next came Rauf Aregbesola (Speaker 1977/78) and thus began the real consolidation of the radical and socialist orientation of the Student movement as the MSYM and BNM gained more and more influence on students’ politics. Key figures in the development of the movement in the Poly included enthusiastic staff advisers and mentors: Laoye Sanda, GG Darah, Bade Onimode, and Omafume Onoge. Its first leaders were Jinadu, Gbenga Awosode, Dipo Ogunmolu, Ayo Ajayi, Abimbola Daniyan, Rauf Aregbesola, Bola Babalakin, Gbaye Olanubi, Femi Aborisade, late Kunle Bakare (Bakunsin) and many more. Fela Anikulapo Kuti had a special relationship with us and in 1979, a few months after another devastating criminal assault- the burning down of Fela’s Kalakuta Republic, the BNM and MSYM invited Fela to deliver his ground-breaking lecture on African civilisation and the Nkrumah Pan-Africanist vision. That lecture changed the perspective of those Marxists who did not think much about the value of Black Historical and Cultural heritage and achievements. The movement led in the pioneering and innovative strike action of the Nigerian Polytechnics (the struggle before Ali Must Go) the 1977 mass pack-out by students of polytechnics nation-wide in protest against the watering down of the polytechnics’ study Curricula following the forced introduction of the now moribund Nigerian National Diploma. The action lasted 3months of sustained campaign and Government had to reverse its decision. Neither death nor property damage was suffered in the process. The movement had become prolific and an influence for good in students affairs and gradually became a major force in the Poly. Dipo Ogunmolu was PRO in 1975/76. Finally, one of its own won the top spot of the Students’ Union as President following the crisis-induced exit of the only student to ever occupy the two top spots of the Polytechnic Students’ Union, Shina Agboluaje: Speaker of the House (1976/77) and President (1978/79). Abimbola Daniyan succeeded Agboluaje and we revolutionised every aspect of Poly life for good, a legacy we all look back on with excitement and an inspiration for our present and future work. The movement whose sparks were lit by Ola Oni’s coming into UI in 1961 groomed many stars and above all created over several generations a network of committed and inspired fighters for justice that has yet to be replicated in Nigeria. Bade Onimode was one of us and he never bid these shores farewell for good until he breathed his last. He was resourceful, he saw and found different ways to reach his goal. He was a committed and inspired fighter in the mould of true worthy pioneers- they never give up. This movement was only defeated by the wholesale destruction of the Nigerian economy through rampant theft, interminable devaluation of the naira, consequences of which many in the intelligentsia could not cope with and having no other trades to ply took their brains elsewhere, or simply put, they defected with reasons.
CROSSING PATHS WITH BADE ONIMODE
PUBLIC DEBATES AND TELEVISION ENCOUNTERS WITH BADE ONIMODE
Comrade Onimode’s work would put him in front of world audiences at conferences, in his books, and his constructive response in search of viable answers to the crisis of Africa: famine in Ethiopia, economic dislocation of the States of the Sahel, and generalised crisis, including the crisis in advanced capitalist economies and the final straw, the collapse of the Soviet economy and now the crisis of socialism which hitherto was the ideal pursued in all our discourses. The Chinese in fact published in China Reconstructs an article that made many in the Ibadan circle to say the least shy away from debating the two systems- titled ‘Re-understanding Capitalism’. Ordinarily, that would have been dismissed as ‘revisionism’, but matters had come to a head, academics could no longer pay their ways to conferences, or afford bare necessities. As the saying goes when the stomach holds its compelling debates there is little time for sterile argument. Many emigrated, faced with crisis of inexplicable proportions. Now, most directly Nigeria’s underdevelopment despite her overwhelming endowment in human and material resources must get the attention of Bade Onimode’s brilliant mind. He rose to the occasion, giving many of us socialists on leave something to get excited about again, as he punctured one monetarist argument after the other in the heydays of Reaganomics and Thatcherism, and the debate about IMF loan for Nigeria.
FUEL SUBSIDY DEBATE 2011: WHAT WOULD BE BADE ONIMODE’s POSITION?
The raging debate on the proposal being championed by the Federal Government to remove the assumed subsidy on petroleum fuels provides us a unique and ideal opportunity to explore with insight what would be Professor Bade Onimode’s position were he to be here today. The purported goal of subsidy removal is to plug leakages and promote efficiency of resource utilization, a desirable end without a doubt. But is this really so?
First, all economic systems foster one form of subsidy or the other, no matter what the puritan economics may say. Marxism asserts with sound logic the implausibility of pure economics, economics makes sense only in the context of the political environment governing it, and it cannot therefore be isolated from the living realities of a society, and thus what we are really talking about is political economy. The matter of who determines or has the power to allocate or arrogate value to commodity is therefore, intertwined with politics as we see in Nigeria today. Energy is the key to mobility, to transportation, and in a barely functioning (dysfunctional?) economy like Nigeria’s, riddled with corruption; all seems to be fair in the raging class warfare of unequal access. Energy’s role is so overarching that it plays more than an arterial role in our economy and polity, and where there is an unequal distribution of power among various classes and segments of society you can expect an unequal bang for the buck that passes around in the system. Energy is the life blood by which the many inequities have been cushioned since the decades of draconian devaluation of the Naira. Handling it requires much more deftness and delicacy than has been brought to bear thus far by its champions. It is the short course to solving an economic riddle –that of releasing surplus resources, (typically by cutting wasteful consumption) and rechanneling toward more productive activities and major developmental priorities. The term ‘power’ here will include access to resources such as information, knowledge, saleable skills, intelligence, contacts, finance, etc. In an economy that is heavily skewed in favour of those who have virtually unlimited access to these resources (power), equalising the cost of any resource on the basis of its face value when it plays such a central, arterial role in the political economy will levy higher costs on the poor who have at best inadequate access and minuscule purchasing power individually. Seeking to achieve efficiency of resource usage this way only further dislocates the poor and reinforces the wildly disadvantageous asymmetry of purchasing power between social classes and geographical regions. This is a long way of saying fingers are not equal, so do not set them same tasks; give each the task that it is best suited to by its unique design. Socialists like to put it this way: from each according to his ability and to each according to his need.
The reality of wide variance in the efficiency and capacity of demand and supply across large swathes of the Nigerian economy presupposes the existence of relative subsidies. It may be argued whether it is practicable to have these bridged or even eliminated in the medium or long term. The question that remains is how best to achieve this equalization. Preference in such matters is never a matter of pure economics but one that is rooted in ideology; and putting it simply, who will take the beating with minimum backlash, in other words who is the fall guy or as we say the ‘mugun’: the one whose father has no gun. A society that chooses to bash the disadvantaged, downtrodden fatherless/motherless orphans, children, the aged and the infirm is surely pointing the way it wants its future to be-helpless and hopeless. Economics, after all, is the social science of how the rich, powerful and well connected corner all the best things for themselves whilst leaving the rest to struggle interminably for what’s left, or simply vegetate away. They too will eventually get a gun.
CLASSIC MARXIST RESPONSE
Balance the books in favour of those with less power and of little means. Those who have more can afford to spare some of what they have. Pay cuts for the upper income brackets, higher taxes for the higher income brackets, corralling the idle speculator’s cash into the treasury, etc. If you ask me, let charity begin at society’s top, let those who rule the roost show good example, and they will garner the moral authority to make the change that we need. Cash so released can be routed into more productive activities and priority economic and social projects that will bring benefits to all. And, no free meal for the able-bodied; money should be earned. Welfare can be workfare.
But what does a dysfunctional society do with those who will round trip, divert and pilfer the extracted surplus and the managers in charge of contracts for the priority economic projects and social services who are ever ready take their cuts? Our society has no choice than to deal with its ethical values, moral and character problems. That’s our Achilles heel, the weakest link in the chain. Little wonder that the Chinese take draconian measures to tame this common monster of greed.
CHARACTERIZING THE BADE ONIMODE PERSONALITY
Bade Onimode had a great gift for making and keeping friends. His sense of camaraderie, ready smile, forthright arguments, attention to details often missed by most, his ability to draw on simple analogies to illustrate his points, and disarm the opponent, all of these characterise his holistic and wholesome approach to debate, a trait he shared with many of the leaders of the Ibadan circle. He was a fine, personable and ready debater who took the time to study and master his craft to a high degree of refinement that his competence drew friends and foes alike to him and dumbfounded his critics. He would sometimes get impatient with the rehashing of trite arguments and passing same on as learned stuff.
Comrades, no matter how junior or young, learnt early from the Ola Oni example of simplicity, humility and accessibility, to develop these humane qualities to the extent their temperament could permit. A comrade was and still is for us dearer than those related to one by birth, and so were friends who were not in the movement because of their misgivings and especially the often imponderably high level of risk exposure to State security apparatus. Comrade Bade Onimode kept such loyalty to his Ibadan classmate, they mutually addressed themselves as ‘Boy oh Boy’, Chief Michael A.Olorunfemi, the liberal Economist who attended London School of Economics Home of Socialists academics (who was not an Ola-Oni disciple)! At this time Bade was in Milton Friedman’s Chicago School of Monetary Economics. His friend badly needed Milton Friedman’s authoritative Econometrics lectures and Bade dutifully made regular mailings of these to LSE as long as his friend needed it. Chief Olorunfemi, later in his career, became Nigeria’s OPEC representative and Director of Research at OPEC headquarters, Vienna, and upon his return to Nigeria in 1993 was promoted Deputy Group Managing Director of NNPC and Group Executive Director in charge of NAPIMS at a time of instability in the organization and culminating in his unexpected exit in 1995, via a radio announcement as the military did in those days, thus leaving him disorganised. Bade Onimode, unsolicited rallied stoutly to support him and made available to him every help he could get to enable his adjustment to his new life. It is also remarkable that the Chief’s company (Mak Mera’s ) first contract with Mobil Producing was to train indigenous contractors in Eket on how to working with the oil company. Bade Onimode’s skilful down to earth approach enabled him to bond with the Chiefs and tycoons alike and made the training a big success that led up to more jobs for Mak Mera, making it one of the leading training companies in Nigeria Oil & Gas industry. What greater tribute could we pay to genuine friendship?
CONCLUSION
It is easy to recall Professor Bade Onimode’s skilful analysis, and suave explanation of sometimes intriguingly complex ideas in the simplest of terms, at once accessible to the academic, and members of the free readers association daily crowding around newspaper vendors on the streets of major Nigerian cities in the peculiar days of the IMF Loan/Anti SAP debates, and soon, Fuel Subsidy Debate ‘to take or not to take’. The Government side harangued us with ‘one litre of petrol is cheaper than one bottle (30cl) of coke’, and so the price of fuel must go up, to put a stop to the smuggling of petrol! Bade Onimode’s highly informed contributions at the famous debate at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, Victoria Island, Lagos about 25 years ago when he said ‘Nigeria consumes what it does not produce and produces what it does not consume’ and he went on to illustrate it by asking each one to look at what they were wearing. That simple step swung the debate against taking the IMF loan for SAP (structural adjustment) and it still resonates. That is the stuff of the organic intellect that was Bade Onimode. And, that set the direction for the expectations of majority of Nigerians from the debate. The answer was emphatic-do not take the loan! Rather, restructure the national consumption and production and preferences.
I am confident that our academia with all the shortcomings in the system has many more of the Bade Onimode ilk. The point is to not let their efforts go to waste. Nigeria remains complex and the unanticipated political forces now playing the violent roulette is foreboding of serious troubles ahead. The population mix is favourable but it is not favoured by the current disposition of state financing, without re-directing which Nigeria stands no chance. The large number of youths must find gainful positive engagements in enterprise and employment. To achieve this demands a sea change in the education system: injecting huge sums into transforming education and converting it into a directly productive force. The goal of teaching and learning is to produce capable minds who are not afraid to use their hands and entire being to more intelligently confront the challenges of life. We must rid the land of mass poverty, hunger and the irrelevance that we see everywhere in Nigeria today. Time is running out. Life is still a struggle to be fought and won.
I thank you all for remembering where we began from.
ONIMODE’S MAJOR INTERNATIONAL CONTRIBUTIONS
Comrade Professor Onimode was Chairman of the London based Institute For African Alternatives (IFAA) from 1986 to 1996; Member of the Eminent Persons Committee of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS); Member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the African Centre for Development and Strategic Studies; and Vice Chairman for West Africa on the Board of the African Economic and Social Research Forum of the defunct Organisation of African Unity (OAU). Consultant to many Afro-centric international development bodies including, Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) pioneered by Dr Adebayo Adedeji.
