abdulraheem
Rather like a punch-drunk boxer, I have spent the past week, since the news broke, in real confusion about how to go measuring the real impact of Chief Awoniyi’s presence in our lives. It was Al-Ghazali, the irrepressible Tuesday columnist, who broke the story to me, and then it was confirmed by Alhaji Adamu, Wazirin Fika. The last time I cried over someone’s death was in July 1995, when my father died. But last week, I couldn’t restrain myself, when I was informed of the death of Chief S.B. Awoniyi. I think it was indicative of just how close I had become to him, that so many people have sent me condolence messages, in the past one week, because they instinctively knew that Chief Awoniyi’s death was a personal source of grief for me. And I have no doubts in my mind that his was one death that has genuinely been mourned all around Nigeria. It was a true measure of the impact that his exemplary life had on people from all walks of life. I had indicated this much in the short tribute which I wrote to him, the afternoon that the news of his death broke. It started from the report of the accident a few days earlier. There were so many messages of warm sympathy posted on the DAILY TRUST website, from people who respected Chief Awoniyi for his forthrightness, his decency, sense of commitment and loyalty as well as his brilliant oratory. It was very poignant for me that the different wishes for a quick recovery came from people of all confessions and backgrounds. Even more of such messages of lamentation and genuine sorrow have been posted, in the days since he died. I have also painstakingly read as many of the messages posted on the pages of Nigerian newspapers, ever since he died; it is true that Nigerians tend to have a hypocritical attitude about not speaking evil of the dead, and so we often tend to speak in superlative terms, about individuals who have passed on, even when the lives they lived did not measure up in a very positive sense. However, Nigerians have been united in their sincere appreciation of that remarkable patriot and decent gentleman. We all have lost an outstanding contributor to the making of a modern Nigeria, and there is a profound sense in which we can in fact say that the painful loss of Chief Awoniyi is becoming a celebration of his multi-sided life and the positive impact that his colossal presence had on the history of contemporary Nigeria. There were also some vulgar comments about ethnicity and problems of ethnicization of politics from some commentators in the media. Even the governor of Ogun State, Gbenga Daniel made the philistine comment about Chief Awoniyi being “more Yoruba than Arewa”. But what these vulgar commentators could not fathom was the richness of the multiplicity of identities which Chief Sunday Awoniyi carried with pride, like most of us, and within which he found surety to be able to make his contributions to the enrichment of our lives. When Chief Sunday Awoniyi was made the Chairman of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), it was not a token gesture. On the contrary it was a reflection of the triumph of the Northern Nigerian idea; a reflection of the richness of the mosaic that its peoples and leaders have woven, like a tapestry, over the past two centuries. It has always been problematic, it carries its own strains and tensions, but the fact that from Sokoto to Borno, from Ilorin to Adamawa, Kebbi to Katsina Ala, people live within a community of feelings that they all subscribe to, gives a lie to the crudely reductionist horizon of the ethnic politics that has been The Writings of a Media Life. the hallmark of the leading political elite of some sections of Nigeria. It was that crude reductionism, which Chief Awoniyi rejected in his thought and praxis. It was the broadness of his vision, without vacating his own realities as a Christian and a Yoruba man, but also a very hardworking, honest and loyal Northerner, which made his leadership so acceptable and accepted in Northern Nigeria. It is this broad sweep which explains why he has been so sincerely mourned by people from all backgrounds, over the past one week. Whoever had the priviledge to have met and interacted with Chief S.B. Awoniyi, as I did in the past five years, knows that he was a fortunate individual. He strikes you immediately with his simplicity and decency and the broad sweep of his intellect was also truly astounding. But his deep humanity was what leaves a permanent imprint in one’s consciousness. Let me try to illustrate with a few examples. I think former Vice President, Atiku Abukakar, Ujudud Sheriff and Al-Ghazali have all mentioned the text message he circulated sometimes in October 2007. About four weeks ago, I sought his permission to reproduce a very lengthy text he sent to me, on the death of Alhaji Yahaya Sani. That was the true measure of the caring human being that he was (it is so painful to have to address him in the past tense!)! Early last year, the forces of the third term agenda had sent “armed robbers” to try to kill him in his bedroom in Abuja. Luckily, he survived the attack but had to endure a long period of rehabilitation in a London Hospital. Around the same time, I had also received a death threat on the basis of my writings. You can trust Chief Awoniyi to be worried about that report. Late in the night one fateful day, I received a call on the landline in my house. He gave me a long lecture on how to take care of myself in the context of the uncertainties in Nigeria, given Obasanjo’s desperacy to get a third term and our determination to derail his effort to subvert our constitutional order! Chief Awoniyi knew about the State of my mother’s health in the last one year, and he was equally aware that I traveled back and forth to Ilorin every fortnight. He would call me to know how she The Writings of a Media Life. was responding to treatment; how careful I was about traveling on Nigerian roads, so regularly, and without forgetting to make a comment or two on the various points I attempt to interrogate in my columns. In January 2005, I was holidaying in London with my wife and our twins. Chief Awoniyi was also in London at the same time; so one of those evenings, he invited me to his modest flat, and at a street around the corner, he had booked us for dinner at an Italian Restaurant. He gave me a fatherly lecture on the ebb and flow of marital life as well as very instructive insights into various aspects of political life in Nigeria. I left him with food for my stomach and food for thought and my respect for that remarkable man grew in leaps and bounds. Over the past few years that I got close to him I learnt that for him morality and decency had both a public and private face, and these were same! He never told you in public what he did not believe in private. It was his decency which made the cowardly despot, Olusegun Obasanjo to fear Chief Sunday Awoniyi so much. He could not take Chief Awoniyi hostage because in a relationship which spanned forty years, it was Obasanjo who sought out Chief Awoniyi for favours. These range from the effort to save his life soon after Nzeogwu’s Coup in January 1966, through to ensuring that he was not sacked by General Murtala Muhammed, as Chief of Staff Supreme Headquarters and finally to the effort to become the presidential candidate of the PDP, soon after the ingrate was removed from prison in 1998! Despite being at the receiving end of Obasanjo’s well-known treacherous character, it was a measure of Chief Awoniyi’s humanity that he was not embittered, but he did the duty of a patriot, by becoming a leading voice in the struggle to ensure that the disgraced despot, Olusegun Obasanjo, did not foist himself on our country forever! Courage was another attribute which Chief Awoniyi possessed very abundantly!! He stood up to the cowardly bully in many ways, refusing, in the well-quoted words of the Chief, to accept a “groveling hand wringing” in front of despot who wasted eight years of our national life, as his regime took our country through all manners of dubious schemes, which left citizens poorer while The Writings of a Media Life. Obasanjo enriched himself and his cronies. Nigerians had the priviledge of the memory of patriots like Chief Sunday Awoniyi, to remind us, that there were times in this country, under a different set of leaders, when things were done with full respect for the law and the norms of civilized conduct. At a point when it became the acceptable standard of governance, not to implement budgets, Chief Awoniyi would remind whoever cared to listen, how serious a misdemeanor it was, in the days of the old North, to move virement from one sub-head to the other, without approval of the Public Accounts Committee of the Northern Regional Assembly. He also had that incredible ability of being able to remember an obscure but relevant idea from the days of the Sardauna, to illustrate an issue in a contemporary setting. Over the past one and a half years, I have been wrestling with an effort to edit a book of my writings, over the past twenty five years. In my mind, I wanted the book to be in two parts, because it is expected to be a summation of a lifetime that has been spent in the media, spanning the past thirty years. A journey which began, when I went to work as a Studio Manager on Radio Nigeria, for the first time, on February I, 1977. I discussed the project with Chief Sunday Awoniyi, and as was usual with him, he accepted my plan with a great deal of effusiveness. We also agreed that he would write a preface to the book. In the period since then, I have not made as much progress with the book as I had wanted at the beginning. This has largely been due to a combination of factors, that I could not reign in, despite my subjective desire. The most painful aspect of this story is that Chief Sunday Bolorunduro Awoniyi, is no longer with us to write that preface. Unfortunately too, he will not be here to play a role in the launch of such a book. That is the finality which death brings to human affairs. It is in playing our roles with utmost dedication to the common good, that we can transform the grief associated with death to a transcendental form of victory. This is because people like Chief The Writings of a Media Life. Sunday Awoniyi live forever, and the lives they lived become part of the legend that generations pass to each other, to help teach examples of what to be. I think in consonance with the realities of contemporary existence, it will be worthwhile for our scholars, to study the triumphs and problems associated with a multiplicity of identities. Chief Sunday Awoniyi’s life would certainly offer remarkable insights for the future development of our country. Here was an individual born into a Christian family in the old Kabba Province; he attended the only Secondary School in Northern Nigeria and got the opportunity to socialize with young men from different parts of the huge region that he would eventually serve as a Public Servant. His brilliant career flowered under the direct guidance of the Sardauna, whose forefathers had led a Jihad, which attempted to subjugate Awoniyi’s own area of the North. Nevertheless, in the new setting of a post-colonial state they worked with remarkable harmony to build the lives of all the peoples of the Northern Region. Sunday Awoniyi outlasted his mentor by another forty one years, but he never failed the memory of the Sardauna. He refused to be blackmailed into the politics of ethnic Jingo-ism, which unfortunately for Nigeria controlled the media space for a long time. Chief Awoniyi did not stop being a proud son of his own people; he did not abandon his Christian faith. However, he never forgot that he was cultured within and belonged to a sensibility which was larger, more complex and often very difficult: Northern Nigeria. He became one of its greatest symbols and lived his life as an example of the richness of its complexity. Yet he was a man of pan-Nigerian Vision, who wanted justice for all the peoples of our country. It is this incredible talent and intellect to navigate his multidimensional identities with so much honesty, commitment, decency and courage, which make his death so much lamented. I feel very honoured to have met Chief Sunday Awoniyi, and to paraphrase the poet, John Donne, his death has diminished us all, because he was a truly decent human being. Thank you very much, Chief Sunday Bolorunduro Awoniyi, for the gift of your example!
