By Wole BALOGUN
The phrase ‘rare breed’ is deployed figuratively to describe an individual of exceptional features whose performance in life has convinced all and sundry that he or she is a man or woman of excellent personality. He or she is simply the best among the stock.
While it wouldnt be a fallacy to infer that most of the politicians Nigeria has been breeding since the emergence of democratic rule have been corrupt, self serving , unscrupulous and insensitive, a reality that has birthed consequences of bad governance and inept leadership which are largely responsible for the tragic stunted growth in current social development of the nation, however, as the sagely saying goes, there could be oasis in a desert.
The book, ‘Serving with Integrity: The Ideology and Praxis of Senator Ayo Fasanmi in Nigerian Politics,’ authored by a golden couple, Orobola and Olufunmilayo Faseun, provides a shining example of a rare breed in Ngerian politics, late Ayo Fasanmi, who came , saw and conqeured in the murky waters of Nigerian politics and survived, armed with intergrity.
Published by Hallard Press LLC, the book was recently launched as a post humous event to celebrate late Fasanmi’s heroism in Nigerian political history. Erudite Professor of International Relations and former event ranancellor of the Federal University Oye-Ekiti, Prof. Kayode Soremekun, added colour to the event when he ran an insightful commentary on Nigerian political history in his equally insightful review of the book presented at the event which held at the CDA event centre in Ado-Ekiti, capital city of Ekiti State.
We bring you the full copy of the review below, have an exciting read:
In the light of my experience in journalism and academia, I can possibly be forgiven for my cynicism about Nigeria and Nigerians. This is because, since I was born in the twilight of colonial rule, my impressions about politics, politicians, and Nigeria are very dim and bleak. But on going through the book on the life and times of Senator Ayo Fasanmi, (SAF) I was struck by the fact that, here indeed, is a rare Nigerian, who upheld certain ideals, and stood with them to the end. Indeed, and after reading the book, I came to appreciate the fact that, even in the political desert of Nigeria, there is an oasis. The informed reader cannot but appreciate that, throughout the book, there are ample references, which engender other narratives which speak to life and living in contemporary Nigeria.
For instance, there is the Freudian and unconscious reference to the fact that, research is an odious and almost impossible task in Nigeria. On this note, the prospective reader is invited to the opening pages of the book, where the authors – Drs Orobola Fasehun and his wife, Olufunmilayo Fasehun contended that they could not access the relevant Hansard Reports of the House of Representatives and of the Senate of the First and Second Republics respectively. According to them, efforts to get these documents from the Clerk of the National Assembly and the National Library in Abuja and Lagos, came to nought. This is very sad, and it says something about our dismal capacity for keeping records. More importantly, at least from the point of view of this writer, how can a researcher cope in this type of decidedly, anti-intellectual environment. No wonder and as I speak, our universities remain under lock and key. But even then, I digress, so back to basics. Luckily, the authors, incidentally both accomplished children of the illustrious Senator Ayo Fasanmi, had to make do by extracting Senator Ayo Fasanmi’s speeches in legislative Houses from the earlier books which had been written on him. It is therefore relevant here to put this particular book in context. This is the third book that will be written on this principled and articulate man of Politics and Public Affairs. The other two being; ‘Ayo Fasanmi: His Life, His Struggle’ (2000) by Olorunyolemi and Ajibare and ‘By Grace, The Life and Times of Ayo Fasanmi in Politics’’ (2013) by Ogunsanya Gbadamosi and Jegede.This particular one under review is divided into four chapters which speak to various aspects of S.A.F’s life, his political biography, his various statements in the House of Representatives and Senate, and those addresses to bodies like: the All Progressives Congress and the Egbe Afenifere. The book was rounded up with post-humous tributes which I found to be very revealing and engaging. In the acknowledgements written by S.A.F’s daughter, Dr Olufunmilayo Fasehun, who incidentally is also a pharmacist like SAF, what struck me was the Senator’s deep and empathetic engagement with the social forces on the other side of life. This big man, to use a Nigerian parlance, still gave a lot of attention as revealed in the introductory phase of the book to individuals like his security guard, his personal assistant, and the family’s caregiver.The immediate foregoing may well go a long way to explain the Humanist and Humanism, which hall-mark Senator Ayo Fasanmi’s participation in public life.Another factor which could have influenced his disposition and inclinations in public affairs could well be the circumstances of his own early life. My reference here is to an oxymoronic situation in which he initially dropped out of school, owing to financial difficulties, yet he ended up in an elite and privileged institution like the famous Government College Ibadan (GCI) in 1942. So, two things struck me here as regards his studentship in GCI. The first is that chances are that he overlapped somewhat with a Wole Soyinka, who entered the self-same College in 1945 or thereabouts. The other feature was that the ferment of the times i.e. the anti-colonial fervour was very much alive in G.C.I at that point in time. This bit of information is essentially owed to another writer, Kole Omotosho. In his book, ‘Just Before Dawn’, Omotosho revealed that Chief Obafemi Awolowo was always visiting his then compatriot, Chief Akin Deko, a teacher at GCI, who was always at his beat, supervising students of GCI like, Abiodun Aloba and Tunji Otegbeye who like SAF, later made their respective marks in public life. Omotosho, goes on to reveal that the anti-colonial paper, The West African Pilot was a constant companion of those boys in GCI, who were politically conscious. As I reflected on this situation, while reading the book, I could not but remember that Abiodun Aloba, and Ayo Fasanmi were on the opposite sides of the Divide, during the Second Republic. While one served as a media aide to President Shagari, the other i.e. SAF was in the Senate, railing, and justifiably too, against the then ruling party, the infamous, or famous National Party of Nigeria. After passing out of GCI, he entered the School of Pharmacy in Yaba. Unknown to many individuals, there is a predictable dimension to this aspect of Senator Ayo Fasanmi’s life. In a book titled: 100 years of King’s College, it was revealed that, the colonial authorities ensured that a GCI education would lead to Yaba Higher College, the highest tertiary institution in the then Nigeria. However, it looks as if, for Senator Ayo Fasanmi, the pharmacy profession, was really a mere stopping point in his life. For barely after five years as a government pharmacist, he withdrew from the services of the colonial government to start his own pharmacy practice in 1955. My hunch here is that Senator Ayo Fasanmi, must have withdrawn from the colonial civil service, with a view to taking part in politics. Here, one cannot but observe the element of sacrifice in this situation. A trained pharmacist in the Nigeria of the fifties was a veritable member of the elite. Such a person virtually had the world at his feet, yet SAF chose to plunge himself into the murky world of politics. What should be noted here is that, even in those far off days, Senator Ayo Fasanmi stood out. This is because despite the fact that he was a politician, he had a second address. In other words, politics, as active as he was in it, was not his profession. He had a second address. Let me say it loudly here. A politician who lacks a second address is not only dangerous, he is also likely to be self-serving and rapacious as we continue to witness in contemporary Nigeria. His entry into politics is also revealing. It speaks in a way to the independent nature of our man. As the story goes in the book, he described himself as an independent member of the Action Group, a statement which attracted the attention of the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo. Awo as revealed in the book, asked him to clarify his contention about being an independent Action Group Member. SAF’s response was that: ‘if the party does what is right, I will support it, on the other hand, if it does what is wrong, I will oppose it’, since, according to him, he was not a card-carrying member. Thereafter, according to the authors, he was invited to join the party.It is on record that such was his consistency and principled stance in politics that, from the time that he entered politics, till he answered the final call, Senator Ayo Fasanmi batted on the same side of Nigerian politics. Our reference here is to the fact that, he was on a successive basis, a member of the various kindred and political parties like the Action Group, the Unity Party of Nigeria, A.D. SDP and finally the All Progressive Congress.It is on record that he won elections to various positions at the Local Government, House of Representatives, and Senate levels. It is instructive to mention that he shares this pride of place with an individual like Shehu Shagari, who also served as an elected politician in the afore-mentioned positions. Perhaps the only difference was that Shagari went on to cap his career, with executive positions like Minister and later President. For Senator Ayo Fasanmi this was not to be, since for much of his political career, he was in opposition. And as we shall see later, his was a principled opposition, who shot broad-sides at the status-quo forces.
In view of the immediate foregoing, one is tempted to describe him as, not just a politician but a prophet whose candid statement, spoke in an uncanny and prescient way to Nigeria’s future.But before delving into these statements, in the various legislatures, one aspect of Senator Fasanmi’s political life is worth revealing. He did not win elections all the time. It is on record that he lost the primaries to Chief Adekunle Ajasin who did, and eventually went on to become Governor of the old Ondo state. SAF, took this loss in his stride, and proceeded to close ranks with other compatriots in the party. A number of other politicians who similarly lost out in the primaries, took a different turn. They went in the opposite direction and needless to say this was the beginning of the end of the Second Republic. Looking back, chances are that, if the other politicians had taken the principled route of Ayo Fasanmi and shown some restraint, the Coup of December 1983 could well have been avoided.As regards his speeches in the House of Representatives and the Senate, Senator Ayo Fasanmi, comes across as a principled and fearless politician, who in the spirit of that familiar phrase, spoke truth to power. In doing this, he appeared to have had a foreboding of the disaster which awaited Nigeria from January 1966 onwards. This becomes evident from his speech in the House of Representatives in March 1965. It is important to situate this date (1965) in the context of Nigeria’s tortured and disastrous political history. The country, it will be remembered had just emerged in 1964 from the heavily rigged parliamentary elections in which for a number of days, the country was virtually on a pause, a stand-still, so to say. This was because of the initial reluctance of the then non-executive President to invite, the presumed winner of the 1964 elections to form a government. One can then easily appreciate the import and courage of S.A.F’s statement when he declared openly in the House of Representatives that the conduct of the last election was a mockery of democracy and as a result, we have in this House, members who are not true representatives of their people. Even then, he was not done yet. According to him, the Nigerian National Democratic Party is neither National nor Democratic, and it is not a party. It is a club of conspirators and carpet crossers”.But S.A.F’s depositions in the legislatures was not just about polemics. They were also infused with informed passion about how the ship of the Nigerian State should be steered. Take his contribution on Tin Mining for instance. He was of the patriotic view that a major industry like Tin Mining should be geared towards public ownership, rather than allow overseas investors, to in his own words, flood the market. At the same time, and in keeping with his disposition of empathy towards the downtrodden, he, in the same speech, urged that miners should be given adequate protection, and that the wages paid to them, should be enough to keep body and soul together. He further went on to criticize the foreign policy of the Balewa government. On this note, he stated that, the regime’s non-alignment policy was only rhetorical. That it was divorced from day-to-day reality.
Incidentally, this is a position which has since been upheld by various scholars of Nigeria’s foreign policy.In the following month, i.e April 1965, S.A.F was at his noble game again. He challenged the then Minister of Finance on the issues of nationalization and socialization. He condemned a situation in which Nigeria was something of a playground for foreign interests and social forces. In this respect he argued that: What is wrong with the nationalization of say, the tin mining industry, banking and insurance businesses. These institutions, according to him, constitute the pride of the nation, which must not be left in the hands of foreign monopolistic capitalists. Again, S.A.F took the opportunity to weigh in on the side of the ‘wanachi’. In this respect, he questioned a situation in which the Minister of Finance expected the common man to indulge in savings as a means of sacrifice. Here S.A.F, pointedly took the minister to task by asking: What does the Minister expect the people to do- people who have not had enough to eat, people, who only live from hand to mouth? Even then, the inimitable and irrepressible, S.A.F was not done yet.This was when he again asked: how would the Minister go out and tell people to make sacrifices when in this House, out of every five members of the House, one is a Minister of State, The discerning listener cannot but appreciate here that what Nigeria had on its hands was a mockery of the Westminster parliament system. Little wonder therefore that, some months later, the military struck and ousted the civilians-an inclement phenomenon, whose consequences continue to plague Nigeria till date. Equally revealing in that particular speech, was S.A.F’s contention about what was starting to emerge as Nigeria’s oil policy at that point in time. Rather than share in the euphoria of the increasing oil revenues which were accruing to the Nigerian treasury, S.A.F, spoke along more reflective and thoughtful lines. This was because of his prescient depositions that, “may I suggest that the petroleum industry is a very tricky business”. It was also his view that a parliamentary committee should be set up to investigate the revenues accruing from the oil industry and to know, how much of this profit is coming to the coffers of the government.As a student of oil politics. I can authoritatively say here that, this kind of thinking continues to be rare, even in contemporary Nigeria. The Nigerian politician is more concerned with oil revenues, rather than the nuances and intricacies of the oil industry. Chances are that an S.A.F as oil minister would have been able to stem the rot and decadence which continue to hallmark what passes for the Nigerian oil industry. Undeterred, and after military rule, S.A.F was at the barricades again on the platform of the Senate. This was in the form of his contributions to the 1981 Appropriation Bill in the Senate. In stark terms, he took the president and his team to the cleaners. This was when he described the 1981 Budget as a ‘budget of despair’. And in what was clearly a warning to the political class, as regards its wayward ways, he declared that ‘Once again, we are ensnared in the web of corruption, trapped so cleverly and almost completely that we can no longer see, either the cause or the evil that is inflicting such deadly pain on our society’’. And in an unconscious way which appeared to have anticipated the military putsch of December 1983, S.A.F posed this rhetorical question to his fellow Senators. ‘’As of now, after spending 18 months in office, how much have we done in order to contribute to the welfare of the workers? In terms of housing or shelter and food, what have we really done?”At this juncture, it is pertinent to ask, given his near-evangelical fervour as regards his commitment to Nigeria and the down-trodden-did S.A.F walk the talk when he was on this side of the earthly divide? On reading this book, I can say with conviction that, S.A.F practiced what he preached. This is because today, S.A.F would have been one of the largest owners of land in Oshogbo, if he had taken up the offer of a large expanse of land, which was freely and generously offered to him by the monarch of the town, Oba Adenle. Again, when he was made Chairman of the Western Nigeria Housing Corporation, a body which had Estates in high-brow places like Bodija, and Ikeja, S.A.F refused to serve himself or members of his family in this vital area. This is something of a rarity, for if the truth must be told, the average politician is so unscrupulous, that he has his hands, permanently in our collective honeypot. This is why one is inclined to take S.A.F seriously, when on the approach of his 91st birthday, some four years ago, he argued that ‘’No state ever develops without discipline and what he called, Elite Restraint’’. Incidentally, this is an overdue take away from a disciplined politician to politicians and civil servants in contemporary Nigeria. Since, ultimately, only God lives forever, as opined by the medical doctor at Anwar Sadat’s death bed; Senator Ayo Fasanmi, the pharmacist and politician, answered the final call. Predictably, the tributes poured in. At the risk of sounding cynical, post humous tributes in this part of the world have a hollow ring. But this time around, reading through the tributes by the various individuals and organizations, one could not but observe that the tributes had a genuine ring to them. It is remarkable that the trio of the moment, Tinubu, Atiku and Obi came forth with their respective tributes. The Nigerian flavour to these tributes could be seen in the fact that, apart from the Afenifere and other groups in the South West, tributes also came from: The Middle Bell Forum, The Northern Governors Forum and the Ohanaze Ndigbo, Igbo cultural organization. What is also remarkable is that all the previous and present governors of Ekiti also came forth with their own tributes, save for one. However, these fulsome tributes to S.A.F can do with a reservation. This revolves around a particular comment by one of the clerics. Among other things, he deposed that, this illustrious son of Nigeria was not a troublemaker.In the conventional sense, the author of this tribute could well be right. But in an elastic and creative sense, S.A.F could be described as a trouble maker when he was here with us. It was possible to see in the book that, S.A.F made plenty of trouble for the various status quo forces in both the First and Second Republics. As seen in the book, he not only questioned them, but he also lampooned them as regards their indifference to street conditions in Nigeria. In any case, one may ask here: if you are not a trouble maker in the face of the stark poverty and deepening misery in the land, then I beg to submit that you are either a coward or conspirator. Certainly S.A.F was neither of the immediate foregoing. Indeed, and on a consistent basis, he sought to prick the conscience of our post colonial masters at different points in our country’s tortured history. On this note, it is possible to say that, in his exertions, he found a theoretical collaborator in even an individual like Olusegun Obasanjo. This was when; the General averred that the country needs more rebels and rebellion to get the country out of its man-made rot. On this note, after reading this particular section of the book, it is safe with due respect to contradict the cleric that, S.A.F can be regarded as a trouble maker. For at various points in time, he had the guts and courage in the parliament (1964) and (1981) to warn and tell off the country’s chloroformed political leadership.All told, it is possible to contend that, Senator Ayo Fasanmi led a very worthy life. It is arguable, from his concerns, contentions and exertions that, if executive power had been exercised by his faction of the Nigerian political class, chances are that our Nigeria would not be in this state. It remains for me to thank Dr Orobola Fasehun, my former teacher for the privilege of this outing. This is because, I consider it a honour to be asked to do this review. For it is evident that S.A.F is a rare breed. They do not make them like that anymore.
