Razaq Bamidele
The story of Comrade Abiodun Aremu is an interesting one. All along, people had been mistaken the highly vocal and meticulously principled social commentator, public analyst and die-hard human rights advocate for an activist. But the soft spoken pro-democracy fighter would tell you, “I am not an activist and wasn’t really one.” He would not mince a word to tell you he is a revolutionary socialist!
In fact, the humorous, unassuming but brilliant motivational speaker, who is a journalist delight any day, any time is better allowed to tell his own interesting story of how his life took a definitive pattern through some mentors and role models he had encounter with during his early life.
His story:
Can you briefly tell us who and what you are?
I am simply Comrade Abiodun Aremu, an African born in Nigeria and could have been born anywhere since I didn’t determine the parents-mother and father-who gave birth to me, it is immaterial in defining my realities as a human being!
By rebirth realities, I prefer to be described as a Comrade, a revolutionary Socialist, a Scientific Pan-Africanist and a learning student of humanities. Everywhere I have been in this country of my birth-Nigeria, has been home to me! I have gone almost everywhere in Nigeria except very few States and I have met majorly of the poor majority -all with warmth in their pitiable conditions! Outside Nigeria, it has been same experience.
However, I was born in Ebute-Metta, Lagos. My initial primary education that started in Lagos was completed in Kwara State. I went to Secondary School in Ilorin Teachers’ College, the then last secondary set. I studied and graduated at the then Kwara State College of Technology (now Kwara Polytechnic Ilorin) with Higher National Diploma (HND) in Urban and Regional Planning in 1986.
My parents are from Kwara State but both of them have histories rooted in Oyo and Ogbomoso as I was later to find out! So, for me, state of origin doesn’t really explain anything about a human person but identity is a different thing entirely! It is about who really you are as a human being! It’s one of the major things I learnt while growing up – ise l’ogun ise (work is the antidote to poverty or better put sociologically – Labour create wealth.)
What motivated you to be an activist and what normally informs your choice of associations?
My background was influenced very early in life by events and circumstances of the encounters I was opportune to pass through. I must have been born with spirit of rebelliousness, because I hate cheating and injustice with passion. My first recollection was possibly when I was around 4years and an orange tree adjacent to our rented place in Iponri Western Avenue, Lagos had a lone orange fruit ripening after neighbours had plucked the tree dry. I focused my attention on the orange and daily salivated on how I would enjoy it when it would have ripened.
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When I did pluck it and two of my aunties who worked and lived with my mother collected it and insisted in sharing it equally with me. I resisted and was overpowered. They cut it to two, shared me half of it and both shared the half part for their lick and I rejected their share to me. They had their way but I had my way psychologically against them. For close to a year, I refused to (“What difference does it make, the danger to a person or a people or the sacrifices they make, when what is at stake is the Destiny of Humanity,” )
greet them and avoided them like plaque. Though they attempted beating me on few occasions, they didn’t succeed because of my mother serious warning!
Recently, I tried to recall with my secondary school mates, how was it possible I escaped punishment as a junior student or the punishment life under senior students in the boarding hostels that majority of them went through. And I can’t recall that my mother ever raised her hand to beat me. Yes, I wasn’t a spoilt child or over pampered but it was like a taboo that I should be beaten! Even in fights as children among ourselves, with someone twice my size, I had resisted to the last.
But most influencing in my life have been ideas of an alternative world! I started getting ideas of the world beyond Nigeria as early as about 7years of age at Livingstone Academy in Abule Nla, Ebute-Metta. May that unknown teacher who convinced the school authority to use the one week after our exams before the long vacation for interactive activities be blessed eternally! I wouldn’t remember which of the two – Tai Solarin and Comrade Ola Oni came first. But I remembered their lectures to us on free education, the rights of every child to be educated by the Government. I recalled their talks of a country called China with a population then more than 15 times the population of Nigeria and how she ensured education for all her citizens. Both might have mentioned other countries like Cuba, but what stocked to my memory was China then and I became more excited and debated in favour of free education anywhere I was among my peers, even to the point of quarrels.
Then one day, I should be around 11years then, my father listened to me argue on it and then commenced a discussion with me on why he took membership of the Action Group (AG) and his belief in the Chief Obafemi Awolowo free education programme. It was another eye opener. That reinforced me, despite my lack of philosophical understanding then.
But when did your life take a definitive pattern?
It was when I entered secondary school with that state of mind. And in literatures study in Form 1 – 3, we read: A Tale of Two Cities, Burning Grass, Cry the Beloved Country, Things Fall Apart and so on. And thence, my worldview began to assume a definitive pattern – I became a self-professed Welfarist based on the ideas of the lectures and literature books. I read other books like Animal Farms on my own. As at Form 2, I was fully into a reading culture and subscribed to Arabic by Radio in Cairo and other catalogues from Canada. I could then self-study to develop myself. And each book I read that showed radical context inspired me. I read Hardley Chase and Nick Carter novels out of penchant for adventures and I said these cannot be books for me – fantasy of life
Then the turning point for me was one teacher by name Hamzat. He graduated from Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria and spent only a school term with us because the college authority couldn’t tolerate his influence on us. Teacher Hamzat fired my imagination beyond expectation. His over 3hrs lecture on the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade one evening that attracted almost all students in our set, was the final turning point in building my struggle life! Hamzat so much influenced my independence on opinion to the extent that in my West Africa Examination Council (WAEC) history subject examination, I answered a question on the decolonisation process in Africa and I spent almost a page to articulate the role of mosquitoes in making Africa un-conducive for earlier colonial rulers to settle..! I should state that we were not taught that, it was my own way of interpretation and anytime I remember this, I simply laugh to myself but I scored A3 in the subject.
And by our final year when our entire set were all suspended indefinitely, for an offence committed by three or four persons and we were not to be recalled until the culprits would be known, I had grown in resolve on what I am now and was like a field Negro ready to defend any collective cause! And am fulfilled eternally that when “What difference does it make, the danger to a person or a people or the sacrifices they make, when what is at stake is the Destiny of Humanity”
the decisive moment came to protest and speak to our issues, in order for us to get public attention for our return to school. I didn’t think for a second to accept the responsibility imposed on me and another school mate to speak with the media. We had converged in the frontage of the Emir’s palace and went on street procession of about 3km to the Nigerian Herald newspapers office. We encountered the police who were unsure of what to do with our procession. We were determined and we marched on, because the completion of our education was at stake and WAEC exams were to hold in less than six weeks! We had favourable media coverage and public pressure that compelled the repressive college principal to recall us to school, despite no culprit was ever known, after two months and twenty days of indefinite suspension! That involvement set the path for the street actions of comrade Abiodun Aremu you know today!
Specifically, how long have you been in full time active activism, who are your mentors and role models and how many organizations have you commanded and still commanding?
I am not an activist and wasn’t really one. As I have said earlier, I grew up to hate injustice, to reject it and always dreamt of applying myself to the cause of building a beneficial alternative to humanity when I knew little of the exploitative world beyond me. I grew up as a learning and practical student of organisation. I have always worked collectively in organisations. I have not commanded any organisation because the organisations that I have ever belonged to are not military or operate in barracks. But I wouldn’t deny that I have influence in every organisation that I have joined, co-founded and participated in. In organisation, I am focused with total commitment and dedication. I don’t just join organisation or participate in anything half hearted. I am either in or out of it. I am a die-hard once committed to a cause. After secondary school, I could define the line of organisation I belong to. I could define an ideological line and to that extent, our struggle is class, our struggle is Anti-imperialist, that is, struggle to liberate our society (Nigeria, Africa and the working people across the world) from the exploitative system of capitalism. It is struggle to resist all forms of imperialist domination and collaboration with other suffering and dominated societies and struggle on international solidarity for a peaceful humanity!
That’s where my connection with Labour, my connection with Pan-Africanist movements, the Socialist movement, the Cuban connection, the Venezuelan connection, etc. – all those connections I am dialectically involved in struggle, come from the 80s till date. All my involvement are motivated by my internal dynamics and not that one is recruited by an external dynamics into it. It’s not a fashionable thing to be in struggle. It’s about life commitment. One joins and deepens one’s involvement based on conviction to struggle, based on clarity. It’s not like Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) that you are funded by imperialist interests and objectives. And for me it’s fulfilling doing it, spending one’s income to do all those things.
For me, it is worthy, it is eternally fulfilling. Having read enormous of the unparalleled sacrifices and commitment to DUTY for a better world devoid of exploitation and oppression of African icons – Nkrumah, Fanon, Mummie, Malcolm X, Nat Turner, Touissant L’Overture, Lumumba and over hundreds of other heroic feats from the destruction of Ancient Black civilisation to the continuous plunder of the Pan-African world through the Trans-Atlantic Slave trade to colonialism to domination through globalisation; read and internalised the sacrifices by the heroes of the Cuban war of Independence, of Fidel, Che, et al, and witnessing the eternal defence of the Cuban Revolution against imperialism. And even in Nigeria, with a rich history of resistance struggle by Aba Women revolt, Imoudu, “What difference does it make, the danger to a person or a people or the sacrifices they make, when what is at stake is the Destiny of Humanity”
the Zikist Movement, Nduka Eze, Zaid Zungur, Funmilayo Rabskme-Kuti, Gambo Sawaba, Magret Ekpo, Gogo Chu Nzeribe, Raji Abdallah, Wahab Goodluck, Mokwugo Okoye, M.E. Kolagbodi, Baba Omojola, etc, history should condemn me eternally if am not what I am! And struggle is what one will keep doing as long as exploitation exists and there are theatres to struggle!
What are the challenges confronting activists globally?
Activists or revolutionary? Activists have little challenges – but already being solved by imperialists’ funding! It’s revolutionaries that have challenges. Building and rebuilding in the midst of counter-revolutionary ideas and practical challenges of organisation is a tough task. Anybody can be an activist but only few qualify as revolutionaries with Socialism in mind. I am sure that there are not less than 10,000 NGOs in Nigeria from local to international. They are all mostly headed by activists but which activists are they? – Rent a crowd activists or collaborator with looters regime activists or activists that wouldn’t protest on the just cause of the poor masses or the slavish conditions of the workers but would do the bidding of imperialist fund to showcase for media attention in protest attires!
Such are activists for imperialist ideas, bowing before the funders who are the master of the moment. That’s the state of our Nation today. No more activists of “Ali Mon Go,” 1978, “No to IMF”, “NANS Boycott of Lecture” and “Protest against Commercialization of Education”, Anti-SAP Revolt,” etc, all in the 1980s and early 90s.
It’s sad but we must fight on! Some of us are still committed to rebuilding a new generation for critical consciousness and commitment to humanity! We cannot move forward with a generation of students and youth who are special advisers on Students’ affairs to Government, a generation who are agents and collaborators with police and security agents, a generation who to produce a so-called NANS leadership would spend hundreds of millions from their PDP and APC godfathers plus both state and cult violence, a generation that is available as mercenaries for everything odds. It’s disheartening but there is no alternative than to rebuild, rebuild and keep firing the flame of redemption!
We need a new generation who can storm the streets in millions, armed with the photocopies of their NYSC Certificates and Degrees – ALL WE ARE SAYING IS, GIVE US JOBS ! That’s the challenge to start with!
What are the benefits activists enjoy because there is the insinuation that activism is for pecuniary gains?
As a revolutionary, I can recall some of the things I have enjoyed since you called it enjoyment! I do have several calls on the eve of protests, calls of threat to life, apparently from security operatives and their crumb-seekers. In protest situations, I don’t ever know where I will end up on any day but I know I would end up taking a brief nap to get refresh for the following day. Practical realities determine it. I remember on the night to January 9, 2012, having being out of home for 3 days, together with the JAF Chairperson Dr. Dipo Fashina, we ended up on chairs, in a friend’s office, discussed till 2.a.m. and by 4.30am, we were up and in less than 20minutes, we were at the venue.
The rest is history. Struggle life and experiences aren’t all you should de-classify because it exposes your strategy to the security operatives who now know where to find you. Like the incident at Gwagwalada in 1992 for the Kuje 5 (Gani Fawehinmi, Baba Omojola, Beko Ransome-Kuti, Femi Falana and Olusegun “What difference does it make, the danger to a person or a people or the sacrifices they make, when what is at stake is the Destiny of Humanity”
Maiyegun), we were two (Nameless & me) as advance party to mobilise the students to join forces to Court for our comrades’ freedom. We were traced by the security operatives from the moment we entered the hostels to everywhere despite our decoys. There was no union in UNIABUJA then to speak to but with our experience, we attempted to engage several students in discussion on individual basis but they evaded us once we touched on our mission.
Luckily, we ran into one, who frankly said that no student would talk to us because the University authority was out to expel anyone found nurturing students’ unionism ideas, that it was a no go area. We persisted in talking with him and he said, he was endangered being seen with us and the activism in him made him to narrate his experience: I was expelled because of Unionism in Kwara College of Technology ….! He went on to the point he mentioned “Aremson” as Students’ Union President whose record of “radical unionism” they met and were following and they had to be expelled.
At that point, 3rd Nameless tried a look at me but we kept mute for him to go on! At a point I asked him,”do you know the Aremson physically, he said no! “Do you have his contact and he said no! We went on to encourage him to still brave the odds to join us even if no other person added to him. And as we set to take our leave of him, we disclosed to him that the Aremson he spoke about was me! And he was elated and ready to do anything.
Moving un-suspected in twos and threes from their hostels and by 9am not less than 200 UNIABUJA students were in court for the Kuje 5 in solidarity. Maiyegun as the then NANS President has to go with them en-mass to the school premises to address them! That was the underground moves that led to active students’ unionism in University of Abuja.
But it didn’t end there, police and security operatives on the eve of the trial of the Kuje 5 went to several hotels and guest houses searching for us, but we ended up in one of them. They even came knocking the room I was looking for two persons they had been trailing for hours but they lost our trail when the two became one never linked to the same two. And when they came knocking, searching for the two, we were in but Nameless was visible, I had taken cover! What happened there and then were lessons covert not for open disclosures, it belongs to the ideological class of committed cadres on how to evade dangerous moments.
