Sixteen years ago, I was about leaving Gombe, where I had helped run an IUF education programme for its affiliate, the Agricultural and Allied Workers Union of Nigeria (AAWUN) when I got a phone call that my wife was in the labour ward to deliver our third child. By the time I got to Abuja, the bundle of joy was already in her mum's arms, kicking and crying with such energy.
It was one of those moments when the heart gets congealed with emotions that can be fully grasped with fatherhood. But there was an additional feeling that swept over me. And it came from the thought that I could very well have died sixteen earlier on that same date, and never had the privilege and pleasure of fathering her and her siblings.
That moment in 1992 was a political one. It was the day CAFCA took its last stand at the University of Ilorin. It was a day I almost died whilst saving a building torched by the anti-riot police's teargas from burning and almost lost my life in the process. We were eventually defeated and I got to spend two months in detention, missing the matriculation ceremony at Unilag where I had "ported" to at the time.
The full tale would be told someday, hopefully. But some context on what led to that day and what it stood for.
We formed the May 31st Movement (M31M), the precusor of today's Socialist Workers League (SWL) at Unilorin on 19 January 1991, I was the Speaker of the students' union at the time, in a students union leadership that was largely liberal. That same year, we formed the Current Affairs and Friendship Association (CAFCA), as the M31M front on campus. It swept the polls at the union elections organised in mid-1991.
With this platform, we mobilised around the country using our "Aluta Train" union bus. Aluta Train was not only a means of going from campus to campus with our red flag. It was itself a site of political education. We constituted an informal "Centre for Popular Education and Cultural Studies" (CPECS) with the "Train" (a Toyota coaster bus really) as its mobile secretariat.
So, when the bus had a problem on the eve of the January 1992 NANS Convention, it was a big deal. The school management which did not want our comrades to go in the first place refused to release an alternative bus. And like the kingdom of heaven since John, Mayists on the ground simply took it.
I had relocated to Unilag in October 1991. I however had to come to Unilorin for a leadership meeting of the M31M in February. And I met a war at hand. The management threw everything in the sink and the whole sink itself at us. The Mayist/CAFCA "Ilorin Militant Five" (Dele Salam, Kunle Adegoke, Ajibola Bashir, Chris Nwachukwu and Dauda Jimoh) were expelled.
We took our stand: we mobilised the studentry and we fought. Anti-riot police were drafted in to quell our demonstration even though it was restricted to the campus. Segun Imana and Wale Balogun are two people that whatever differences in our politics today, I will always hold in that respect that it takes a warrior to have for another. The three of us led the fight back against the police, throwing back their teargas and dissuading crazier SUB boys who wanted to equally lob Molotovs. And it was a good thing we did.
It was the first day I would ever encounter Wale "Bally" Balogun. But our interaction was limited to doing what had to be done on the battle field. We barely spoke beyond what was necessary for this. Our interact beyond throwing their canisters back at the police. It was in 1993 that we really got to start knowing each other. This was in the process of building the Mainland Progressive Youth Movement (MPYM) in Ebute Metta, one of the most important grassroots based fighting body during the June 12 Struggle. We both recalled 19 February the year before, helping to forge a lasting bond of mutual respect.
As for Imana, I already knew that he was a revolutionary soulmate soldier. He was a dogged fighter: we had worked together to build a Students Defence Militia with Paul O & Sylvester E at Unilag, alongside the League. He was also one of the truest and most dependable friends and comrades I had ever made. And we entered the furnace, literally, together that day.
The furnace here was the female hostel close to the bookshop. The medical students' hostel close to the gate was already on fire. We then saw smoke rising from a room on the top floor of the female hostel as well. It appeared that a hot tear gas canister landed on something incendiary in the room which was just beside the staircase. Smoke billowed around us as we dashed up the stairs and surrounded us as we broke the door.
Coming out, Segun had to dash down the corridor. Till today, I still don't know how I found it in myself to dash downstairs to the tap, fetch water, dash back pour the water and dash down again, to almost pass out. By this time, more comrades had arrived there, drawn by the smoke that was still coming from the room.
I had an idea of what dying could be that day. I sat on the floor besides the tap, I couldn't breath. Flashes of moments in my life before then went flashing through my mind like a surreal movie reel. And I also couldn't get it out of my head that Segun was still up there and I kept trying to tell those who by then had grasped me to help. No word could come out of my mouth for a while. But I kept doing all I could non-verbally to let them know a comrade was still trapped up there.
Images of that day still come to my mind when I think back to 19 February 1992. But 19 February 2008 gave me an added basis of gratitude and joy to have lived beyond that day. Happy birthday Fikky.
Starfish
(for Fikky)
I would gaze at
the lulling landscape
of the savanna as the car sped by,
but not this time.
I could only see the words
I heard as I left Gombe:
“Your wife is in the labor ward.”
My body sped on
quickened feet
through the maternity ward,
to behold the
chubby lass
in her mother's arms.
My heart congealed
with a pulse of joyful warmth,
from the soft radiance
of her dewy eyes.
Her chubby
cheeks mimicked quietude
as a toddler. Her seeming silence
did not fade as she lost puppy fat.
It belies a vibrant spirit, a questioning
mind
and a heart throbbing with fiery love,
behind sarcastic laughter.
A prankster into
her teens,
a contortionist with legs
curled around her long neck.
Watching her grow
tickles a softness in my innards.
As she
laughs half mockingly,
I fully embrace each arm
of my delightful starfish.
CAFCA's last stand
You could plait the toughest hair
with the tension in the air.
The midweek's middle was swollen,
with the fetus of mass anger
and incendiary repression.
We stood on the dais,
the die was cast,
time was ticking.
Dark days loomed before us.
Brandishing truncheons and guns
the police glared like mad dogs
and set the sunny day ablaze.
Cannisters of teargas rained
from the heavy clouds of tense skies.
The devil's fumes set fire to our eyes.
It was our Kìríjì and Thermopylae
rolled into one mid-week afternoon.
Buildings and years of political work
went up in smoke. But we stood.
Incarceration and expulsions followed.
The Tsars of Ìlorin
and the mad dogs in their employ
smiled with joy.
They could build their graveyard castles
on the bones of movements, once again.
…but not, on the spirit of May.
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