Baba Aye's

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 e...

Students of the Federal College of Education (Technical) Akoka declared 18 February as Liberation Day, forty years ago. On that day, the autocratic Provost of the school, Dr Auta was humbled and made to reinstate the students union which he had banned five years earlier in the wake of the Great Anti-SAP Revolt. Four student leaders from the University of Lagos, Akoka came to invite him to the university campus close by, at the behest of the FCE(T) students: Omoyele "Sho" Sowore, Tope "Authority" Ajeigbe, Lanre & yours truly.  But the journey to that day started five months earlier with the resistance of 17 students at the college on teaching practice. These students, who included Tayo Aderinola, were denied their Teaching Practice allowance, even though this was budgeted for. And they asked questions.  Auta's response was to suspend them. But they would not simply give up. They formed a group called G17 with the help of Gbenga Fakoya, a former student and me...