It’s three years, the progressive national and global labour movement received with great shock the sad news of the assassination of the former Principal Private Secretary to the Edo State Governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole at his residence in Benin City during the early hours of Friday May 4th, 2012 by unknown assailants.
This sad development came barely one week after the seeming orchestrated attack on the convoy of Comrade Governor Adams Oshiomhole that also sadly claimed the lives of three (3) Journalists and left several others injured. May their souls rest in eternal peace. The cowardly murder of Comrade Olaitan was a great loss to the administration of Comrade governor Adams Oshiomhole and the good people of Edo State he diligently served for almost four (4) years. Even of equal loss-measure was Olaitan’s demise to the labour movement. He was until his death Deputy General Secretary of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC). He was actually on leave of absence with Edo State government. He proudly introduced himself as “Deputy General Secretary, Government house”. Olaitan, as he was popularly called was a tested Comrade. I bear testimony to his hardwork, dedication and intellectual contribution to the growth and development of the Congress. At 44, Olaitan was one patriotic life too brutally cut short!. Remembering Olaitan raises the painful nolstagia of Nigeria’s unresolved individual murder cases (high or low) without an official declaration of war. Since Olatain’s death many lives have similarly cut short without clues as to why and by who.
We have inadvertently dignified unauthorised killings and reduced human lives and relations to mere statistics. Some historic murder, just like Olaitan were not just statistics.
It is an open knowledge that Nigeria’s life expectancy has sadly fallen below 50 years, no thanks to malaria, typhoid, cancers and scores of avoidable diseases associated with underdevelopment. With increasing cases of unresolved murder cases and mass killings in the land are we saying Nigerians should give up on life expectancy and be contended with death expectancy? Three years after Olaitan’s death, who cut a life so short and why? Post humous testimonials and tributes give us a complete picture of a patriot, a revolutionary, a tested unionist, an organizer, a loyal worker, a mentor and a proud father of three and husband.
Given the embarrassing conflicting accounts and outcomes of separate investigations by the Nigerian Police and the Department of State Security (DSS) since 2012, unmasking Olaitan’s killers is sadly proving a tall order. We are all scandalously embarrassed and diminished that we were callously deprived of our own without an answer as to who carried out this dastardly act. We only take consolation with the documented appreciated deeds of Olaitan which damned the worse deeds of his killers. We may possibly not know Olaitan’s killers but God sees all! Most testimonials singled out Comrade Olaitain as a global citizen. He was “was born in Ilorin on the pleasant day of December 7, 1968” to a mother from Ilesha in Osun State and a father who though from Ede in Osun state adapted Ilorin, as a home. Comrade Olaitain’s parents hailed from Osun State but many would readily insist he came from Ilorin where he had his primary, secondary and in part tertiary education. He schooled in Lagos and worked in Abuja and with union work almost all parts of Nigeria and indeed the world. As a student activist, he had known all parts of the country well before he graduated. Serving the nation through the compulsory NYSC was just an official legitimization of his earned national outlook. His acceptance of an appointment as a Principal Private Secretary of the governor of Edo State and his post humous celebration as a hero of that great state; the Heart beat of the Nation and indeed Nigeria as a whole further attested to his pan Nigerian vision. Comrade Olaitain’s international work as the head of NLC international department singled him out an internationalist. Olaitan was a brand name in Johannesburg, Berlin, Geneva, Ghana and Togo, Kenya where he had added value to the struggle of the working people of the world.
In a worthy compendium Olaitan Oyerinde: His Struggles For A Better Nigeria by Lois Otse Adams quotable Olaitan is bigger picture of a greater Nigeria. Witness his patriotic posting as late as 17th February, 2011 as narrated by the author;
“If you give up hope on Nigeria, you are giving up hope on yourself because Nigeria is a paradise. So if it is no longer paradise, it is those who inhabit Nigeria that have ruined it and that is you and l. It is what you sow that you reap; the quality of the leaders that we have is equal to the people that we are.
People complain of corruption, but some of us are even worse; the difference is that we have not had the opportunity to get there and if we are there we would do worse things. So it is the aggregate of what is in the heart of every one of us, these are those we have as our leaders.”
In a country in which millions of youths are being recruited into ethnic and religious bigotry, Olaitan through is a worthy patriot.
Issa Aremu mni
