FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The Passing of Chief Michael Adekunle Ajasin
Iroyin, October 1997: It is with a deep sense of loss that the Egbe Omo Yoruba announces the passing of Pa Michael Adekunle Ajasin at the age of 88. In the line of those rare leaders that embodied a robust passion for an independence struggle and nation-building, Pa Ajasin stands out as one proper beacon of hope and one of the most introspective men of his age who erected the vision of development on the platform of vigorous educational evolution.
The head starts that the Yoruba people of today’s Nigeria have in educational and manpower development owe a great debt to the vision of Pa Ajasin and the Egbe Omo Oduduwa and later the Action Group party which he helped to found in Owo. In the context of Nigeria’s quest for vision and development, Pa Ajasin assumes an enviable place in history, despite Nigeria’s ongoing social anomie that reminds us of the pompous but vacuous claim of soldiers who not only lack the insight of what propels a nation to greatness but also destroys the foundations of progress they have inherited.
In addition to his immense contributions to knowledge was his passion for a balanced federation as a necessary condition for a stable multinational ethos that Nigeria is. As a loyal lieutenant to the great Yoruba icon and foremost leader in the struggle for Nigeria’s independence and development, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Pa Ajasin actively participated in the building of a model region in post-independence Nigeria which was not only a pride to the people of that region of the country but also a pointer to Africa’s capacity to launch itself into modern nationhood.
The abortion of the First republic, first by hegemonist forces that captured federal executive power and abused it in 1963, and later by soldiers in 1966, brought what was proceeding as a brilliant regional experiment to a premature closure. It was no surprise that even in the short Second republic, Pa Ajasin still remained a magnetic influence that offered Ondo state a consistent and transparent leadership in educational development, believing as he did to his last days, that education was the only legitimate step to a rational encounter with the future in an increasingly complex and interdependent world.
Unfortunately, what his people saw as a source of admiration in Ancestor Ajasin became a source of fright for his rivals. In the same Second republic, the same forces that destroyed the First republic were up in arms again, making Ondo state of which Pa Ajasin was governor, the birth place of the most incendiary passion for electoral justice. Certainly, not the first, but Ondo state became the target zone -in which hegemonist forces designed but failed to mangle the electoral orientation of a people who traditionally guard their civil rights with jealousy and vigor.
Early this year, even as Pa Ajasin was convalescing in bed, the latest variant of Nigeria’s hegemonist forces of domination and repression rudely sent a band of aimed thugs, led by a military administrator imposed on the state, to sack his home with the hope of harassing him to compromise his principled opposition to the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential elections.
As we mourn today Pa Ajasin’s passing into the world of ancestors, we feel proud and encouraged by his legacy, his principles and vision that a truly stable Nigeria can only be built on the autonomy of the states/regions that make the multinational Nigerian state and particularly on a citizenry hat is informed, literate, rational, critical, and receptive to new ideas and change. A tree may normally not make a forest, but Ajasin is one rare exception.
For More Information Contact:
Egbe Isokan Yoruba
P.O. Box 90832, Washington, DC 20090
Tel: (202) 270-6382
FAX: (301) 499-5386
Internet: isokan@yoruba.org