In this second part of my tribute, I want to go deeper into Dr. Osagie Obayuwana’s lecture — not just to summarise it, but to draw out its undercurrents. His delivery was elegant, his argument clear, and his revolutionary fervour unmistakable.
Like his late mentor, Comrade Jonathan Ihonde, Obayuwana holds fast to both the dream and the reality of revolutionary politics. His passion is not the quiet, academic sort. It burns. It is the fire of someone who refuses to accept a society where the wealthy and powerful treat the masses as disposable, bending the law to their will while the downtrodden bear the weight of their whims. His central theme is simple: reject the arrogance and cruelty of the ruling class.
Before I unpack more of Obayuwana’s thematic mind — which, in its own way, mirrors Ihonde’s socialist vision that once animated Hotel De Jordan — let me pause. Readers responded to my last column, and their words deserve space.
Professor Ibrahim Bello-Kano — a scholar of radical structuralism and post-structuralism — sent me a note. He suspects that in my writing, I am less interested in Ihonde the man than in Ihonde the device — a structural figure holding my narrative together. He likens my approach to Machiavelli’s The Prince, not as biography but as a framework for exploring power and politics. In his view, I have figuratively placed Dr. “imagined” Obayuwana in my text as a reflective character, using Ihonde — “safely” dead — as a canvas for larger themes. Literature, he reminds me, often thrives on the presence of the absent.
Professor Owojecho Omoha, whose work explores myth, approaches from a different angle. He recalls the Idoma tradition, where the funeral of a king is celebrated as if he had not died. For him, remembering Ihonde is an act of reawakening the humanities — a funeral without death. He draws a sharp line between genuine remembrance and the hollow rituals of “befitting burials” financed by greed. My column, he says, carries the echo of this moral warning.
Bob Majiri — author, journalist, and publisher — brings the memory down to the living room television. As a schoolboy, he and many others were glued to Hotel De Jordan, following its colourful cast — Chief Ajas, Gberegedegbeo, Bob Alan, Brefa, the Casino Manager, Atatikolo, Dr. Milo Muro, Chief Igho, Kokori, Idemudia. They sang along to the theme: “Poor man dey suffer / monkey dey work / baboon dey chop…” Only later did they learn the name Jonathan Ihonde. For Bob, the memorial lecture rightly put that name in its proper place of honour. But the suffering Ihonde fought against? Still with us.
These voices, I promise, will be revisited in time. For now, my focus remains on the wellspring that inspired Obayuwana’s unerring judgment — the source of the power and clarity in his words.
I only hope the comrade himself won’t mind the way I think of him. As for Professor IBK’s appraisal of my style — “Your literary rhetorical waxings are powerfully strongish!” — I take it as both compliment and challenge.
And if the Galactic Federation is, as I suspect, growing ever more furious with the “disaster-people of disastrous creations” who preside over our national misfortunes, then I am certain that Comrade Jonathan Ihonde, from his rest, understands exactly what I mean.
To be continued…
