Olaitan Oyerinde: Blessed are the dead

The occasion paraded progressive dignitaries that included President, Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade Abdulwaheed Omar, the Honourable Commissioner, Establishment, Edo State, Comrade Didi Adodo who was also the book’s presenter and special guest of honour, Mr Labaran Maku, Honourable Minister of Information, and the wife of Late Comrade Olaitan Oyerinde, Mrs Funke  Oyerinde, NAC members […]

The occasion paraded progressive dignitaries that included President, Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade Abdulwaheed Omar, the Honourable Commissioner, Establishment, Edo State, Comrade Didi Adodo who was also the book’s presenter and special guest of honour, Mr Labaran Maku, Honourable Minister of Information, and the wife of Late Comrade Olaitan Oyerinde, Mrs Funke  Oyerinde, NAC members of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and presidents and general secretaries of industrial unions.
The author is Lois Otse Adams. The 256-page book of some over 50000 healing word-count chronicles the struggles of Comrade Olaitan, former Principal Private Secretary to Edo State Governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole. Yours comradely was the book reviewer as directed and encouraged by the President of NLC, Abdulwaheed Omar. Late Olaitan Aremu Oyerinde was a comrade and friend to many of us. Undoubtedly he was a special son to his parents, namely Mr. Azeez Oyerinde his father, a veteran Journalist and Mrs Comfort Oyerinde, a trader. He was also an acknowledged possessive brother to his lovely siblings. The great contribution of the author, Lois Otse Adams lies in her ability to weave together the varying positive attributes of Comrade Olaitan to 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. On May 4, 2012 Comrade Olaitan then a Principal Private Secretary to Edo State Governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole around midnight was brutally murdered at his residence in Benin, before family members. His cowardly murder had added to the increasing cases of unresolved killings of politically exposed individuals in Nigeria, well documented mystery deaths by the author in Chapter Five; End Of A Dream. Olaitan’s murder raises the painful memory of the unresolved deaths of political notables like Bola Ige, Pa Alfred Rewane, Dele Giwa, Chief Marshall Harry, Engineer Funsho Williams, among others.
We are still saddled with the embarrassing conflicting accounts and outcomes of separate investigations by the Nigerian Police and the Department of State Security (DSS) since 2012, on Olaitan’s killers.  But while we are weighed down with the mystery of his death, Lois Adams lifted our spirits in a compelling essay about the struggles of Comrade Olaitan and his contributions to humanity spanning over two decades out of his relatively short 44 years in life.
In this book we get raw evidences of a patriot and global citizen almost from cradle to grave. 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, Kwara state as a home.  Comrade Olaitain’s parents hailed from Osun State but many would readily insist he came from Kwara State 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 Edo state; and indeed Nigeria as a whole further attested to his pan Nigerian vision. A revised edition must bring to bear Comrade Olaitain’s international work as the head of NLC international department showing that he was indeed an internationalist callously denied us by the murderers. Olaitan was a brand name in South Africa, Berlin, Geneva, Ghana and Togo, Kenya where he had added value to the struggle of the working people of the world.
Chapter 4 (pages 49 to 78) gives us the photo-album of the life and times of Olaitan. Baby Olaitan looked as confident as Comrade father Olaitan and interestingly left leaning of the camera as a baby, a riddle that has been solved by Olaitan’s left leaning progressive callings in  life. But the bigger picture lies in his positive sayings and writings for a better Nigeria as contained in this book. The quotable Olaitan in this book is about bigger positive picture of Nigeria. In a country in which millions of youths are being recruited into ethnic and religious bigotry, Olaitan through this book is a worthy model patriot.
Olaitan also came out as an loyal organizational man who lived on dignity of labour, not theft or corruption. Some of the organizations to his credit included Thomas Sankara Movement (TSM), Youth Solidarity on Southern Africa (YUSSA), Patriotic Youth Movement of Nigeria (PYMN), the University of Lagos Students’ Union and the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), Iron and Steel Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (ISSSAN) and the Senior Staff Consultative Association of Nigeria (SSCAN) and Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC). In a country in which scores of registered political parties lack clear cut ideological orientation, this book fires our imagination about formations of ideologically motivated organizations to advance the struggle for better Africa.
The author also shows that contrary to the false impression that comrades and progressive are motivated by depreciations, Olaitan’s example shows that those who often fight for better society are only angry about underdevelopment not hungry for materialism.  In terms of class as a son of a working journalist in the 60s, he shared the same background with the likes of Nelson Mandela, Frantz Fanon who consciously chose to fight for the mass of the oppressed rather than pursuing material selfish interests. In the book we also see Comrade Olaitan as “…a bundle of humour”. According to her “He had this uncanny way of cracking rib-cracking jokes and yet kept a straight face while others would laugh to stupor.”  To those who for instance wanted to see him as an outsider in Edo government calling him Mr. Expatriate (he hailed from Osun), he returned with a joke instead of hard feelings; ‘But you people are not paying me expatriate wage unlike my contemporaries from overseas’. “If you got angry with him, he would disarm you with jokes”.  May his soul rest in peace.