By Lanre Arogundade
Chaos erupted that morning on Great Ife campus in 1985. When students entered some lecture rooms, they found copies of a lengthy document accusing me of embezzling N10,000—the capitation fees paid by the University of Lagos Students Union to the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) while I was president. The document claimed I had bought a Volkswagen Beetle and rented an apartment in Omole estate near the campus as signs of sudden wealth. In those days, unionism valued accountability, so the accusations outraged the students, although not a single NANS penny ever ended up in my pocket.
The Volkswagen Beetle I sometimes drove belonged to my older sister. A family friend of hers, who was also a lecturer at Ife, accommodated me temporarily before I moved into Comrade Adeolu Ademoyo’s one-room apartment in the Omole area thus effectively becoming a temporary secretariat of NANS. This all happened after the Buhari-Idiagbon military regime pressured the university authorities to evict me from campus because I had led a nationwide action to protest the commercialisation of education.
The students eagerly consumed the document and proceeded to insult me with humiliating names. As my popularity plummeted, I became unsettled and lost weight. Writing a response simply felt out of reach. I was too downcast to pen a rejoinder.
Few days later, someone suddenly came to the rescue. A counter document was circulated almost in a similar fashion, not only factually debunking the false allegations against me, but also presenting the author of the previous damaging document as having regretted his/her actions. The counter document was much more believable. The prose was elegant. Facts, logic and reasoning aligned. Hostility declined, paving the way for listening ears.
The fact that the Buhari-Idiagbon regime, whose secret police had apparently been monitoring the situation on the campus, abducted me about this time finally exposed the sponsors of the corruption allegation as state agents. However, even if the regime didn’t arrest me, they had already lost the argument to the counterpunch.
It was that counter-document that first betrayed the intellectual depth of the then diminutive counterpuncher – Olumide Adeyinka – (now Adeyinka Olumide-Fusika SAN), fondly called Olumighty by comrades. Yet, it took me a while to realise he was the author, despite being very close and might qualify for the position now popularised as PA although that wasn’t our orientation. Such discipline of diligent silence amidst storms and disdain for exhibitionism while perceptively plotting the way forward makes Olumighty a special breed in the ranks of revolutionaries produced by Great Ife.
Looking back, you wondered too if he had been studying Marxism from his secondary school days for by his second year on the campus and even with some senior comrades including myself still around, Olumighty was already assuming leadership responsibilities within the socialist fronts of the Movement for National Awareness and the Alliance of Progressive Students while also playing frontal roles in the Association of Campus Journalists and the students’ union. An avid devourer of political and other forms of literature, he recruited or attracted to the movement like minds who happened to be among the best of that generation. The Citipoint chambers, which he co-founded with some of them, has since distinguished itself as a foremost public interest law firm.
The list of the chamber’s key interventions includes the legal defence of the Lanre Adeleke-led Ife students’ union before the judicial panel of enquiry constituted in the aftermath of the brutal massacre of five students of the Obafemi Awolowo University (George “Afrika” Iwilade, SUG Secretary; Tunde Oke, Efe Ekede, Eviano Ekelemu and Yemi Ajiteru) on the campus on July 10, 1999 and the successful legal defence of Lanre Akinola and Rasheedat Adesina over the illegal seizure of their results and certificates by the University of Ilorin authorities.
The latter case commenced from a Federal High Court in 2004 before being decided by the Supreme Court in 2014 following appeals by the university, which lost throughout. The two student union activists were awarded substantial damages, but when they offered to offset some of the huge costs incurred by the chambers, Olumighty declined.
These and many other legal battles, including the defence of #EndSars protesters following the killings at the Lekki toll gate in 2020 and Seun Kuti when he clashed with the police as well as that of Wale Adedayo who was illegally removed as chairman of Ijebu-East local government area, have been handled by him and his chambers pro bono.
There is also the ongoing case of the state persecution of Abiodun Bamigboye (Abbey Trostky) who is facing criminal charges over the solidarity given to the casual workers of Sumal Food Ibadan demanding better pays and decent condition by him and Campaign for Workers and Democratic Rights (CDWR) and for which Citipoint has been steadily representing him.
On the political side, we witnessed one of the best organisational moments of Olumighty when, as members of the Democratic Socialist Movement, we embraced the politics of entryism in the Chief Gani Fawehinmi-led National Conscience Party (NCP) and contested for various offices on the party’s platform.
With late Comrade Segun Sango as the state chairman, Olumighty became the engine room of the Lagos NCP secretariat, where his discipline, focus, and hard work ensured that things fell in place and not apart, despite meagre resources.
The manifestoes of we the candidates (remember I ran for Senate in Lagos West against Tokunbo Afikuyomi and garnered 77,000 real votes to his 300,000), the campaign slogans, the leaflets and the jingles all had Olumighty’s imprimatur.
We simply ran a beautiful and impactful campaign such that NCP came third in all elections in Lagos State in 2003, meaning that if Nigeria were to be running a proportional representative system of government as obtains in South Africa and parts of Europe, NCP would have formed a third of the Lagos government (executive and legislature) following that year’s elections. Politics aside, you can always trust Olumighty to deliver whenever called upon to organise activities.
Time flies so quickly that the indomitable smallish Olumighty of Ife campus is the one who clocked 60 on April 10, hence the series of tributes. The good thing is that in him, the young have grown and grown very well.
Unlike the empty barrel that makes the most noise, his is full and noiseless.
