Nigeria political leaders have been charged to do more to uphold moral values in politics as witnessed among notable political leaders in the nation’s First Republic.
Speaking at the book launch and posthumous centenary birthday celebration of a late opposition political leader, Josiah Sunday Olawoyin, in Offa, Kwara, a legal icon and chairman of the occasion, Yusuf Olaolu Ali (SAN), lamented that principled political stands have left the nation’s politics, especially, starting from the Second Republic.
He said that the matter is made worse today because, “unlike in the First Republic, when the political parties were mass movement and owned by all party members. Today, the political parties are virtually owned by the mighty, powerful and rich”.
Ali, who was represented by Ibrahim Ajanaku, also said that late Chief Olawoyin, by his principle political stands, showed that one can be a politician with high moral values, adding that the late elder statesman refused all the juicy political offers to stay true to his political convictions.
“Chief Olawoyin used his politics to benefit his immediate constítuency, Offa, and the larger North. He was a formidable man in the opposition camp. This was at a time when the opposition was playing the role it ought to play by putting the government of the day on its toes”, he said.
Reviewing the book, titled, J. S. Olawoyin: a century of legacy and leadership, the award winning columnist and editor, Saturday Tribune, Dr. Lasisi Olagunju, told stories of then network of relationships among Offa, Ilorin, Ibadan and old Oyo people, as well as other tribes in the country in his review, titled, Man Who Built House For Battles.
Olagunju said that the book explored themes of patriotism, courage, resistance, activism, justice and loyalty, adding that the book projected Chief Olawoyin as “dogged, focused, and of unassailable character.”
“In all, we have a compendium that has fulfilled its mission of using J.S. Olawoyin’s life and times to rekindle the torch of freedom and the fires of demand for a structural recreation of Nigeria.
“If history teaches lessons and influences the course of human causes, what we have in this book is enough to force an opening of calls for social justice, and a demand by Offa and its adjoining communities for restitution and reparation from the Nigerian state”.
The book reviewer also said that the compendium is well referenced and comprehensively indexed, adding that, “It is a worthy testimonial to the worthy memory of Chief J. S. Olawoyin”.
“The book has done a great deal of justice to the life and memory of the first Asiwaju of Offa. It is a celebration of the glorious place of Offa and its valiant people in Yoruba history. I recommend this book to all leaders and aspiring leaders, to students of the complexity called Nigeria, and to all who currently suffer subjugation and ‘slavery’ within the Nigerian space. The book tells them (and us) that the masquerade that currently pursues them will soon be tired if they do not surrender to the marauding spirit.
The book reviewer also eulogized the late elder statesman for bequeathing a worthy legacy, while he congratulated the children for allowing their father to live on through them.
Also speaking, the Senator representing Kwara South senatorial district in the National Assembly, Lola Ashiru, said that the late politician was an inspiration and a lesson for us all.
“He was a leading light in the political trajectory of Offa and the then Northern Nigeria. It’s now a thing of pride to be a Yoruba man. A Yoruba man can now walk freely in Abuja”.
The event was a convergence of sons and daughters of Yoruba land in the ancient town of Offa as they celebrated the renowned late political opposition leader in the nation’s First Republic, Josiah Sunday Olawoyin.
It also witnessed presence of political class, traditional institutions, media personalities, business moguls, among other dignitaries.
The book, ; a compendium of unnamed writers, has its foreward written by a veteran journalist and former editor of the Nigerian Tribune, Banji Ogundele.